Ritz / On Athletes are Flopping

Tell me where the original post said "double threshold". While you're working on that, you can also look up when they started monitoring effort using blood lactate levels and curtailed the frequency of VO2 workouts.

I get it, you put these guys and their coach on a pedestal, but they changed their method objectively between the last olympic cycle and this one.

Not that I would *ever* suggest LRC threads sometimes lack nuance, but I feel like we increasingly seem to posit double-T as this fully-optimized, no-brainer training stimulus and I don't know if that's universally true across contexts. Double-T's growing popularity is correlated with faster times in the US and worldwide. But I wouldn't necessarily single out its absence as the specific thing that OAC/Ritz are "doing wrong." How do they pace their non-workout days and long runs? For guys like Ollie, Mario, and probably even Yared, LT might be more skewed than simply plugging mile times into a VDOT calculator; appropriate effort on paper might not actually be ideal in practice. How often do they do speed and at what intensity? Etc.

Ritz has said that, in his own athletic career, he didn't periodize and it took him years to recover from trying to be race-fit all the time. I wonder how well this self-awareness has translated to his coaching. However OAC performs for the rest of the Olympics and the summer beyond, though, hopefully the team is run democratically enough that athletes can advocate for the changes they want next season and beyond

Alicia Monson is 26. It’s unfortunate she was not healthy to be able to compete in Paris. Will she be healthy in 2028 for Los Angeles and how much is a coach responsible for keeping their athletes injury free?

"Always thought that they were an arrogant team as a whole (Guse excluded)"

How so? You single out everyone who is injured or didn't run well (arrogant), and exclude Nuguse, who is healthy and running well.

Can we say, fair weather fan?

Go back and look at Joe Klecker’s Strava. They’ve always been doing threshold and they’ve hardly changed much at all.

Nuguse isn’t the only one not injured. He is the only one that isn’t full of himself or arrogant

Nah, now you're just getting desperate. "Klecker miles" and what the rest of the team (more specifically the mid-d group) were doing were not the same. Hence the moniker.

And we're not splitting hairs here talking about whether their runs previously qualified as threshold runs, we're talking about the norwegian method (oversimplifying for brevity) governing effort and load.

That being said, I love these guys and i still think they all have tremendous upside. WORLD CHAMPION Georgie-boy still has a shot at the steeple bronze here.

The kiwi has a chance; but doesn’t seem to consistently give himself a chance with proximity to the leaders. Also rumours that he’s struggling a bit with an injury at the moment.

WTF, Beamish? OAC mostly over and out in Paris.

Beamish looked AWFUL in his steeple heat. What is going on?

More like the off athletic club.

I read here they NEVER run below 7:00 pace. Probably 6:15-30 average for every run

Yikes

Speculative (over)training aside, the psychological part of a team is so important yet understated. Either everybody's firing on all cylinders or there's a collective crisis of confidence. Maybe we'll hear about an injury on Coffee Club but to me Geordie ran that race like he didn't believe in himself, never getting up with the lead group

Nuguse mentioned on The Running Effect podcast a couple weeks ago that their training aims to have them be consistently fit instead of peaking for certain races. The Olympic performances thus far is more than a run of bad luck. They're straining in the final 200m in races where they should be advancing out of. I think they're overcooked

What the heck kind of strategy was THaT? So cocky that he thought he can run so far back and kick through the best in the world with 150m to go? The OAC arrogance strikes again.

Beamish always runs from the back just seems like today he may have not had the legs, underestimated the field or both. Super bummed as I have never seen him lose in a kick. As for training I can recall a few times where the CC talked about the consistent intensity and difficulty of volume/intensity...like tongue in cheek joking. But what do I know. This sport is tough. Still pulling for them in the future.

Beginning to feel that way with Nuguse. I really hope not.

All of them look absolutely overcooked. That was rough to watch.

Does Ritz get fired or do we see a bunch of athletes leave OAC? Major changes need to be made, this Olympic cycle has been the goal for the entirety of the program. Is it the athletes or coach? Ritz got everyone running fast, but couldn't get them fast and healthy at the right time. Something's got to give, but the athletes should all reassess after seeing Morgan, Sinta, Yared and Helen race. Maia isn't truly a Ritz peaked athlete yet.

I'd be fine with continuing the status quo if Joe had made the 10 over Woody and ran in the low 27s again and Alicia had been healthy and raced well but out of the medals and Ollie had made the final and George had finished top 10 in the final. In my opinion Ritz should have some major questions to answer for the ON brass about what's going to be different going forward.