Holy crap. Yuki Kawauchi had 1 plan for Boston - To break Galen Rupp. That's why he went out in 4:37!!

So Yuki pulled a Prefontaine move? Glad someone races with balls. Nearly every race is sit and kick

Skeptical gfghjj wrote:

Sounds like revisionist history to me. Write the story now that the ending is here...

Donut Dan wrote:

So Yuki pulled a Prefontaine move? Glad someone races with balls. Nearly every race is sit and kick

That has to make Salazar so angry. He blow his top when Jeff Nelson--the next Pre at Oregon--, a freshman at Oregon, dared to bump up the pace at the end training run; leaving in his dust. Salazar was very angry because underclassmen were supposed to let the upperclassmen finish training runs first.

Here is a story about that episode. It is in three parts so be sure to click the other parts at the bottom of the page.

Rojo this is dumb.

I love that Yuki won. LOVE IT.

But that his early surge had anything to do with the athletes behind him tanking is baseless.

What about all the elites in the women's race that had a similar experience as Rupp? Did Yuki's mile surge also take out Molly Huddle?

Rupp wasn't prepared for the conditions. As many werent. Had nothing to do with the first mile.

Last thought, if the leader with 5 miles to go hadn't been wearing a parachute in hurricane like conditions he would have won not Yuki.

gdfgsdfgdfgsdfg wrote:

Rojo this is dumb.

I love that Yuki won. LOVE IT.

But that his early surge had anything to do with the athletes behind him tanking is baseless.

What about all the elites in the women's race that had a similar experience as Rupp? Did Yuki's mile surge also take out Molly Huddle?

Rupp wasn't prepared for the conditions. As many werent. Had nothing to do with the first mile.

Last thought, if the leader with 5 miles to go hadn't been wearing a parachute in hurricane like conditions he would have won not Yuki.

You know NOTHING about running and racing.

Rupp was broken. He couldn't keep the pace going up heartbreak hill. Instead of toughing it out like Desi, he mentally quit.

The parachute was responsible for Kiriu not succumbing to the conditions like the other Africans. He would have DNFed or finished out of the top 10 without the jacket.

Roving Ranger wrote:...

After that, it was basically between him and Kirui. Then Kirui became impatient and hammered way too hard, way too early. If he limited his surge to maybe just 30 seconds ahead of the 2nd runner, he might've had just enough in his tank to win the race. As it was, putting 90 seconds between him and the field on an uphill within a couple of miles definitely took too much out of him, and he simply ran out of gas. A huge tactical mistake that could've been avoided. But Yuki made him commit that mistake with his constant surging and following closely behind Kirui, so Kirui felt the extra pressure to put in a hard surge way earlier than he would've liked to (which was likely 32 - 35K) that he wasn't sure he could sustain.

....

I disagree. It was Shadrack Biwott who surged a bit on the downhill stretch just after the 17mi mark, coming up on the Netwon firehouse. Shaddy surged to the front and motioned for Kirui to come with or speed up. That was when Kirui looked to his buddy and was like "you believe this guy??", then took his gloves off and hammered right before the meat of the Newton hills started. Brae Burn Hill is steep and tough, and Kirui basically blasted away from the pack starting a quarter mile just prior. That had to have hurt him.

So I think Yuki also has Shaddy to thank for essentially poking the Lion.

Donut Dan wrote:

So Yuki pulled a Prefontaine move? Glad someone races with balls. Nearly every race is sit and kick

It was Kirui that made the "Prefontaine" move in Boston. (Of course, Prefontaine was never good enough to pull off a Prefontaine move in international competition.)

Yuki did not go with the main move in the race -- Kirui's move. Yuki won only when Kirui imploded.

[If you watch the race video, by the time Yuki closed on Kirui (TV missed the actual pass because it happened at about the time Desi was finishing) Kirui was running at about the same pace as a gaggle of Elite women that had seriously faded. Yuki stated that he was never sure he passed Kirui because Kirui was mixed in with the females.]

Make no mistake, what Yuki achieved is the the stuff of legend. But trying to claim responsibility for Rupp’s disastrous run or Kirui’s early surge really is revisionism.

Clearly the conditions beat Rupp more than anything else and I suspect it would have gone badly no matter what anyone else did but its interesting to hear how Kawauchi approached the race with a real nothing to lose attitude.

I doubt he ever really believed he could do it but he gave it a go and in the end the conditions worked in his favour and he got the ultimate reward.

Low voltage trans cranial stimulation has been studied a bit more in the last few years. Another one of those grey area things.

https://www.nature.com/news/brain-doping-may-improve-athletes-performance-1.19534

You sound like that Lawson guy who ran his mouth at the start.

In this case though, no one will ever remember your comments.

vivalarepublica wrote:

Sub What? wrote:

Anyone think he'll ever break 2:10 again?

Yuki ran 2:10 twice last December. I think he can do it in the right race.

He was talking about Rupp.

My personal theory on why Kawauchi's won is that his particular running talent could maintain a higher exertion level for 2:15 than the other runners could maintain for 2:15. Kawauchi's amazing durability shows that he is more of a distance hound than the other world class marathoners. He may not be able to run fast enough to finish a marathon in 2:05. But if wind slow the pace down enough in a marathon so that the winning time will be 2:15, he will be the one still running strong at 2:15.

I think exertion-level-over-time is the biggest differentiator between different runners. For example, Zersenay Tadese is an amazing runner for a range of exertion times from 20 minutes to 60 minutes. Any race distance that would be finished between those time ranges, had Tedese as a possible winner. Other runners have different time ranges. Milers have a talent between 3 minutes 10 minutes. Of course runners can race distances outside of their optimal time range, but their competitive advantage tapers off. And of course, some runners have a much larger range than others (or at least can adapt their training to a larger time range, while other runners have trouble adapting, for example, Tadese in the marathon).

So, Kawauchi is just naturally a more endurance oriented marathoner whose optimal time range is just slightly above that for most of the other worlds class marathers. The head wind in Boston was mainly responsible for turning it into a slow race that would take longer to finish, so this played to Kawauchi's talent.

I don't think the cold is a factor. The body generates tons of heat when running MP pace. Staying warm is not a problem assuming you dress appropriately.

lol lol lol lol wrote:

4:37 isn't particularly fast for a mile which drops 130 feet; it's = to about a 4:52 in effort, not exactly a shocking opening mile for a 2:08 marathoner. IIRC Beardsley recounted that Salazar led the pack through the first mile in 1982 in 4:31, I imagine starting that quickly at Boston is fairly common.

4:37 is pretty fast when you're running alone into a head wind, hill or no hill.

wejo wrote:

One questoin.

1) what were the electrode things on Rupp's ears?

Somebody answered, but I'll corroborate...

Another example of a coach and runner getting lost in the weeds and forgetting about the big important things that have an impact on the race. Like eating enough calories and wearing enough clothes to not get hypothermia. Too smart for their own good.

Excellent piece by Brett Larner.

Going waaay back to page 1 wrote:

lol lol lol lol wrote:

4:37 isn't particularly fast for a mile which drops 130 feet; it's = to about a 4:52 in effort, not exactly a shocking opening mile for a 2:08 marathoner. IIRC Beardsley recounted that Salazar led the pack through the first mile in 1982 in 4:31, I imagine starting that quickly at Boston is fairly common.

4:37 is pretty fast when you're running alone into a head wind, hill or no hill.

wejo wrote:

One questoin.

1) what were the electrode things on Rupp's ears?

Somebody answered, but I'll corroborate...

https://www.outsideonline.com/2269941/zapping-your-brain-can-alter-your-physical-limits

Another example of a coach and runner getting lost in the weeds and forgetting about the big important things that have an impact on the race. Like eating enough calories and wearing enough clothes to not get hypothermia. Too smart for their own good.

Great post. Thank you.

10k SPEES wrote:

Slow in a marathon wrote:

I love how you can tell track guys who who cannot figure out the marathon because they talk think in 400 m splits even on the roads.

Found the triggered slow old guy LOL

Fast track guys don’t run marathons bc they have actual SPEED. Why race for 130 mins when you can race for 2??

Hey, SPEES. Why race for 2 minutes when you can race for 10 seconds? By the way, Yuki has more speed than you in any distance.

Wow, Yuki is a bad MF! I think the focus on Rupp in this thread is a bit misplaced or rubs people the wrong way. It seems like Yuki thought Rupp was one of his hardest opponents (I am sure he considered himself an outsider), and certainly the most predictable.

It is amazing that he did what so many track runners have not been able to do, albeit with massive help of the weather: Find a strategy against the NOP's sit-and-kick. Maybe it's easier to do so in a marathon because it's longer, so you can throw multiple punches and there is more time for mental games (plus more time for external factors to have an impact).

Hats off to Yuki - the level of determination and preparation (flying in from Japan to race in the area in ice-cold weather, running the final stretch three times in a row the week before the race, thinking about how to break an opponent) is amazing!