Conner Mantz delivers once again

This is what "delivering" is in US men's marathon running, 6th place and completely irrelevant is celebrated

He ran the Olympics 10 weeks ago...

The Mantz conundrum... to reach his potential I believe he would need to train 7 days a week. And to join a group where he is not out and away the best talent. I think he is a very fine runner but Frank ran 2:10:20 in 73 in pretty basic shoes and apparrel. No proper fuelling. No science. Bill 2:09:27 in 79. De Castella 2:07:50 in 86. And so on.

What would he run in these?

So is he under training or is he a workout warrior? You seem to be making the exact opposite argument his longtime critics are making: That he leaves it all in his workouts.

Always a tough man.

2:10:59 / 27:41.05

/:::////

Mantz isn’t a whole lot better than - Salazar , Rodgers , Beardsley … without the shoes that game the sport

2:10:30 in early December, 1972’s Fukuoka .. a few weeks after winning gold in Munich in September. He was on sub 2:09 pace through about ~ 18mi and just glided in for another victory.

sayeth the poster who has run 1:52 for the marathon

ahh yes. the lovely days of short courses and unchecked doping. have a word with yourself, the old guys were juiced to the gills

In 1981, Salazar set an apparent world record at the New York City Marathon of 2:08:13, surpassing the 12-year-old mark of 2:08:33 set by Australian Derek Clayton in 1969 in Antwerp, Belgium. However, the course was found on re-measurement to be about 148 meters short of the 42.195 kilometers (26 miles, 385 yards) distance. This is equivalent to about 27 seconds.

Add the 27 seconds to his 2:08:13 and you get 2:08:40

USA currently has 4 male athletes that have potential to do big things in the marathon. Mantz—Young—Albertson—Panning. I believe all of these guys are capable of making things happen in a WMM.
I do not think it is productive for us to look at track athletes and think they would be the answer. THERE IS A LEARNING CURVE.

Eh, yet another 2:09 run.

Id much rather that he waited to run one of those spring Europe marathons where the times are actually fast. Instead he runs yet another 2:09

Yes but not 2 1/2 months after a hot, humid, hilly Olympic Marathon.

I was wishing Mantz waited for Valencia.

Yes. Too many of these young kids, who seem to think they'll pop a 2:04 when they get out of their mother's basement to run a marathon, have no understanding of the history of the sport or of actually racing instead of time trialing.

This is why I don't like the emphasis on time for World and Olympic auto qualifiers.

I know there's the descending order list and all, but there has to be a better way to get auto qualifiers for people who race NYC and Boston (and courses like them).

Racing is fun. Seeing top 10 in NYC, Boston, etc is fun. I love seeing fast times but time trialing is boring. I wish we had better provisions for both.

That's true.

But it's also true Salazar ran faster at NYC 40 + years ago

I’m right

It was solid. Three very good marathons in a year for Mantz, Young, Albertson. That’s a big year with a lot of stress.

Hopefully they can all three get a big payday of some spring races. I think fall 25 we should see them all run a fast marathon hopefully.

Let's stop for a second and give both Connor Mantz and Clayton Young some major props for their consistency. In the span of 13 months, starting with 2023 Chicago, Mantz ran 4 marathons and averaged 2:08:31. The time gap between his fastest and slowest races is 78 seconds. Young did the same 4 races and averaged about 20-30 seconds slower, with a similar spread (I didn't do the math, but you get the idea). Even in today's era of shoes, training, etc. most Americans would take just one of those 4 times and consider it a successful career. Mantz and Young may not have run 2:04, but as a fan of the sport I marvel at their accomplishments, including their amazing consistency. Their coach Ed Eyestone certainly deserves credit for guiding these two so well.