the best thing rupp has ever done was beat chelanga at the ncaa xc championships.
the best thing rupp has ever done was beat chelanga at the ncaa xc championships.
joedirt wrote:
I wouldn't expect much from Rupp next season for no other reason than the fact that he ran 22 races this year. All of that racing (especially the doubling and tripling he did at the NCAA championships) takes it's toll on the body. You might say his season was insane, I would argue that it was a little wreckless.
Salazar's goal with his runners, above anything else, is for them to stay healthy. If Salazar thought there was any chance whatsoever that all the racing would affect next year, he would not have had him Galen run in the USAT&F and Worlds.
Also, while he did run a lot of college races. Some were relative walks in the park. The Pac-10 10K he won in 29minutes. And that was with a 54 second last lap.
I believe that Rupp in peak shape in the right race would have run near 13:00 and 27:10 this year. He made Chelenga and Ritz look like chumps. This is absolutely remarkable considering that he was running near this level for nearly 10 months dating back to xc season. With all of his focus next year on the summer, I wouldn't be surprised to see him get both ARs.
Ditto but it is the possiblity that they be lowered within the next year to a point where it would take Galen longer than 2010 to gain ownership of the AR's.
I think the 10000 AR would be much, much easier and more obtainable for Rupp than the 5000 AR.
If he had run for time this season, I could see him running 27 flat to 27:08 and maybe 13:05 to 13:10. Next year, after a good stretch of running for himself rather than for a college team, we'll see. It will depend what his goals are. I'll be curious to see what he does race-wise between now and June.