Rupps for Gold????

fluoxetine wrote:

Hi Heat wrote:

High heat? July is winter in Rio. It will be 60s-70s. Since when is that "high" heat?

70s is definitely not optimal weather for a marathon

70s comes during the hottest part of the day. Most of the day is BELOW 70.

fluoxetine wrote:

Hi Heat wrote:

High heat? July is winter in Rio. It will be 60s-70s. Since when is that "high" heat?

70s is definitely not optimal weather for a marathon

Thank you. That, humidity and course difficulty. East Africans don't like that much when is not cool weather and flat courses....

A few points on some of the assumptions being made in this thread:

1. Bekele's debut was 2:05. Are there really people who believe Rupp would have debuted as fast as Bekele on a different course? seriously....?

2. Rio's temperature in august is 68-80 degrees with moderate to high levels of humidity. Stop pretending it's going to be a cool dry 65.

3. The one known fact is that Rupp won the trials. Anyone suggesting he did so while "jogging" is making wild assumptions.

4. Rupp made a short comment about training for both 10k and marathon after his race... Often running long tempos for the marathon and 200's for 10k prep in the same week... Will be interesting to see in which race he runs best.

Some of the posts on here are stupid. Let me say that asn American I hope Rupp goes all in for the marathon. I know he is'nt winning the 10k. I don't think he'll win the marathon but that's the unkown.But let me address some of the idiotic posts on here.The first is that a 13:20 is relevant for a 10k. It's not. I'd rather see him doing marathon training. If he looks too sharp on the track, I think that's a bad sign for his marathon potential.

Are you crazy.

1) I don't think "pretty much everyone would agree" that Rupp would run 2:05. A non-african born runner has never run under 2:06 on a non-aided course. Never. I think Rupp might be able to do it if everything went perfectly but Mo Farah ran 2:08 in his marathon.

2) While impressed with Rupp's marathon Trials victory (which I very much predicted), I don't think it looked like he jogged.

So Rupp beat a 40 year old man who had an abbreviated buildup for the Trials and you think that makes him a GM favorite?

Rupp beat Meb by 1:08 at the Trials. Meb lost NYC by 2:58. He lost Boston by 3:28.

I think that way of thinkng is a good one but too high. If Rupp was running London, I"d put the odds of him winning at less than 1%. The Olympics is higher as again the Kenyans only get 3 entries and one of them is a politician. I think 50% for a medal is too high.

If you took that much time to say Rupp has little chance then you hate America. People should atleast have hop for him. I think we can all agree he is Americas best chance for a distance medal...

but it's likely sh*tty Rio weather, not Berlin in late september. probably not a place to run fast timesi'm sure the poster knows it's 2016 too. that's hard to lose sight of.....

2.11 NOP wrote:

Spaghetimonster wrote:

2004 Olympic marathon was won in 2:10:55...

It is 2016, something you don't seem to be aware of.

oheo wrote:

2. Rio's temperature in august is 68-80 degrees with moderate to high levels of humidity. Stop pretending it's going to be a cool dry 65.

Ummm, Rio is at the coast. Humidity is high while temperatures are cool. What is important with humidity is not relative humidity BUT absolutely humidity.

Relative humidity is a measure of how much moisture air can hold at a given temperature. When the temperature is close to freezing relative humidity is very but the amount of moisture in the air is very low.

Absolute humidity is a measure of how much moisture is actually in the air.

As an example. If the temperature is 65ºF with a relative humidity of 75%. If the temperature increases to 80º the relative humidity drops to 45%. In other words, no one is going to experience high humidity with high temperature in Rio.

yeah buddy yeah wrote:

but it's likely sh*tty Rio weather,.

You know nothing about the weather.

Nothing is guaranteed in an Olympic Final Marathon, but given his credentials and the fact that it is going to be a tactical race, I'd argue that it's his race to lose

In the end, the question is: how much does he want it?

Also, Kenyans will be careful with "supplements" since they announced testing in Rio.

The other guy! wrote:

In the end, the question is: how much does he want it?

Sure, because no one else will want it, only Rupp.

Rojo you are on crack if you think Rupp "only" beat Meb by 1:08....margin of victory wouldve been 2-3 minutes if Rupp guns it earlier.

Comparing margins of victory across marathons is stupid anyway. Different courses, conditions, etc.

Rojo you are on crack if you think Rupp "only" beat Meb by 1:08....margin of victory wouldve been 2-3 minutes if Rupp guns it earlier.

Comparing margins of victory across marathons is stupid anyway. Different courses, conditions, etc.

Yeah, right after I posted that, I realized some of my odds were too high. It should have been:

Bronze+ 25%

Silver+ 15%

Gold 5%

I do think he is going to run a solid, competitive marathon in spite of the humid and warm weather (or perhaps because of the weather, because he will run smartly and tactically).

As far as weather goes, it sounds like many of you have never run a full marathon on a sunny, humid, 70 degree day. It's pretty freaking brutal, and you WILL run significantly slower, or blow up. Just ask anyone who raced Boston 2016.

Patience and planning wrote:

I do think he is going to run a solid, competitive marathon in spite of the humid and warm weather...

It will not be hot AND humid. It will cool with high relative humidity (no worse than running along the beach), and as it warms up the relative humidity will be comfortable. This is a simple law of physics. The amount of real moisture in the air will essentially remain constant during a 2+ hour marathon.

yeah buddy yeah wrote:

but it's likely sh*tty Rio weather, not Berlin in late september. probably not a place to run fast times

i'm sure the poster knows it's 2016 too. that's hard to lose sight of.....

2.11 NOP wrote:

It is 2016, something you don't seem to be aware of.

Thank you. All I pointed out was that a tactical 2:11 on Rupp's part didn't mean he had no chance in the Olympic Marathon, which often is won in times not much faster than Rupp's PR.

You called posters on your own message boards "stupid," "idiotic," and "crazy" in the same post in which you also wrote the non-words: "thinkng," "asn," "unkown," and "is'nt." You should be embarrassed for yourself.

The weather won't be ideal. No matter how nuanced we want to be about relative humidity etc. Let's just leave it at that. Given it's an Olympic marathon things will usually -- not always -- tend to be tactical at least until somewhere past the 15-16 mile mark.

I think shitty weather and a tactical race actually favor Rupp. It certainly takes some sting out of the East Africans and leaves Rupp a real chance at finishing strong with a top placing.

Like others have said or implied though, he has to run a very smart race, great pacing, no stupid shit, etc. maybe he has a shot. I hope he does well. I mean shit being an American he's our only LD hope.

My thoughts on some of the other commentary. No way Rupp is a 2:05 guy right now. However, Rupp and Mo are probably on par at the marathon distance. Meb's best days are behind him. I love the guy and it's been a great joy to watch him over the past few years but time is moving on.

I watched every minute of the trials and I definitely agree there's no way Rupp was "jogging." The weather was atrocious though and we all know well of the problems with race management, fluids placement etc that occurred that day. The race was a disaster from a management and planning perspective and embarrassingly bad considering it was a trials race.

whorunslikegump? wrote:

The weather won't be ideal. No matter how nuanced we want to be about relative humidity etc.

Relative humidity will not have an effect during the Rio marathon. You obviously failed to understand the difference between relative and absolute humidity, and why later is the only one that is important.