Jake Riley Has Me Worried.

i think lee troop knows better than most posters here. workouts have seemed solid to me except that last one, but im sure a hill workout in heat during peak mileage is tough to nail.

i really don't understand the obsession with doing "impressive" workouts. aren't we supposed to be against showing off in workouts and subsequently frying your legs/injuring yourself for race day?

i haven't watched this latest tempo video yet, but his other workouts seemed fine to me. and i'm sure he's doing a ton of volume too.

if anything we should be critical of sara hall pushing too hard in her workout. didn't exactly work out for her at the trials did it?

You can crush workouts and have average races or have average workout and crush races.

Why are you worried? He was never going to medal anyway. It’s a rough place to follow up a break out performance. It’s all gravy for him even being in Tokyo - absolutely massive boon to his career. Whatever happens, more important for him to look to get those appearance fees and good top American cash in future marathons. Jake has already come out on top.

Intend to fall in with Mark Coogan. Better to have a string of B+ workouts than a couple of A+ workouts with periods of injury or other garbage workouts. Remember, in most cases, people aren't posting the workouts where they absolutely tank

I see quite the opposite.

Riley is running a lot of volume at altitude

and instead of crushing workouts he is consistently checking off the box for each workout. This will set him up for a better marathon performance than any of his workouts leading up to the race.

A cross country hilly style tempo run that finished with three miles uphill is just as impressive as zipping around a flat track.

If you listened to Lee Troop, he mentioned that he ran faster workouts than Jake, but Jake has accomplished more in his races than Lee did because Lee essentially raced his workouts.

I am a big fan of Sarah Hall, but I couldn’t understand why she raced a 10k 2 weeks before the trials 10k. That race might of cost herself a spot on the women’s Olympic team. The way the race played out was ideal for Hall, but she was out of gas from all of the recent hard efforts.

You should worry, even though you have nothing to do with him and his performances and vice versa.

There are ways you can look like you're aiming to succeed but actually build in reasons for failure when you're afraid of success.

I've been worried as well.

But...in saying that, I don't know what his weekly volume is and I don't know much about his specific sessions, outside of what we've seen here with Sweat Elite.

I will say...he was sick on Monday/Tuesday and still did his workout on Tuesday. So, might just still not be quite 100%.

Lee said that it was spot on what he ran before 2:10-2:11 in Chicago. And, it sounds like he ran the out portion of the tempo faster than normal.

1500>10k wrote:

The workouts he's doing aren't impressive at all. .

Then he's doing something right.

Unimpressive, non fancy sessions are exactly how you prepare to peak for a goal race, particularly the marathon. Sessions are getting more elaborate because there's too many insecure coaches over interfering to make themselves feel important.

I would hardly call this a tempo. The guy was visibly suffering hard on the hills and such. It's questionable if you can have a true tempo on a hard xc-style workout with hills. He clearly went into the well pretty deep.

Lee says don't crush the workout, hold back. Then he proceeds to tell him his course record. The runner is upset he didn't get close to that record. Do we still not know what a tempo actually means?

1500>10k wrote:

Been closing following the Sweat Elite workouts. Genuinely worried about his fitness (despite his coach saying he's crushing training).

The workouts he's doing aren't impressive at all. I see All-American collegia ns do better workouts. Even Sara Hall's threshold session was almost as fast (and it was at higher elevation).

I hope he does well in Tokyo, but he seems massively unprepared. I'd be surprised if breaks 2:12. Maybe he's just a racer and doesn't do well in training?

Discuss.

Are you talking about that long hilly tempo run he did on sweat elite?

These are his last work-outs in a marathon build-up. They are usually not super great work-outs. Any marathoner will tell you that their worst work-outs are usually the last ones in their training cycle. Marathon fitness isn't like shorter events.

BekeleKip wrote:

I would hardly call this a tempo. The guy was visibly suffering hard on the hills and such. It's questionable if you can have a true tempo on a hard xc-style workout with hills. He clearly went into the well pretty deep.

Lee says don't crush the workout, hold back. Then he proceeds to tell him his course record. The runner is upset he didn't get close to that record. Do we still not know what a tempo actually means?

I'll take it on faith (with two significant data points so far) that Lee and Jake know exactly what they're doing over some prattling, literalist LRBF struck with verbal diarrhea.

jonathon wrote:

Are you talking about that long hilly tempo run he did on sweat elite?

These are his last work-outs in a marathon build-up. They are usually not super great work-outs. Any marathoner will tell you that their worst work-outs are usually the last ones in their training cycle. Marathon fitness isn't like shorter events.

I don't actually agree with this, I've run between 2:10-2:15 (don't want to give specifics because I don't like drawing any potential attention to myself) and some of my best workouts ever were at the end of a marathon buildup. Sure, sometimes you don't have a great one, but if you don't have any that somewhat indicate a fast marathon then you should be worried. I'm talking a long effort at or near a good marathon pace. You don't have to be right on, but if you are struggling to run a 10+ mile workout within 10 seconds of your supposed marathon pace then you should be a little bit worried when you're a month or less from the marathon. I do not know what this workout was that the post is about, but it sounds like it was a longer workout and that Jake didn't look great and it was also not very fast. We're in the home stretch here, you should be able to run near marathon pace for these workouts even with all the mileage.

Now to the person saying you'd be surprised if he runs 2:12, look at the weather. He has run 2:10 twice, both on cooler weather days. This is going to be 75 degrees and 80% humidity, he's not going to be anywhere near 2:10, very few people will. If he does somehow run 2:12, he'll probably be around 10th-15th place and I'd call that a solid showing.

He’s not a medal contender so why care? Finishing 4th at the Olympics is no different then 400th. Guys like him play it safe at the Olympics because they know they can’t medal. So they run for top 10 or whatever. Pick up the carnage of those whom bonked going after a medal. Thats exactly what Jared Ward did. He's likely playing it safe in training just like he will play it safe in the race. He’s just happy to be there.

LRC: where knowing what it is that's being discussed is not considered a requirement to chime in with essentially irrelevant anecdotal evidence.

To be charitable, it was a hilly tempo under 8 mi.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z1zjbB5VAQ&t=4s

1500>10k wrote:

Been closing following the Sweat Elite workouts. Genuinely worried about his fitness (despite his coach saying he's crushing training).

The workouts he's doing aren't impressive at all. I see All-American collegia ns do better workouts. Even Sara Hall's threshold session was almost as fast (and it was at higher elevation).

I hope he does well in Tokyo, but he seems massively unprepared. I'd be surprised if breaks 2:12. Maybe he's just a racer and doesn't do well in training?

Discuss.

Maybe he’ll drop out around halfway like other American men’s marathoners have done in the past few olympics. ….

Get a life, dude.

Trucker Hat wrote:

He’s not a medal contender so why care? Finishing 4th at the Olympics is no different then.

Huh?