reflections of houston wrote:
Aka, when do workouts indicate fitness and when do you take them with a grain of salt?
Ritz is clearly a legend in the sport, was at the top in HS, NCAA, USAs and even pretty darn competitive on the world level. The guy ran 12:56, 60:00 and 2:07:47 when those times meant something different. He spent years doing workouts with 2 guys who eventually broke 60:00 (Galen and Mo). Beyond his personal success, he has coached multiple people who have competed at the highest level.
Leading in to Houston half this year, it seemed that there was a lot fo hype for Joe Klecker, and it seems like Ritz directly fed in to that. Supposedly Ritz compared his 60:00 training to the stuff he was having Klecker do, and Klecker's training was more impressive.
A few questions: Do people train harder now than they did even 10 years ago? Are the shoes allowing people to stack Herculean efforts without fatigue or injury? Are the shoes making people over train when they would be better backing off?
How much of coaching is in the intangibles? Maybe on paper klecker was doing better stuff than Ritz, but salazar was a lot better and orchestrating all the dynamics?
Man, a lot of rough stuff on some of these posts.
First to Klecker, I mean a little bit of perspective. It's his first race in a while - and yeah, you can be dropping awesome workouts etc etc - it's never the same as when you get to the start line and the gun goes off. How many of us have at some point been training well, full of expectations going into a race and it (to us at the time) just inexplicably doesn't happen? He's human.
Secondly, the HM distance is a brutal one optically when you are just a fraction off. Hocker ran 3.48.95 at Pre last year and finished 7th. Wasn't even in the frame and 3.6 seconds behind Kerr, 2.6 behind Nuguse which is a long way in a mile. But we all know what happened 2 months later. Point is when you are a little rusty or off in a 1500 or even a 5000m, that finish line is never too far away. Feel like sh-t at the halfway point? there is less than 2min to endure. Not quite the same in the half marathon.
Thirdly to Ritzenhein. Personally I think he's a pretty limited coach who coaches too much in style of how he was coached but then again coaching multiple elite athletes that really does require individual focus can't be easy. What else is he supposed to do talking about his guys? Talk them down? I don't doubt that Klecker ran those workouts should Ritz lie about it?
Re Salazar? Well the coaching structure/plan vs the "extra curricular" activities are two different things. But Salazar the coach was undeniably very good - that's like comparing an apple to an orange when it comes to him vs DR.