What in the hell is McMillan thinking?
This was the same mistake that he made with Paige Higgins. Marathon after marathon until she was done. This was the same routine that he did with Fasil after Chicago. How did that Fukoka race go? This is flat out stupid coaching.
Another quality athlete ruined by poor coaching.
Boston's true colors show...Meb badly wanted to run and to show how racist they are they add another blondie to the American line up. Good job Boston. It will be another 20+ something years before you get your white American winner.
That is exactly the wrong headed thinking that has hamstrung the USA in this sport for so many years. What speed does he have that is so outstanding? In TX just a few weeks ago, saw a kid younger & faster then Rupp stop in the porta-pooper just outside of the finish line @ just miss a sub-2:07 performance. There are tons of young African men running 27:10 & low or sub 13 wearing nothing more than old soccer shorts & a ripped golf shirt. This is not 1993 anymore & Nike will be able to buy more performance enhancers for Rupp. So if it is Rupp, great choice.
Colt Goucher, Kara will be racing with a baby jogger.
I'm confused. It's as if you're arguing Rupp doesn't race enough. Have you looked at his calendar? Did you miss the press release about the half marathon?
KKK wrote:
Boston's true colors show...Meb badly wanted to run and to show how racist they are they add another blondie to the American line up. Good job Boston. It will be another 20+ something years before you get your white American winner.
Yep! Agree whole-heartedly. The Curse of the Bambino prevented the Boston RedSox from winning the World Series for 86 years, after similar idiocy.
Now, the "Curse of Meb" will haunt the Boston Marathon. No white American male will win the Boston Marathon until 86 years passes since Meyer's '83 win. So, that's the year 2173 or so. Those guys just screwed themselves big time.
Boston was a dominant team in the new league, defeating the Pittsburgh Pirates in the first World Series in 1903 and winning four more championships by 1918. However, they then went into one of the longest championship droughts in baseball history, called by some the "Curse of the Bambino" after its alleged beginning with the Red Sox's sale of Babe Ruth to the rival Yankees in 1918, an 86-year wait before the team's sixth World Championship in 2004.
Lets now call it "Curse of Meb" for Boston Marathon! Watch NYC Marathon become the USA Marathon of choice.
The problem is not with Greg at all - but rather with the thinking that running 2-3 marathons a year is a bad move. This idea that runners should only run 1 marathon a year (2 at most) is pervasive in today's "every race should be a PR" type culture. Our country was at its best in the marathon in terms of depth between 1978 - 1984 (I saw recently a list of '84 Trials Qualifiers - Pete Pfitzinger the winner was our 16th seed going in at 2:12.20 and more than 70 men broke 2:17 in qualifying) , a time when runners raced more frequently and many of our marathoners frequently ran 3-4 a year (some more).
While we have a few good individuals in the marathon (Hall, Meb, Ritz, Gotcher), our overall depth is nothing short of pathetic if you compare to '81 / '82 / '83 - and much of the reason for this is that runners today do not race enough and are under the microscope of every move being analyzed critically and every race not executed perfectly (PR, CR, etc.) being viewed as the beginning of the end. Hats off to Greg for moving back toward what worked for Tabb, Meyer, Rodgers, Durden, Wells, Tuttle, Beardsley - an era where 2:10 / 2:11 was the norm - -not the exception.
Maybe they looked into and offered Meb a spot after all.
A pox on your marathon! wrote:
Yep! Agree whole-heartedly. The Curse of the Bambino prevented the Boston RedSox from winning the World Series for 86 years, after similar idiocy.
Now, the "Curse of Meb" will haunt the Boston Marathon. No white American male will win the Boston Marathon until 86 years passes since Meyer's '83 win. So, that's the year 2173 or so. Those guys just screwed themselves big time.
lol @ comparing meb to babe ruth... ruth rewrote the record books while meb hasn't even broken 2:09...
Meb is the Babe Ruth of Marathoning today. Last time anyone won any major Marathon around here was Meb over guys with 5 minutes under his PR. Face the truth.
Hmm...Ruth once hit 54 homeruns in a season when the next best guy had 19. I'm not sure Meb's supremacy is akin to that.
chris s wrote:
The problem is not with Greg at all - but rather with the thinking that running 2-3 marathons a year is a bad move. This idea that runners should only run 1 marathon a year (2 at most) is pervasive in today's "every race should be a PR" type culture. Our country was at its best in the marathon in terms of depth between 1978 - 1984 (I saw recently a list of '84 Trials Qualifiers - Pete Pfitzinger the winner was our 16th seed going in at 2:12.20 and more than 70 men broke 2:17 in qualifying) , a time when runners raced more frequently and many of our marathoners frequently ran 3-4 a year (some more).
While we have a few good individuals in the marathon (Hall, Meb, Ritz, Gotcher), our overall depth is nothing short of pathetic if you compare to '81 / '82 / '83 - and much of the reason for this is that runners today do not race enough and are under the microscope of every move being analyzed critically and every race not executed perfectly (PR, CR, etc.) being viewed as the beginning of the end. Hats off to Greg for moving back toward what worked for Tabb, Meyer, Rodgers, Durden, Wells, Tuttle, Beardsley - an era where 2:10 / 2:11 was the norm - -not the exception.
These runners were very successful, but could NEVER run their best in OG or OT. Why was Shorter more successful than Rodgers in the OG? Because he focused on fewer marathons. I always hear about how great things were in the 80's. Show me the results of the trials, not the qualifying times. If you can't figure out how to run it on the right day, a fast time is meaningless.
good point - I should have mentioned the Trials from these folks.......
ok Trials - Pfitzinger wins the '84 Trials (and makes another team in '88), Rodgers makes '76 team (and undoubtedly would have been in the hunt for a Gold in '80 - a year he was #1 in the world and did not run the Trials). Tuttle made '84 Olympic Team Marathon, Durden made Olympic Marathon Team...........not bad (5 Olympic Teams) from the 8 names I mentioned
Shorter was indeed the best big day Olympic Marathoner we ever had hands down - but using him as the example of why people like Gotcher should not run multiple marathons annually misses the point. From Lopes to Borodin, Bekele to Mota and Benoit on the women's side, these were Gold Medalists who all toed the line multiple times annually in marathons for years - I will take those careers. Even those who never made Oly teams (Beardsley 2:08, Ron Tabb 2:09, Meyer 2:09 and Boston win) had careers most of us would take any day.
You missed the point. Pfitz was seeded 20th but 19 guys that were seeded ahead of him underperformed on the trials day. How many guys were under 2:12 at the trials? or sub 2:20? Why were they not able to run their best in the trials (their biggest race).
This is because of the amount of races that they ran. How did Salazar perform in Los Angeles? How about Beardsley or Meyer? Same reason for all of them. LACK OF FOCUS.
Brett Gotcher now has ZERO chance of making the Olympic Team. How well has this worked for Fasil or Paige?
I was there in 1984 & 88. Who cares where he was ranked, if you followed his career. He was not as fast as Shorter but he was as good at peaking as anyone on the planet. Came out of HS with a 9:17 2mi & made the most of his talent on the day(s) of judgement in the marathon. He may have been able to run faster on another type race course but ... We should be so lucky to have a whole slew of Pete Pfitz types. A winner, nails!
Dear Brett,
You have "zero" chance of making the Olympic Team - so says an anonymous poster on a message board. In light of this my recommendation is to hang 'em up.
A lot of attention for a guy coming off of a 2:19 marathon who's average over marathon time is slower than the womens WR.
my choice wrote:
How well has this worked for Fasil or Paige?
Why are these your comparison points? Fasil Bizuneh has never run a good marathon. He's great from 10K through the half, but the marathon just does not appear to be his distance, no matter who's coaching him.
Gotcher, on the other hand, has a marathon PB far better than any time he's put up over shorter distances. So does his training partner Nick Arciniaga. Arciniaga had a bad race at Chicago, like the whole McMillan crew, but ran a 2:11 PB at Houston.
If you look at the timeline, Gotcher will have had 31% less time to get ready for Boston than Arciniaga had before Houston (11 weeks versus 16) - but 37.5% more time than Bizuneh had to get ready for Fukuoka (11 weeks versus 8).
I think you're choosing to compare Bizuneh rather than Arciniaga for your comparison because you have an axe to grind with the McMillan group or program.
(I don't know enough about Higgins to comment on her.)
Meb could have run Boston if he wanted to but wasn't offered enough up front money to warrant it.