This is what hits closest to home for me also. In my younger days I was a mid 2:30's marathoner, low 15's low 32's 5&10ks. Now, I'm older and probably built fairly similar to Rossi, 6 plus a bit and 180ish. Last year I wanted to run a decent marathon, so in January I started adding miles on, doing intervals and tempos and longer runs. However with work and family I only ever cracked 60s in a week once and was pretty solid at low 50ish mileage. In early spring I did a couple half-marathons that crushed me, right at 1:30 for both, I had higher expectations, but they were obviously unjustified. I maintained that regimen throughout the summer. Most weeks were 4-5 days of running a few 6 day weeks, so pretty solid, not totally dedicated. Come early fall I ran a flat, flat, flat marathon (with sweet weather) and was over 3:30, again not meeting expectations but probably in line with what work I put in. I did another marathon later and improved some but not a lot. And nowhere freaking near what Rossi accomplished.
So a former decent runner doing slightly more work than Rossi couldn't come anywhere near the results for a guy who has been at it for 4 years and was injured a bit of that time and never raced anything that would predict his marathon effort. I can't imagine a guy who is trying to promote a career such as his being able to get in good consistent workouts, and his mileage pretty much says that. Too bad his real effort in Philly looks so pale to his fake effort in Lehigh, because it was most likely a good true run he could have taken real pride in.
