At age 36, Ritz wants to win the Boston Marathon next Monday

Despite the negative comments, I'm pulling for the guy. He's an American, he has run fast and he works hard.. let's see him win or on the podium! No reason he can't do it. No one would have ever pegged Yuki or Meb to be a Boston winner. Go Ritz!

He has shown in recent years that he is still close to 1 hr half shape if he has a decent amount of time healthy, so there is always that hope that he can still figure out the marathon. To this point, he has run one decent marathon for his ability, 2:07:47, a time that puts him among the top four Americans all time, behind Khannouchi, Rupp, and Hall. His marathon ability figured to be more like 2:05-2:06 with his 5000m and half marathon times. He should get someone who regularly coaches 2:04-2:05 guys and train with those athletes in Kenya at altitude. Then we might see his true capacity at the marathon before he gets too old.

Did you read the interview?

His problem has been that he trains too hard and you recommend that he move to Kenya and train harder? Brilliant.

No Vaporflys, no win for Ritz.

I was on the cross country team with him when he was in high school. He was a really nice guy. Watching his career over the years I have always been bummed when I see him getting injured. I hope this new plan works out for him and he has a great race.

Luki Yuki wrote:

No Vaporflys, no win for Ritz.

He's running in a custom pair of Brooks w/all the modern essentials, 30+mmfoam, Rocker, Carbon, seamless upper. Desi is also running in a pair that's specific to her

Of course with all the hype on prototype, cheaterfly it will most likely be negative. Bill Rodgers had a special Onitsuka made for him with a modified wedge to help him on the downhills. Seko had a split toe to allow a better toe off. Tergat running 2:04WR at the time had a pair of Kevlar plated Fila's. I got dropped in last week's group ride by a guy who's not in the best shape he was riding $1900 carbon wheels I was riding $400 Aluminum, but I also caught back up on the hills because I've got running fitness...evolution

Do you think Ritz' Wikipedia page is impressive? Crazy that he's only won 2 medals in international events.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dathan_Ritzenhein

Don't understand the hate for Ritz. Meb won Boston at an older age. Ritz is a good competitor, has always done well at XC, and isn't afraid to go after a big goal. A ton of other Americans get away with goals of top-3 American or top-10-15. I like that Ritz wants to win. Boston is a good course for him.

The training seems smart. I think it's almost disingenuous to say that he only put together an 8 week block. Maybe that was just where the workouts got bigger/more marathon specific but he dropped a 1:01 half in February that sort of went unnoticed. He had to have done some decent training/mileage before that but mindset is everything. I like the move to a half 8 weeks out vs. 4. Hoping he runs a good one on Monday!

4 words for y'all

RITZ is back baby !!!

I don't hate him...I just think he's not lived up to the expectations and promise he showed during his years at Rockford and his first year of college.

By elite runner standards, sure, he's good, but not showing the same promise at the senior level as he did when he finished 3rd at World XC Juniors. Rupp pretty much overshadowed Ritz.

UA Runner wrote:

Despite the negative comments, I'm pulling for the guy. He's an American, he has run fast and he works hard.. let's see him win or on the podium! No reason he can't do it. No one would have ever pegged Yuki or Meb to be a Boston winner. Go Ritz!

Like the optimism but the marathon is an odd monster. If Ritz tries to run like 20 something Ritz than he most likely will blow up. He says his goal is 4:55 pace. That’s too fast imo. He should be more around 5-5:05 for at least the first half. Then spend the second half running as many East Africans as he can down. If he goes out with 2:04-06 guys it’s going to end in disaster!

Yuki and desi won because of fluke weather conditions. I was there and it was not normal. Meb was a different class of marathoner than Ritz and Meb was an amazing tactical racer. I hope Ritz does win but it’s not gonna happen if he’s leading the first half of the race.

I think it's pretty cool that both Ritz and Sara Hall are in this field, with good chances of top 10 finishes, almost 20 years after they were the Foot Locker champs.

Is Dathan the ultimate troll or did I just wake up and it's 2012?

rojo wrote:

He seems to know the odds of a win are small (but I'd certainly say higher than Yuki's last year) [/quote]

Certainly higher than Yuki's last year? Yuki, the guy who consistently runs well in all conditions had worse odds last year than a guy who has a total of 1 marathon performance close to his potential, hasn't finished a race in years, and is admittedly going in quite undertrained?

DNF @ 30-35k... with full snark mode on he's a DNS ;-)

I agree...90% chance he DNFs.

2:16

can we finally stop talking this guy up like he is a 2:08 runner. it's not 2012 and hasn't been for almost a decade now.

Called this unfortunately. He went out in 1:04:41 the first half and then the wheels fell off. Not super fast but over his head for where he’s at. Hopefully the Hanson’s develop a better pace strategy for him or his career is over.