Holy crap. Yuki Kawauchi had 1 plan for Boston - To break Galen Rupp. That's why he went out in 4:37!!

This is perfectly legit. If you guys have been reading Yuki's writings, you'd know that he's one of the smartest runners around, as intelligent as Kipchoge, if not more. This guy is highly analytical. Read his write-up (written in 3 parts) about the 2016 Fukuoka Marathon (in which he finished 3rd after being injured 3 weeks from the race) and you'll see what I mean.

Reading his analysis on the Rio Olympics Marathon final (it's in part 2 if if I remember correctly), it becomes perfectly clear that he is acutely aware of what it takes to win a championship-style race, which is being able to produce/respond to mid-race surges around the 30K mark onwards (something he has been working on).

Conversely, he also planned on how to neutralize this sit-and-kick tactic often employed by runners with 10K speed (like Rupp in Chicago who produced an amazing last 10K), which is often done off of a slow first 30K in championship-style races (NY, Boston, World Champs and the Olympics). This was why he went out at 4:37 in the first mile. It's to tear down the usual script and send a message to the whole field: "Hey guys, today we're not doing the 30K warm-up jogging thing." If it were some other unknown runner, the field would probably have let it go. But since they can't risk having a repeat of Boston 2014 where Meb ran away with the race in the first 10K (and Yuki has a better PB than Meb), they had no choice but to pick the pace up. The result? The first 10K was run at 2:07 pace. Not fast by non-Boston standards, but in those conditions? That was crazy fast. This basically eliminated all but one or two ( Rupp and Kirui) of the sit and kickers. The 25K surge took Rupp out of the game. From a tactical point of view, Yuki masterfully exerted control on the race to favour his strengths and the conditions.

After that, it was basically between him and Kirui. Then Kirui became impatient and hammered way too hard, way too early. If he limited his surge to maybe just 30 seconds ahead of the 2nd runner, he might've had just enough in his tank to win the race. As it was, putting 90 seconds between him and the field on an uphill within a couple of miles definitely took too much out of him, and he simply ran out of gas. A huge tactical mistake that could've been avoided. But Yuki made him commit that mistake with his constant surging and following closely behind Kirui, so Kirui felt the extra pressure to put in a hard surge way earlier than he would've liked to (which was likely 32 - 35K) that he wasn't sure he could sustain.

The finish was fairly simple, as Yuki has run those parts of the course multiple times. All in all, Yuki's preparations (with regards to knowing the course and how to counter his rivals' strengths), strength of running well in terrible conditions and the condition of the race itself all played a part in producing one of the most epic races we have ever seen. Somebody might call him lucky to win, but really luck is merely what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

Below is the link for Yuki's write-up (in 3 parts).

I'm pretty sure he was out there and saw that some runners were less than gamed to run the race,

and just threw it out there to see what would happen, as well as trying to keep his core temp warm.

Hell the only reason he won the race is because Kirui decided to finish the race in a sail jacket. That dude had almost a 2 min lead before hitting the hill and being hit with some serious wind. Resistance from the incline, plus resistance from the wind killed his entire progression.

What Yuki did was incredible, but GTFOH here with he had this huge destroy-rupp plan before the race.

Scorpion_runner wrote:

I'm pretty sure he was out there and saw that some runners were less than gamed to run the race,

and just threw it out there to see what would happen, as well as trying to keep his core temp warm.

Hell the only reason he won the race is because Kirui decided to finish the race in a sail jacket. That dude had almost a 2 min lead before hitting the hill and being hit with some serious wind. Resistance from the incline, plus resistance from the wind killed his entire progression.

What Yuki did was incredible, but GTFOH here with he had this huge destroy-rupp plan before the race.

Nope. Without the jacket you dislike so much Kurui still bonks. Kawauchi still wins. Kurui is the only African to finish in the top 13. Without the jacket he is a likely DNF, or runs a 2:2x.

runhills wrote:

Galen Rupp is a big pu*sy!! Dude got smoked by a runner who has a full-time job, no sponsors, and no big-money resources that Galen has. WTF???

Not sure if you noticed, but every other runner also got "smoked" by Kawauchi.

http://japanrunningnews.blogspot.my/2017/03/the-miracle-in-fukuoka-real-talk-from.html

Yuki's write-up (in 3 parts).

If anyone (like Scorpion Runner) is wondering why Rupp is singled out, this might be because Yuki has been analyzing what it takes to win a global medal (one of his targets). In part 2 of his writing, he remarked that the Rio Olympics wasn't that fast, with regards to winning a medal (he was talking about the possibility of winning a medal, and Rupp so happened to be the bronze medalist in a time of 2:10:00 (Rupp's PB at the time), which is someway slower than Yuki's PB (2:08:14) so it was something relevant to him (Kipchoge's and Lilesa's PBs were too far ahead of his, so possibly much harder for him to process how he can beat them even in Rio conditions). Since Rupp is the only high-profile recent 10000M runner in the field (who Yuki noted won Chicago with a fast last 10K), it makes perfect sense for him to zero in on Rupp (thereby having the same effects to other sit-and-kick runners as well), rather than trying to handle the whole field at once.

Here is what he wrote:

"At the Rio Olympics the American Galen Rupp won the bronze medal, and since he was also a speed runner with track achievements including a silver in the London Olympics 10000 m there are now more people saying, “That just goes to show that Japanese people also need 26 minute-level speed in order to be competitive in the marathon.” However, the reality is that although Rupp ran 14:26 from 25 to 30 km, for the next 5 km after that he slowed down to 15:31, losing a lot of ground to eventual winner Eliud Kipchoge [Kenya]. In other words, if you could cover the 5 km after 30 km in 14:39 like Maeda, then at 35 km you would only be 13 seconds behind Rupp in the Rio Olympics. If you could then run within 15:18 for the next 5 km after 35 km, you’d be in the race for a medal.

A 29:57 split from 30 to 40 km, or pushing the pace just under 3:00 / km to put it another way, is not a “high-speed race.” A race like what you often see at the World Half Marathon Championships, where the 5 km split suddenly jumps to 13:45 and a lot of people go with it, is a “high-speed race.” The marathon hasn’t yet become that kind of situation, so I think that even at the Olympics if it’s a question of medaling then Japanese athletes have more than enough chance even with their current speed levels. Although it happened in a different season, if you look only at splits times that was how the Maeda of 2013 was running. And not the Maeda of the days around the 2007 Osaka World Championships when he was running 27 minutes for 10000 m.

If you’re only targeting a gold medal then in order to be totally sure, you need to “develop the speed necessary to handle a high-speed race.” But if you aim for medals of other colors, more than just trying to improve the speed enumerated by your PB, training to handle a change to 14:40 late in the race and then to hang on at 15 minutes for the 5 km after that is the shortcut to a medal. I’ve believed that ever since the Daegu World Championships, and I think the Rio Olympics men’s marathon provided more evidence to back that idea up."

Maybe. Maybe not. We will never know. I just think a lot of this stuff is starting to turn into a joke. This race was simply a one-off, where the conditions created biological issues that a lot of runners could not handle. Period. It does not change the difference in ability between Yuki and east africans or desi and east africans and other americans. Desi ran the slowest time in 40 years for the women's race, and Yuki, I believe, ran the slowest time in 30 years for the men's race.

2 runners won in extreme conditions. That's it. After London, what happened in Boston is going to be in a review mirror. All this Yuki vs Rupp, he had this elaborate plan before hand, kill it. I'm not that found of Rupp myself, but I'm not going to use every situation to dump on the guy...... And that is all that this is.

I believe that Rupp is their main target, but the whole story is probably exaggerated. Easier to say after you win and jump on the bandwagon of 'Rupp is a loser who can't win against a part time runner!'

Scorpion_runner wrote:

I'm pretty sure he was out there and saw that some runners were less than gamed to run the race,

and just threw it out there to see what would happen, as well as trying to keep his core temp warm.

Hell the only reason he won the race is because Kirui decided to finish the race in a sail jacket. That dude had almost a 2 min lead before hitting the hill and being hit with some serious wind. Resistance from the incline, plus resistance from the wind killed his entire progression.

What Yuki did was incredible, but GTFOH here with he had this huge destroy-rupp plan before the race.

Your being adamant is all well and good, but please do your research re: he just threw it out there to see what would happen. Seriously, you think a guy who went as detailed as flying all the way from Japan during his one-week New Year holiday to study the course, then went on to test his strategies for said course over 2 marathons prior to the race would leave it to as random a thing as "Ok I'm here to race. LOL while I'm at it, why not throw some surges? Oh wow, this is working. Oh wow, I won this race all of a sudden just by throwing some random surges and being a generally badass dude." ? Man, he meticulously prepared for this. If you don't believe he didn't have Rupp in mind when preparing, that's up to you, but that's exactly what happened.

I agree with what you said regarding Kirui though. He should've won the race by playing it smart, but he made a tactical mistake by going too hard too soon. But that should take nothing away from the fact that Yuki's quality of preparation and race-readiness won him the race. He was the most prepared man on the day.

Why all the doubts?

maybe Yuki Kawauchi can take down Mohammed Farah next year?

Ehtso wrote:

Skeptical gfghjj wrote:

Sounds like revisionist history to me. Write the story now that the ending is here...

Definitely.

It’s sad how rojo became giddy at the mere suggestion, however improbable, that Kawauchi is an obsessive Rupp-hater like him.

Thought it was a great read. Lots of insight. Kawauchi had a plan and executed. Sure some of it was a bit 'revisionist' or the victors writing the history but Yuki is the Boston marathon champ not Galen Rupp. Pretty unbelievable. And Yuki was prepared for conditions. I hadn't thought of possibility he let pack go ahead of him the first time on purpose to recover. Or that he may have goaded Kirui to take off to quickly. Having said that when Kirui was a minute and a half ahead of him I don't think Yuki was thinking 'just how I planned it'

One questoin.

1) what were the electrode things on Rupp's ears?

One observation.

1) I thought this was a bit ridiculous 'There hasn’t been a marathon where someone so fully controlled everyone else around him since Wanjiru in Beijing ’08. This was the work of a master artist at the height of his powers, crafting a work of lasting beauty in his own'

That's definitely the victor writing the history.

Des destroyed the women's field but didn't say that afterwards she said she thought she was going to drop out.

" So, Friday afternoon we rode out to Whole Foods in Wellesley at the 14 mile mark and ran the last 20 km, speeding up in the hills and kicking after Cleveland Circle. Saturday morning he did it again alone, faster. Saturday afternoon he and some of the other elites did a surprise appearance at the finish line."

He did two fourteen mile runs within three days of the race? So much for tapering.

Heartbreak Hill wrote:

Skeptical gfghjj wrote:

Sounds like revisionist history to me. Write the story now that the ending is here...

You should have paid attention to what happened on Heartbreak Hill.

You're not as smart as you think you are. Because you can't actually step back from your jealousy of Rupp.

Likely revisionist history from the winner. It's safe to attack Rupp. Not safe - Western media wise - to make such claims about more colorful opponents.

HRE wrote:

" So, Friday afternoon we rode out to Whole Foods in Wellesley at the 14 mile mark and ran the last 20 km, speeding up in the hills and kicking after Cleveland Circle. Saturday morning he did it again alone, faster. Saturday afternoon he and some of the other elites did a surprise appearance at the finish line."

He did two fourteen mile runs within three days of the race? So much for tapering.

Well he didn't race the previous weekend (his first weekend without a race in 3 months) so that's something of a taper

HRE wrote:

" So, Friday afternoon we rode out to Whole Foods in Wellesley at the 14 mile mark and ran the last 20 km, speeding up in the hills and kicking after Cleveland Circle. Saturday morning he did it again alone, faster. Saturday afternoon he and some of the other elites did a surprise appearance at the finish line."

He did two fourteen mile runs within three days of the race? So much for tapering.

12-mile runs, since he ran the last 20km, not from start to 14 miles.

No dis, but you guys are being arse holes with this.

You put it up as a SUPER HOT TOPIC on the front page. come on, man

That just ridiculous. I believe in taking LEGITIMATE shots at rupp, due to his slow times and

cherry picking races.

but this? People could have died out there, and that is no joke.

Yuki won. cool. But let it be just that.

What a load of excrement. Yuki held up in the cold better than the others. Period. He's just better in those conditions. Had been a bit warmer he would have finished out of the top 5. He can toss all the bs analysis around that he wants. The fact is he wasn't capable of medaling in Rio and he will never have an Olympic or WC medal in his collection. Guaranteed.

rojo wrote:

To a small extent, the piece reminds me a little bit of sports writing back in the day where a mythical narrative is assigned to everything. But the beauty is we'll never know.

He's going pro in Japan now - a nation where mythical narratives are still more important than in maybe any other in the World.

Good for him!

Skeptical gfghjj wrote:

Sounds like revisionist history to me. Write the story now that the ending is here...

How is it revisionist history when clearly he did what he said.

Every time the pace slowed, he surged. When the pace was fast enough, he tucked back in. He kept repeating that the whole race until it broke wide open. He clearly didn't want it to be a 20 mile jog fest and a final 10K sprint to the finish. He wouldn't have a chance under that scenario.

I love how you can tell slow guys because they consider 67 second quarter pace to be “speed”. Lol.

Incredible endurance and aerobic strength? Yes. Speed? No.