Breaking: Unheralded American Ethan Shuley runs 2:07:13 at Osaka Marathon!

Great video. I started the “Life In Stride” podcast interview (and plan to finish it while shoveling tomorrow).

His story is that he won his first Kentucky state track championship as a sophomore. He won a couple more but got injured after his senior cross country season so he missed his senior track season. After high school graduation, he went on a two-year Mormon mission to the Ukraine with no running. He showed up at BYU not expecting to join the team, but had been on Eyestone’s recruiting radar and Eyestone saved a spot on the team for him.

He had trouble ramping up from zero mpw, was always injured in the two years he was on the team, ran only one race at BYU, and left the team. He said that it is common for guys coming back from their mission to quit after not being able to make it back and that, now, guys coming back from a mission incorporate a lot of cross-training.

He moved to Japan after graduation in 2023.

Ritz would have probably run 2:04:50 or so in the super shoes, but I am not commenting on the doping possibility you mentioned.

He did have talent. KY state champ and 4:14/9:10 mile/two mile as a junior. Long before super shoes. I’m not totally shocked.

Plus, 2:07 is the new 2:09, which lots of guys did in the 80s. Still great though.

Yep, or Ethiopia or even worse...Morocco.

A total stranger. Congrats to him!

Ritz also ran his 2:07 a few months after the 2012 Olympics 10k; it’s a shame we never really got to see him pop off a big one with a full marathon specific buildup

Ritz was certainly not a great marathoner.

Only two US guys broke 2:10 in the '80s on record eligible courses - Alberto Salazar at Fukuoka in '83 and Dick Beardsley in '81 at Grandma's in Duluth MN.

worldathletics.org

Marathon - men - senior - all

Open link

Pat Petersen only 4 seconds off.

And wasn't Beardsley at Boston?? Not record eligible.

He also broke 2:10 at Grandma's which was record eligible. He ran 2:08:53 at Boston in the "Duel in the Sun" w/ AlSal in 1982.

Are you insane? Have you been alive for literally the last DECADE?

It's called super shoes. Have you ever run even 100m in a vaporfly and compared it to an old marathon falt?

Before the shoes, Kipchoge had run 6 marathons was a 2:04 flat guy. The shoes are worth 3 minutes.

This is a good run but it's the equivalent of running 2:10 back in the day.

And it was a perfect day to run fast (unless you want to say the course was short). I mean of the 15 top finishers who had run a marathon before, 13 of them ran a PB. Ritz wasn't a great marathoner but he'd easily be a 2:05 guy in supershoes.

I'm far from thinking "It must be drugs" when a guy who was talented enough to win a state title in what 10th grade went out and ran 2:07 in the marathon in super shoes in his late 20s. David Morris ran 2:09 back in the day in Japan.

But let there be no doubt. He's a cult hero.

I'm now obsessed with his dating life. I've never heard of a mormon being unmarried at 27, let alone be on a dating app.

What is his job in Japan?

100%

oops. Was replying to this.

I assume these guys are not doping but just running big mileage. There's a formula that the Japanese runners use to run 2:06-2:09 in the dozens every year, if not more, so all we'd have to do is get former high D1 guys without amazing track times to take on that training, and then with the shoes accounting for three to four minutes, that brings guys like Shuley, who never did anything at college, into this range. He shouldn't be within 3-4 minutes of Ritz with the same shoes but Ritz just was not well coached for the marathon. Cam Levins ran much faster at the marathon well after leaving Salazar. Give Ritz Japanese training in his prime and he wouldn't run 12:56 but he would run 2:04.

He’s a film student according to the pod I listened of him

Jerry Lawson too at Chicago.

Hahahahahaha. Maybe you can play matchmaker. Or maybe a woman would be the end of him.