Ryan Hall Excuses

mammoth track club wrote:

Scotty quit hating on Ryan Hall. Quit worry who coaches Ryan. Ryan hall is the best US marathon ever. Scotty focus on your own running, Adidas does like 8th place finishers

I think Meb with his silver medal & NY win and a few others would have something to say about that. Hall may be 2nd (KK!) or maybe fastest...but not best!

He just can't compete with the Africans. Everyone is making excuses. All the runners there ran under the same conditions as Hall did. Same course, same weather, and it's not like the two races have superior training regimes. If anything the Africans would be at the disadvantage without sponsors providing them free shoes and whatever high-tech bull crap American runners get for free.

Hall went into this race tapered, ready and with the right mental attitude. Some of the people here are so blinded by denial that they will make up excuses. Suck it up and deal with it. Hall just can't compete with the Africans.

Will he prove me wrong? Hopefully. But he just can't do it from what we've seen.

That's it guys--start trashing Ryan--give him some of that shit you give to Alan Webb you brainless idiots.

Hall runs. He runs fast, very fast, but he doesn't race. That's the gist of it. He has the physical ability to run fast times and improve his PR. He might have the physical ability to win a major, but won't unless he has develops a greater hunger to beat competitors rather than the clock.

Lol! So he just needed to man up and challenge Mosop? These top Africans are simply on another level and it is not fair to blame ryan for that. At least he can come close unlike the rest of us.

But when you watch these guys run and throw in a 4:30 late in the race after already averaging 4:45 you start to see that we don't have anyone on that level.

RuKiddingMe!! wrote:

2:08:04 pretty terrible...Ryan Hall sucks

+1

Buffalo Billy wrote:

That's it guys--start trashing Ryan--give him some of that shit you give to Alan Webb you brainless idiots.

This isn't Happy-Go-Lucky-Rainbow-Sprinkle-Good-Times-Fun Land. It's a sport, and people are allowed to cheer for or against anyone they please. In the same vein, when an athlete or a team that you do support doesn't perform to your expectations, you're allowed to analyze and criticize. Teams, fans, and the media don't just go "Awww shucks. We didn't win the Superbowl/World Series/Stanley Cup. We'll give it a good try next time", they get angry, they get emotional, they try to figure out what went wrong so it doesn't happen again. How many Quaterbacks have been run out of their towns for blowing big games? This is a sport and expecting everyone to hold hands and cheer for each other is ridiculous. Ryan Hall, and the media and at least some of the distance running community, feels he should be a podium contender at these races, and time and time again he fails to do so. As fans of the sport, we're allowed to criticize and we're allowed to respond any way we see fit following a disappointing performace.

how sad that he only wants to be the best American. This is why the Kenyans dominate the sport. They want to be the best in the world. Get over what you think is the plan and start producing. The sponsores will only take so much before they drop his ASS.

wnt2run wrote:

how sad that he only wants to be the best American. This is why the Kenyans dominate the sport. They want to be the best in the world. Get over what you think is the plan and start producing. The sponsores will only take so much before they drop his ASS.

The Kenyans' secret is that they really, really, really want to be the bestest runners in the whole wide world so that means that they can run really, really super fast in races and beat everyone else!

If only Ryan Hall really, really, really wanted to be the bestest runner in the whole wide world, then he could run really, really super fast in races too!!!

Cellular wrote:

someone had to do it wrote:

Taking one day off per week allows him to hit the other 6 days of the week harder and allows him to absorb the stress better though.

In the mean time, his competition is training 7 days per week, getting more sessions in per training block, forcing more stress and subsequent adaptation upon thier bodies, and, thusly, are beating Hall in these races.

If you can't figure out how to recover from stress adequately and still run 7 days a week, you need to learn some of the basics.

Sacrificing quantity for slightly improved quality is not the way to go about training to win major international marathons

Many world class endurance athletes take one day off every week.

Salah and Robleh ran only six days a week. And Salah has some significant hardware.

Of course, he ran 50k/day on the days he did run....but it is possible to make the podium and not run every day of the week. You just better train frakkin hard the other six. Does Ryan? I kind of think so. Unfortunately that hard training is only necessary these days and not sufficient.

dinoooooooo wrote:

I think a lot of the disappointment in Hall goes back to his debut. Traditionally there is a lot to learn from and improve after your first marathon, and everyone got excited about what Hall was capable of. However, looking back, it is starting to look like from his debut to now he has been consistent, and may have just happened to run extremely well in his first one. Is he still a good runner? Yes. Is he a Olympic medal quality marathoner? No. If we can just revise our over zealous expectations, we can appreciate Ryan as a good 2:05-2:08 marathoner who if he keeps his nose in it long enough might eventually win a big marathon in an off year.

actually, this may not be exactly true - I read something somewhere that the majority of elite marathoners never beat their debut time.

Americans seems to be now more competitive in the shorter distances. We now have a medalist in the 1500, and several guys that have broken 13:00 for the 5k in the last few years. Lets just say the Americans are second best in the world behind the Africans. That is just the way it is.

pcxc wrote:

He did the race for the payday! Ryan is more worried about his race coming up in 3+ months called the olympic trials!

Actually, according to comments made by Wesley Korir, RH donated all of his Chicago earnings via the Hall Steps Foundation to help build a new hospital in Kenya.

I agree the Trials race carries more importance to his career. 2:08 is not a bad race-day simulation effort for that focus.

Somewhere, Terrence Mahon is cackling, "Ha! Where is your tailwind now, my young apprentice."

This has got to be the problem right here. If he didnt spend so much time yelling at the rest of the lead pack he would have saved a lot of energy and been right there with the leaders to the end. What was he thinking?

Normally I dont post on typos obv but that was a funny one. I have an image of Hall screaming at Mosop and/or Korir- possibly about God. Maybe pulling out some literature and trying to get them to see the error of their ways.[/quote]

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Why would Hall be yelling anything about religion, especially towards Wes Korir, because Korir is very much open about his Christian faith, and has been known talk about his faith in God when he gives talks to groups.

Just because Hall is a Christian, doesn't mean you can bash him and excuse him of being overbearing.

Bored at work wrote:

Lets just say the Americans are second best in the world behind the Africans.

Can't tell if trolling or just stupid

If you want to overlook a runners time and just judge by a runners standing in history than Shorter is the best US marathoner ever and Mel Sheppard is the best US miler ever.

*Sheppard set a 1500 world record in 1908 with a blazing 3:55. He is the last US miler to win an Olympic gold more than a 100 years ago.

The Sheppard curse has lasted a lot longer than Red Sox curse. I mean it has been a 103 years since an American has won Olympic gold in the mile/1500.

Seeking Knowledge wrote:

You guys are idiots. He ran 2.08.04!

Yes, he did. He is the US's best marathon runner and one of the best we've ever had (depending on how you weight medals vs. times). But.

But.

But.

We all hoped he could be a contender. We all hoped that he could run with the big guns. Hall is the best we've got and he's very, very consistent, but he's a 2:08 marathon runner (London was an aberration). There's nothing wrong with being a 2:08 marathon runner (lord knows we could use a few more of them), but that's what he is and that's not going to make him a winner at any serious event.