Collis MF Birmingham- outkicks Rupp at Oxy HP 5K!

Mileage, and high-intensity workouts, are the major factors for Rupp.

Rupp is a good but not great 5000 runner. The result is surprising but not that shocking, Rupp has gone 12:58 and beaten Lagat once. It is great that he has done that in his second best event.

CB ran a great race and reacted with class, People are saying CB beat a silver medalist. Wrong - he beat TWO silver medalists who ran distances that are different from what they medaled in. Calm down.

The bashing of US runners is unfortunate. I think Rupp looks a little flat to start outdoors and it reminds me a bit of last year's outdoor campaign when he got run down at the trials. He may not have another 2012 season and another more like 2013.. He and Levins both do not appear to have sharp kicks yet - who knows if it will come.

I think Rupp burned it too got last indoors and he may have this indoors as well. Saladbar should be focusing on strength all winter rather than track racing. Seemed to work well for Bekele.

None of Salazar's athletes looked great for an extended kick.

Levins was run down in the final 100m. Hasay got left in the dust in the last 300m (a really bad beating IMHO). Rupp got gamed in the last 200m.

I don't get why we're obsessed with big kicks or "learning" to kick in "practice" races.

If you want to practice strategy - practice running the last mile close to 4 mins as possible with each lap progressively faster.

Actually Rupp didn't sit and kick, Collis did. Rupp took the lead at 600 and had it into the last corner until Collis thought about it, stopped sitting and kicked.

I remember running a 5k in Buffalo NY in July, about 85deg/85% humidity, it just wiped the desire out of me for kicking.

I can imagine what's going thru their heads the last 150m

Rupp: "hot, groins chafing, workouts in the bag, not a 5k specialist but i'm beating a silver medalist, I hope Saladbar doesn't have a heart attack, fu** it's hot hot hot".

Collis: "Bit warm, meh. Another 150m and a nice cold Fosters, hey wait, i can scalp two silver medalists if I pick it up, LetsRun and make my dreams a reality!"

I'd say Collis had more incentive, which is what makes winners, so good on him.

After staying up to 6:30 am to provide you your free content, i'm finally alive again. Had time to read this thread and want to correcting a bunch of false thinking I see onthis thread and praise the smart thinking.So here goes.

You do realize it was over 80 degrees right? To me running in hot weather and regular weather for long distance are nearly two different sports.

The Commonwealth Games don't start until July 23rd.

Closing in 58 isn't good even in a fast race at this level. It's certainly not good in a tactical race even if it hot.

That being said, please read the front page. Rupp didn't close in 58 or 59. He closed in 56.

When Gebremeskel ran 12:46 in 2012 he went The last 1,600 leader-to-leader? 4:01.01 - (62.39, 62.99, 60.97, 54.66)

Finally. I agree with this poster:

And this was a great post as well:

I want to correcting some childish grammar.

Birmingham has been in good form for a while and is very used to the heat from the Australian summer, which gave him an advantage over Rupp, who was opening up his outdoor campaign after down time in March and who was not acclimated to heat at all at this point. Nevertheless, if you factor in the heat, this was worth much better than 13:18 and the finish was quite strong. The leader with 800m to go (Leer?) was at 11:23 high. So, Birmingham closed in 1:54.7 or so and Rupp in 1:55. That was a good opening performance from Rupp in the heat and Birmingham ran very well. In all likelihood, Rupp hasn't even been doing much speed yet, so I don't see this as a poor performance for him at all. Birmingham is going to be low 13 this year, maybe even breaking it, and Rupp should break 13 again and we'll see just how far he can do it. This wasn't reason to think that he won't be as good as in indoor--he just was behind his indoor level for this one.

I was really hoping he'd use the "In the end, it comes down to the size of your balls" line during his interview. How great would that be.

Why is anyone excited about either 5k last night? The top 2 in both races got a decent race-specific 10k workout (OK maybe top 3 W and 4 or 5 M). Was something else accomplished?

I'm not saying the same thing about the 800s but either of these 5ks would have been a real groundbreaking DIII race.

I love that many in this thread hate on Rupp for sitting in kicking, when Collis was the main one doing that. Rupp went for it with 600 to go.

Not a bad first race of the season, Pre will be a good indicator on how his season will go.

Have you ever been to Melbourne? In actual fact its not really that warm.. nowhere near 80 degs:

http://www.bom.gov.au/vic/forecasts/melbourne.shtml

Collis ran better on the day, Rupp just has to suck eggs and cop that a runner earning 10k a year dropped it on him.

People are overlooking Willis' fantastic run. He is pushing thirty, and is clearly in 13:0x shape, while still running great 1500/mile races. I suspect he could get under 3:30 finally this season.

melbournian5000 wrote:

Have you ever been to Melbourne? In actual fact its not really that warm.. nowhere near 80 degs:

http://www.bom.gov.au/vic/forecasts/melbourne.shtml

Collis ran better on the day, Rupp just has to suck eggs and cop that a runner earning 10k a year dropped it on him.

Haha, I love that the forecast says "Shower or two"! Very casual but cool.

What is the humidity like there? As malmo has pointed out, the dew point is a huge factor. Could be upper 70's and have high humidity and be worse than upper 80's in california when it's dry. Just curious.

rojo wrote:

After staying up to 6:30 am to provide you your free content, i'm finally alive

You do realize it was over 80 degrees right? To me running in hot weather and regular weather for long distance are nearly two different sports.

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Rojo, do you realize they ran at night? Running at night in LA compared to Texas is nearly two different sports. Temperature is not a fungible entity. Why do you they can rub 12:50-51 in Doha during 90 degree temperature?

Its the dry heat. Its the night heat.

CheaperU wrote:

batts.0315 wrote:

He never lost it. He's probably working off a monster week of training and add the elements the dude is allowed to lose. Birmingham is closer to a peak potentially with the commonwealth games upcoming while Galen and Alberto are probably working towards something later in the summer. Galen still closed in 58/59.

Cool your jets folks, hes fine.

And also dont forget that 2nd to last lap was 59 so he really closed in a 1:57/58 which isnt too bad for May, hes def looking towards the summer in which he will need to close in a 1:53 (or 2:23 last k)

silver in off year. no other medals. can't win a real race. he looks like hell, his form is crap. i hate to say it, but this guy was never what he was crapped up to be. he's hunched over, he's got no kick, he's got no heart to lead early and push the pace.

let's focus on u.s. guys who can actually get it done -- true, hill, jager, derrick...the big boys with balls. step it up, boyz

I would have thought he could easily beat GR and CM with his

superior kick. Perhaps he is still in heavy training.

With a slight shift of emphasis in training one would expect sub-13.

Marcel Marseille wrote:

People are overlooking Willis' fantastic run. He is pushing thirty, and is clearly in 13:0x shape, while still running great 1500/mile races. I suspect he could get under 3:30 finally this season.

And people keep asking why Rupp blew up - maybe giving a bit of credit to Birmingham wouldn't do anyone any harm?

Look at collis birmingham at the end of the first heat of 2012 london olympics, he looks like dying, he can barely stands, he stands again but falls again, he is very pitiful.