Galen Rupp in Marathon Trials

why not run.

1. he is probably in his base building faze doing the most miles he does all year, and he probably has a run of 20 or more miles 1 time a week anyways.

2. look at all the runners with less credentials than rupp running their first marathon in sub 2:08 recently, example eric ndiema who was a pacer for a marathon led as he was supposed to for 22 miles decided to finish and ran 2:06.07.

3. rupp wont have to run under 2:08, but even 2:08 pace will feel like a moderate tempo run for a sub 27 minute 10000 runner.

4. his coach salazar won his first marathon at age 22 or 23 on the new york course, rupp is older, more mature has faster personal best's than salazar did at 5000, 10000 and half marathon and houston is a faster course.

5. the mens marathon is on the last day of the olympics so rupp could run the 10000 give his best there, then do what he can in the marathon, if he runs poor in the olympic marathon people would say the 10000 took to much out of him, if he does well in both his marketability skyrockets and he may even be known by casual fans not living in oregon, very rare for a distance runner.

6. if the conditions in eugene are too bad for him to run the track trials in eugene as they were for the 10000 at last years preclassic he will have an olympic spot booked.

7. if something goes wrong in the marathon trials, he would have plenty of time to recover for the track trials.

` wrote:

I called it months ago--Rupp for the Zatopek triple in London '12.

Just in case anyone's curious, here's what doing the Zatopek triple in London would take:

Aug. 4 evening - 10,000 final

Aug. 8 morning - 5,000 heats

Aug. 11 evening - 5,000 final

Aug. 12 11:00 AM - Marathon

Montesquieu wrote:

One other questions: What does Ritz think about this move?

OK, you asked:

He thinks, I dunno, could be some kind of ploy

asdgfh wrote:

` wrote:

I called it months ago--Rupp for the Zatopek triple in London '12.

Just in case anyone's curious, here's what doing the Zatopek triple in London would take:

Aug. 4 evening - 10,000 final

Aug. 8 morning - 5,000 heats

Aug. 11 evening - 5,000 final

Aug. 12 11:00 AM - Marathon

LOL! ZOMG, ROTFL. If you actually believe that Rupp can close to medaling in any event if he just runs 1 I have some Ocean front property in Nebraska I'd like to show you. Much less three, lol. Thanks for providing a good laught I needed that.

rupp is there for a workout and to pace ritz and run 20 to 30k of the race.

rupp has a chance to medal in the 10k, not the marathon where you need 203 ability to medal.

running the full marathon will knock him back 3 weeks and this is not in the plans.

If Rupp runs he should at least give everyone else in the field all the PEDs he's taking to even things out a bit.

might as well be Jamaican wrote:

If Rupp runs he should at least give everyone else in the field all the PEDs he's taking to even things out a bit.

what a sad little person you must be.

must suck to be slow and ignorant, huh?

First, he is going to run. It makes no sense to enter just a few weeks before the race if he wasn't going to run.

I think he'll pace Ritz and stay in the race if he is in position to make the team. Especially if Ritz is not.

Then, I think he focuses on the 10,000. If he makes it there, he will give up his spot for the marathon if it let's Ritz go.

He may give it up anyway, as there is too much cash there for him for a fall marathon.

Last year, Rupp was the absolute king of DNS and DNF in elite US track.

If you could bet on both DNS and DNF for Rupp in Houston, it is hard to imagine losing money on this one.

That said, he obviously has the talent to put down a great marathon when and Salazar decide it's time to, and from all I've read about his training the base is there. 26:48, 60:30 --> someone call ventolin! I think 2:07 is a very reasonable guess if he were to debut flat-out. And at trials he doesn't even have to go for close to that. If he positions himself around 3rd/4th, he'll probably be doing 2:09 pace at fastest for the first 30k, and if he arrives there with something in the tank, who is going to screw with him in the last 10k? Nobody.

I was really annoyed with all the Rupp/Saladbar "ploys" all spring, but am excited about the chance of him actually going for this! If he paces Ritz to 25k and then steps off the course, though...well, nobody should be surprised.

the smartest letsrunner wrote:

Last year, Rupp was the absolute king of DNS and DNF in elite US track.

If you could bet on both DNS and DNF for Rupp in Houston, it is hard to imagine losing money on this one.

I can think of two races he dropped out of, Pre (where he had previously stated pollen may prevent him from racing) and Monaco (where, if you've seen the photographs, he got pretty badly beaten up in falling). Solinsky also dropped out twice in the same races, though one could argue for less legitimate reasons (that Rupp wasn't in the race, and a light push he could have easily rebounded from).

[quote]the smartest letsrunner wrote:

Last year, Rupp was the absolute king of DNS and DNF in elite US track.

WRONG.

If you're referring to last year, 2010, then, no. He only dropped out of the Stockholm DL 5000m.

If you mean this season gone by then no also.

Rupp- Pre DNS Monaco DNF

Solinsky- Pre DNF USATF 10k DNS Monaco DNF Worlds DNS

Galen is the Queen of DNS and DNF in US Elite Track.

To pose a question to the board and this thread, what's the rationale behind the consensus that Rupp's best distance will be the marathon? The 26:50 10k and 60:30 half marathon certainly suggest he could be, but what else?

I'm genuinely trying to understand why so many people think that Rupp will be such a stellar marathoner. I'm neither defending nor disputing the idea that he will be.

95-105 is rubbish. I've seen firsthand weekly logs from the spring/summer where Rupp hit 140m during a week.

uhm....I'm certainly no genius but I would guess that if you run 60:30 in your debut half, chances are that you just might be a decent marathoner. Oh, 26:45'ish for the 10,000 might be an indication as well.

Conspiracy Theory 101

He will rabbit and suck everyone out by messing with the pace, Hall et. al. won't be able to hurt everyone down the stretch... The kenyans do this all the time to protect their own -

Alberto = Evil Genius

Very exciting.

Can you imagine a race in which Rupp, Hall, Ritz, and Meb all were healthy, fit, and ran up to their level of fitness? It would be awesome

Ghost of Lee Harvey wrote:

Conspiracy Theory 101

He will rabbit and suck everyone out by messing with the pace, Hall et. al. won't be able to hurt everyone down the stretch... The kenyans do this all the time to protect their own -

Alberto = Evil Genius

Boy I hope this is the case - it would really shake up the race and inject some drama to the mix.

Anybody notice this quote in the Brojos summary:

2. Just to Mess With the Minds of the Non Alberto Athletes Entered in the Trials

There definitely is a rivalry that exists between the Jerry Schumacher coached group in Portland and the Alberto Salazar coached group in Portland. The rivalry is so deep that in the spring at the Pre Classic, Salazar had Rupp warm-up and even go as far as get his spikes out to give the impression to Chris Solinsky that Rupp would be attempting to break Solinsky's 10,000 record at the time. Solinsky then entered the 10,000m at USATFs and did not run it. While Schumacher's "A" guys of Matt Tegenkamp and Chris Solinsky are not running the marathon trials, some of his lesser guys are (Tim Nelson and Brent Vaughn).

The greatest achievement of the year for Letsrun has to be stoking this fake rivalry and causing readers to talk about it.

might as well be Jamaican wrote:

If Rupp runs he should at least give everyone else in the field all the PEDs he's taking to even things out a bit.

This!!!!!!! It's a shame the Lame duck Oregon fan boys can't accept the truth.