Could RUPP be a better marathon runner than MO FARAH?

By my count, using the World Marathon Majors points standings as an indication of quality and USING ONLY THE TOP 3 from each country, only 6 out of 14 athletes from the WMMs list toed the line in the 2012 Olympic marathon, less than half the quality marathoners on the WMM list. Top to bottom the Olympic marathon field is much weaker than probably any major marathon even considering the 3 entries per country limit. It's much harder to be top 3 in say, London, than the Olympics.

Rupp's stride is about as smooth as Flagpole's wife's legs in February.

Whatthe??? wrote:

Yes he could wrote:

The depth in women's running is not the same, and therefore it's an apples and pears comparison. Two world class female runners can easily run away from a field, this is not the case for men's track racing and therefore Rupp can't do this. The guys got balls though, we saw that this year.

Yeah, we saw how Paula was able to run away from the others in all those T&F championships...

she would have been the greatest ever marathon on the track runner of all

Les wrote:

Bear in mind too, that the best marathoners tend to skip the Olympics.

This just isn't true. While Haile skipped the marathon in Beijing, it was still one of the best, deepest fields ever. The selection process sometimes leaves out the best runners, but they aren't choosing to skip the Olympics.

That was me. He was belting out 56s 400s with Makhloufi about 2-3 weeks out, and really nailing some speedwork. Sleazy was there with him for some of it, but Farah was definitely trying to keep some speed in his legs for the track season, no way was he fully focused on an optimal marathon debut.

Whatthe??? wrote:

Yes he could wrote:

The depth in women's running is not the same, and therefore it's an apples and pears comparison. Two world class female runners can easily run away from a field, this is not the case for men's track racing and therefore Rupp can't do this. The guys got balls though, we saw that this year.

Yeah, we saw how Paula was able to run away from the others in all those T&F championships...

I thought WR's were the only thing that mattered on here

defenderofthewhite wrote:

That was me. He was belting out 56s 400s with Makhloufi about 2-3 weeks out, and really nailing some speedwork. Sleazy was there with him for some of it, but Farah was definitely trying to keep some speed in his legs for the track season, no way was he fully focused on an optimal marathon debut.

Isnt the best time to hone speed a few weeks out from a marathon? Put in the volume in the prior months then drop down to bump the intensity to run fast. How do you train?

Les wrote:

By my count, using the World Marathon Majors points standings as an indication of quality and USING ONLY THE TOP 3 from each country, only 6 out of 14 athletes from the WMMs list toed the line in the 2012 Olympic marathon, less than half the quality marathoners on the WMM list. Top to bottom the Olympic marathon field is much weaker than probably any major marathon even considering the 3 entries per country limit. It's much harder to be top 3 in say, London, than the Olympics.

The 2012 Olympic Marathon was definitely weaker than 2008. But you quantify how many athletes from the WMM's are at the Olympics. Why don't you do the same thing for the marathons you're comparing against? How many of these 14 athletes were at the London Marathon in 2012 or 2013?

Yes he could wrote:

I think he could one day be the fastest non African ever over the marathon. Salad bar has been sensible with his progressive overload and everything points to him being a male Paula type of runner.

Can you please back this statement up? What is everything?

I see nothing pointing to that fact. Well little. Rupp does seem to be better at 10,000 than 5,000 and his 60:30 half debut was very impressive.

But what is everything? The original poster says Rupp's economical form makes him good at the marathon. Do you guys really paula's form is just the opposite of Rupp's?

Rupp's 3:50 mile speed makes me think he won't be great at the marathon.

That and the fact that he's white. As great as Ryan Hall was, he's only 3 times run faster than Mo Farah for 26.2.

Yeah maybe if Salazar is pushing his wheelchair

Les wrote:

By my count, using the World Marathon Majors points standings as an indication of quality...

I'm not sure I'm understanding this -- do you mean using the 2015 WMM rankings as an indication of the quality of the 2012 Olympics? If so, that seems like a flawed measure. By that measure, the 2008 Olympics had no "quality" runners at all!

In the Olympic marathon, you only have to run against 3 Kenyans and 3 Ethiopians, not 20 like London or Berlin. And how often have the East Africans swept the medals at the Olympic marathon?

Really?

First of all I would make you specify DISTANCE runner, as you can't go past the Coe/Ovett/Cram middle distance trio.

and even then...

...I would put Craig Mottram above Galen Rupp as the best aside from the fact that Galen has a silver medal.

The Big Mazungo really used to take it to those Africans, almost beat Haile

rojo wrote:

Yes he could wrote:

I think he could one day be the fastest non African ever over the marathon. Salad bar has been sensible with his progressive overload and everything points to him being a male Paula type of runner.

Can you please back this statement up? What is everything?

I see nothing pointing to that fact. Well little. Rupp does seem to be better at 10,000 than 5,000 and his 60:30 half debut was very impressive.

But what is everything? The original poster says Rupp's economical form makes him good at the marathon. Do you guys really paula's form is just the opposite of Rupp's?

Rupp's 3:50 mile speed makes me think he won't be great at the marathon.

That and the fact that he's white. As great as Ryan Hall was, he's only 3 times run faster than Mo Farah for 26.2.

Makes sense. Rod Dixon ran 3:53, and he never did any better than 2:08:59 at New York.

doing the math wrote:

In the Olympic marathon, you only have to run against 3 Kenyans and 3 Ethiopians, not 20 like London or Berlin. And how often have the East Africans swept the medals at the Olympic marathon?

Really? In the 2014 Berlin Marathon, there were only 2 Ethiopian men in the top 100 with 100th place at 2:34:13. 7 of the top 8 were from Kenya, so for Kenya (and Kenya alone) you could make a case that there is a better Kenyan field in Berlin than the Olympics. But no where near the 20 you site. Because after 8th place, there's not another Kenyan man in the top 100.

Fernando Cabada came in 11th place in Berlin, no way he places that high in the Olympics. 24th place in Berlin (much better weather and faster course than the Olympics) didn't even break 2:20.

Here's the elite men's field for 2015:

Dennis Kimetto KEN 2:03:45

Emmanuel Mutai KEN 2:03:52

Tsegaye Kebede ETH 2:04:38

Levy Matebo KEN 2:05:16

Eliud Kiptanui KEN 2:05:39

Frankline Chepkwony KEN 2:06:11

Geoffrey Kamworor KEN 2:06:12

Kazuhiro Maeda JPN 2:08:00

Ryo Yamamoto JPN 2:08:44

Maswai Kiptanui KEN 2:08:52 5.

Abera Kuma ETH 2:09:53

Scott Overall GBR 2:10:55

Kazuki Tomaru JPN 2:11:43

Fernando Cabada USA 2:11:53

Falk Cierpinski GER 2:13:30

Andrew Lemoncello 2:13:40

John Gilbert GBR 2:16:46

Markus Weiß-Latzko GER 2:18:06

That's 7 Kenyans and 2 Ethiopians (one of which has barely gone under 2:10). Sure it's a great field. But nothing like the 2008 Olympic Marathon field.

what if he is actually a better 5,000m runner that Salazar trained as a 10,000m runner.

what if he was trained like a 5k runner, solely?

Shoebacca wrote:

While I want Rupp to stay focused on the 10k...

The 10k might be the least popular race in all of running. 5k, half and marathon all have weekend warrior types interested and comparing their time. But no one runs 10Ks. For regular folks, it's too short to be a bucket lister, more painful than a 5k without any reward, and horrendously boring to watch on tv even for track fans. Didn't Galen slay the one half he's done (NY)? The sooner Galen moves to the road, the better.

rojo wrote:

Yes he could wrote:

I think he could one day be the fastest non African ever over the marathon. Salad bar has been sensible with his progressive overload and everything points to him being a male Paula type of runner.

Can you please back this statement up? What is everything?

I see nothing pointing to that fact. Well little. Rupp does seem to be better at 10,000 than 5,000 and his 60:30 half debut was very impressive.

But what is everything? The original poster says Rupp's economical form makes him good at the marathon. Do you guys really paula's form is just the opposite of Rupp's?

Rupp's 3:50 mile speed makes me think he won't be great at the marathon.

That and the fact that he's white. As great as Ryan Hall was, he's only 3 times run faster than Mo Farah for 26.2.

I think you lose a fair bit of credibility here. 'the fact he is white'. What the hell is that meant to mean. I did not see Paula worry about this in her marathon career, or even Galen himself when mixing it with the East Africans on the track in London 2012.

A 60.30 for his first go at a half shows that he can potentially produce a half pb that is better than his 10k pb which in term is better than his 5k pb. That points to sound running economy. Paula's running form may have looked horrible but her economy was good, just look at the hip position in motion and mechanics on the recovery phase. You can't run a 2.15 marathon with bad running economy.

Galen's relative lack of explosiveness over the last lap would also point to higher proportions of slow twitch fibres.

He can dig deep into his well of reserves as we saw this year at the worlds. This shows sound and stable mental strength.

Finally he is entering marathons from such a sound base of running and physical conditioning. These to me are all similarities with Paula.

No, the 2012 WMM rankings.