Shalane and Kara

Great thing about the marathon is that there are so many other races. Oly gold, or boston, or nyc, or chi, london, berlin.. any big marathon is looked upon about the same. they dont have to wait 4 yrs for another race tht means something.

Could be. I had her pegged for at least 5th late in the race and was surprised to see her place (and gait).

Lorenzo the Magnificent wrote:

USA Women's Results after Joanie's win:

1988 17, 38, 39

1992 10, 12, 21

1996 10, 31

2000 19

2004 3, 34, 39

2008 27

2012 10, 11

I wouldn't rate 10 and 11 in the Olympics as disappointing.

you left off the last place for this year for desi.

both of them definitely got a little too full of themselves and did too many interviews/videos. do that stuff AFTER medalling.

Nike wants them to do interviews.

Shalane and Kara are pretty exemplary human beings, unlike the typical warthogs who inhabit letsrun.

i think she should never have trained with kara

Uceny said, "I like making other people hurt, I like making other people hurt a lot. I’m happy with the outcome."

tsquaredcali wrote:

Wrong dude. She did say it. It's on video all over the place. She said she loved making people hurt and that she had an ability to take her body to really painful places. The inference being that others couldn't. She's a great runner. However, she hasn't done anything in the marathon. 2:25 is 10 minutes away from the World Best. It's 6 minutes from the US Best. This was a very disappointing 2012 Olympics for the women US marathoners. There is no way around that.

cwap wrote:

i think she should never have trained with kara

I was wondering this too... And certainly it hasn't helped Kara so much. I wonder if she would've had the guts to go by Flanagan had she been closer.

Did you watch the damn race? This was no Chicago marathon course, it actually had a ton of turns and several hills that can beat your legs up pretty good. And how the hell do you compare a 2:15 that was run on a pancake flat course to a 2:25 that was run on a tough course with poor conditions? Please look at some facts before your post dumb comments.

Everybody ran the same course , dump comment.

The Americans just were not on thier game and not ready for what was in front of them. You saw the race , you saw the last few miles , they got drilled , simple , not prepped for what the type of racing typical of Olmpic events.

split brain wrote:

http://www.letsrun.com/2012/uceny-trials-0701.php

Uceny said, "I like making other people hurt, I like making other people hurt a lot. I’m happy with the outcome."

tsquaredcali wrote:

Wrong dude. She did say it. It's on video all over the place. She said she loved making people hurt and that she had an ability to take her body to really painful places. The inference being that others couldn't. She's a great runner. However, she hasn't done anything in the marathon. 2:25 is 10 minutes away from the World Best. It's 6 minutes from the US Best. This was a very disappointing 2012 Olympics for the women US marathoners. There is no way around that.

Shalane DID say stuff like that.

“She will sacrifice her body for as long as she possibly can,” says Goucher, who has been training with Flanagan in Oregon since October. “I’ve never seen anyone push themselves to the limit that Shalane’s been able to.”

Flanagan doesn’t see anything extraordinary about that; it’s just how she’s wired. As she says, “I will go through a lot of pain to beat someone. If there’s pride and ego on the line, if I’m desperate, then I’m willing to go to a place where it hurts a lot more.”

Clearly gouchers Job is more stressful than ours.

What is your point? That is how a marathoner should think. AND, she backed it up. She was definitely in pain the last couple of miles. Sadly, she wasn't in the race to make anyone else hurt, but she put forth the effort in the closing miles to try and close the gap with the leaders.

She has the right mindset to win races, she just needs to work on marathon fitness.

In Boston, Desi also showed she is willing to endear some pain to try and win.

the other thing I wondered about... yes, they trained like hell, but how much recovery time was absorbed by travel to, and filming their Nissian commercials?

Seems like lots of distractions leading up to the biggest race of your life.

"The marathon can humble you."--Bill Rodgers

Hindsight...but I'll be one more to say it:

would've loved to see what Shalane would have done in the 10k.

Bronze @ WC, Bronze in Beijing , Bronze @ WX. Only 31.

She's a very, very special 10k track runner, not seen often.

The marathon (esp the marathon training) humbles completely.

Really disappointed that you all are questioning the strongest American women I know of. You are not representing the running community at large, which is supportive and encouraging. None of you are at the level of these women, yet you throw remarks and criticisms as if you know what they go through and could do better. Shameful!

Surely they are braver than idiots on letsrun.com posting in anonymity on the internet. Geez. Kara and Shalane poured their hearts out and it didn't turn out that it was the day for all their dreams to come true. At least they had the guts to try to make it happen. And they aren't giving up or become bitter for it. I have nothing but the utmost respect for the truest representation of what being an American and a runner really means.

Karen wrote:

Really disappointed that you all are questioning the strongest American women I know of. You are not representing the running community at large, which is supportive and encouraging. None of you are at the level of these women, yet you throw remarks and criticisms as if you know what they go through and could do better. Shameful!

Surely they are braver than idiots on letsrun.com posting in anonymity on the internet. Geez. Kara and Shalane poured their hearts out and it didn't turn out that it was the day for all their dreams to come true. At least they had the guts to try to make it happen. And they aren't giving up or become bitter for it. I have nothing but the utmost respect for the truest representation of what being an American and a runner really means.

Karen, I think you are being sincere and since you seem to be kind of pissed off, you need to know that LRC is like 4chan. No one takes anything seriously and people troll 99% of the time. Don't waste your energy. These guys would cream their shorts if they stepped 100 feet from either of these woman. Shalane placed top 10 in the freaking Olympic marathon. She can beat 99.9% of the posters on this site in any distance.

I think Shalane had commented about the lack of respect she and Kara were getting by commenting "what are we, chopped liver?".

Well, they both ran respectable races. We've seen so many extraordinary things from Shalane. I guess we, or I, expected one more. Without those 2, the state of U.S. women's distance running is rather bleak.

I think they both ran to form. There's not one person who finished ahead of them who didn't have solid credentials. That being said, I don't believe either one ran the race of her life, but that's too much for fans to ask, I think. They ran their guts out and did the country proud, and should feel proud of that. And a bit humbled as well.