Ryan Hall Out of Chicago

Gorgar wrote:

I think he needs to buy some gold coins and take up residence in a cave in Montana. After the economic apocalypse all that aerobic base will come in handy.

I'm sure he could afford to rent a semi-truck, load it several years supply of food, gold, guns and ammo, etc. Go drop off your supplies in a cave in the middle of a national park, then return the truck, get your car and disappear into your cave.

In fact that bad half marathon may have been faked so as to provide an excuse to pull out of Chicago and disappear before the currency crisis makes the dollar worthless.

The Halls will ride out the fall of global civilization safe from rampaging "hungries" like the Flagpole family.

Mehbe. But consider Haile. He has all kinds of stuff going on. And still runs well.

The guy needs a change. It might not need to be drastic, but Ryan needs something new to get excited about. You've gotta mix it up every once in a while so that you can look at yourself and say, "Hey this new thing is going to help make me better."

I don't Ryan's blog or anything, but from my (rather removed) point of view, it seems like he's been doing the same stuff for too long and the returns from the old plan just aren't what they used to be.

The guy still has a ton of talent...that will never go away. He's still got plenty of prime years to run some good races. He just needs to find something new to make him tick.

Hall Monitor Lizard wrote:

Hall has lost his focus, is it Mahon?? Doubt it but anyone can get stale.....

lost focus--i think you hit the nail on the head. appearing in nissan ads, promoting all those causes, and enjoying the celebrity status. look at ritz--he hasn't done any of that. granted, Hall is probably making more money in the marketing side. he doesn't have to win another race in his life. he's got the all-american look, a good looking wife, and is more marketable to the masses.

comparisons with household running names:

Jim Ryun / Ryan Hall

Dathan Ritzenhein/ Alberto Salazar

go to

now, and review the names and pictures on the home page. All full names and names with pictures are names with an English background

Notice all the names on the home page:

Ryan Hall, Headline, picture and first name mention

Makau (no first name); small picture, barely mentioned

Paula Radcliffe, Kara Goucher (2 women who moms can relate to--advertising running and pregnancy), larger picture, middle of the site

Jeff-typical late 20's running hipster (similar marketing as Makau)

Mark Bitman- columnist

Kristin Armstrong-columnist

towards the bottom, you'll see an Asics ad for Hall, and a Nissan ad, with Hall mentioned.

Three times Hall is mentioned and has 2 pictures. If you're a business exec and marketing guru, and want to appeal to the main consumers of the running culture (middle/ upper class suburbanites), your columns, pictures, people need to reflect that culture. Ryan Hall fits it. No one else in running right now can fit in.

bottom line, if you're Hall and want to make as much money in the sport as possible, it's not going to be through winning--it's through corporate ads and marketing yourself. tough to stay competitive when you have all these stakes in the fire.

i won't wrote:

Contractual obligations prevent this.

So switch sponsors. Dupe ASICS, who cares about all their crap if you get a gold medal? I think Hall needs to shake things up in a big way. Just like Webb did--He ran great for a while under Rackzo, but if you use the same stimulous over and over, you'll get stale. Canova talks about that a lot. "The first thing I do when I figure out the perfect program is change it!" he wrote, because the body ALWAYS adapts. Sure, 130-mile weeks at altitude on his own, doing long tempos and hills pretty much exclusively, may have gotten him to 2:06, but that's old hat for his body now.

If I was Hall, here's what I'd do:

1) Dump ASICS (screw contracts and all that nonsense, I'm sure Nike would pony up) & cordially part with Mahon

2) Move to Portland, train with Salazer

3) Win USA XC this winter

4) Run a low-key indoor 3k or 5k

5) Set a PR in the 10k on the track come early spring (Stanford?)

6) Then re-evaluate marathon training, return and do Chicago next year.

Give me a break...waa, waa, waa...other professional athletes do this all the time. If these are stressors, get your agent and/or coach to be the gatekeepers.

Skinny Dan wrote:

The Tioga Pass run is an awesome experience. It rivals Chicago in my book... Shut it adddd.

Has anyone ever won Tioga Pass and then not gone on to win Chicago?

It's God's will.

So he should waste a year of prime money making? XC is useless for him. Indoor 3k has no purpose if his ultimate goal is to get faster at the marathon. A fast 10k might be useful. Staleness is not a side-effect of training, it is 100% mental.

stuck with match.com wrote:

Hall is done and more than likely will never go under 2:08 again much less under 2:06.

Just like how Alan Webb would never break 4 again, huh?

This definitely surprises me a bit. Isn't it typical for great marathoners such as Wanjiru and Khannouchi to have some bad races and some blah training before throwing down some brilliant results? Hall may not be pleased with his recent training/racing, but he is still young and healthy... something that can't be counted on as a marathoner or any runner for that matter. There's certainly a non-zero chance that this is the most fit he will ever again be going into a marathon... unlikely, but possible. This is marathoning... dropping out isn't the end of the world if things really go badly. Ah well... he obv probably knows what he is doing a lot more than I do, but it still surprises me that he is depriving himself of the opportunity to surprise himself on race day. I worry that he is putting too much pressure on himself and setting the bar a bit too high.

If Geb did this the Brojo's would crucify him....

I feel bad for the guy. Seems like a combination of overtraining and spreading himself too thin with his obligations. It does make me curious about Mahon and if he will/should stick with him.

don't read too much into this running-wise, guys

god probably just said btw i dont need you to glorify me in chicago this year and he said MKAY

Ha Ha

Nelson Muntz

Sorry, but this is PATHETIC! As a coach, I think Mahone is failing here. On Flotrack there was all this hype about Mammoth and how training was FAST and better than expected. Good TRAINING MAKES YOU TIRED!!!!!!! It happens!

Mahone get your phsycology in gear, tell him he's in shape and get him to run the darn race!

Go Mammoth!

Reading through many of the thoughtless and cruel messages reacting to Ryan not running Chicago, I am left thinking none of those comments come from people that have poured their blood, sweat, and tears into anything...let alone training. Unreal

I meant ...have NEVER...poured their blood, sweat, and tears into anything...

You have no idea what the terms of his contract are. The fact that you casually conjecture "I'm sure Nike would pony up" fails to take into account how much Asics has invented in him. Notice how Asics doesn't sponsor any other American track athletes of note, outside of the Halls and Denna Kastor. That's not from a desire to be less diversified, but a reflection of how much of the Asics America track/running marketing budget is tied up among those few.