I reallyyyy love how Dathan is giving us an “old school” feel with these guys who actually RACE often. It’s so refreshing. Like, they’re not overraced, they just do more than twice per season and use their races strategically (also as training & tactics work).
I reallyyyy love how Dathan is giving us an “old school” feel with these guys who actually RACE often. It’s so refreshing. Like, they’re not overraced, they just do more than twice per season and use their races strategically (also as training & tactics work).
Dathan has a different philosophy than Jerry. Marc Scott could’ve been in a scorching fast Rome race or this one, but he instead was in the B heat in Portland racing Woody and nobody else with both running 25 seconds off their PBs. That followed up running a promotional 1500 with guys chasing the standard at Pre instead of running the 5k…Is that valuable experience?
It seems like the athletes have some say with Mo Ahmed in particular actually trying to take on the world’s best in his event at the big meets. I’d like more of the athletes being assertive, and I hope we’ll see a lot of racing on the DL circuit after Worlds.
That's a good point on Ahmed, he travels to race so much more than others in the group. I wonder if he's on a different contract as a Canadian. Could be he's more incentivized to run in competitive meets as opposed to just making the national aide (which is a given for him). Or it could be that he's just older, more experienced, and more assertive than the younger athletes. I'd certainly like to see Scott running in some more competitive races. He's at his peak and would get discretionary selections for the GB team so doesn't need to compete in the trials. He could prioritise DLs - and he must be able to get an invite if people like Sam Atkin are getting in there.
I’m still undecided on whether or not Dathan is as good of a coach as people give him credit for. Klecker, Monson and Hoare are immensely talented. So is Beamish. Beamish had a few good runs indoors but has been up and down. Perhaps that is due to his low training volume and injury history. Hurta is killing it as well.
Villareal was chronically injured and recently retired. Cardama Baez has struggled a bit as well. McDonald is still coming back from injuries but is also immensely talented and it remains to be seen what form he’ll return to (he seems fit and will likely PR at the end of the season, though). The rest of the women’s team struggled last year and a few of them left the team.
What Jerry has done with some athletes is pretty crazy. Fraser running 14:48 indoors, Kincaid sub-13 and U.S. champ. Ritz hasn’t done anything like that yet. Ritz has, however, coaches athletes from an 800 specialist to the 10,000m runners. Jerry’s athletes that have run fast 8’s and 15’s were just a result of his normal training whereas Ritz customizes the training more.
It’ll be interesting to see how Dathan does with future athletes.
Unfortunately, when I think about Jerry’s group, I think potential PED use.
What Jerry has done with some athletes is pretty crazy. Fraser running 14:48 indoors, Kincaid sub-13 and U.S. champ. Ritz hasn’t done anything like that yet. Ritz has, however, coaches athletes from an 800 specialist to the 10,000m runners. Jerry’s athletes that have run fast 8’s and 15’s were just a result of his normal training whereas Ritz customizes the training more.
It’ll be interesting to see how Dathan does with future athletes.
Jerry's athletes have received burrito benefits.
Plenty of US runners eating burritos. Not just Jerry. Especially those that come out of nowhere in the 1500 and 5k to be in the top 3 last year. To the Gills!
I’m still undecided on whether or not Dathan is as good of a coach as people give him credit for. Klecker, Monson and Hoare are immensely talented. So is Beamish. Beamish had a few good runs indoors but has been up and down. Perhaps that is due to his low training volume and injury history. Hurta is killing it as well.
Villareal was chronically injured and recently retired. Cardama Baez has struggled a bit as well. McDonald is still coming back from injuries but is also immensely talented and it remains to be seen what form he’ll return to (he seems fit and will likely PR at the end of the season, though). The rest of the women’s team struggled last year and a few of them left the team.
What Jerry has done with some athletes is pretty crazy. Fraser running 14:48 indoors, Kincaid sub-13 and U.S. champ. Ritz hasn’t done anything like that yet. Ritz has, however, coaches athletes from an 800 specialist to the 10,000m runners. Jerry’s athletes that have run fast 8’s and 15’s were just a result of his normal training whereas Ritz customizes the training more.
It’ll be interesting to see how Dathan does with future athletes.
Unfortunately, when I think about Jerry’s group, I think potential PED use.
When I think of some of the out of the blue performances last year by certain US non-BTC runners I think the same. Totally sus.
I’m still undecided on whether or not Dathan is as good of a coach as people give him credit for. Klecker, Monson and Hoare are immensely talented. So is Beamish. Beamish had a few good runs indoors but has been up and down. Perhaps that is due to his low training volume and injury history. Hurta is killing it as well.
Villareal was chronically injured and recently retired. Cardama Baez has struggled a bit as well. McDonald is still coming back from injuries but is also immensely talented and it remains to be seen what form he’ll return to (he seems fit and will likely PR at the end of the season, though). The rest of the women’s team struggled last year and a few of them left the team.
What Jerry has done with some athletes is pretty crazy. Fraser running 14:48 indoors, Kincaid sub-13 and U.S. champ. Ritz hasn’t done anything like that yet. Ritz has, however, coaches athletes from an 800 specialist to the 10,000m runners. Jerry’s athletes that have run fast 8’s and 15’s were just a result of his normal training whereas Ritz customizes the training more.
It’ll be interesting to see how Dathan does with future athletes.
Nico Young and Ceili McCabe would be interesting challenges for Ritz.
Drew Hunter would be another good one but Hes locked in with addidas.
I feel like Jerry's biggest flaw is that he sees racing and training as being zero-sum (aka if you do too many races, you're not going to be training well). And this may very well be true for his approach (which emphasizes volume heavily). Lots of people used to revere Jerry for how mysterious and ascetic his program was. But this only works if you have athletes who are both immensely talented and incredibly durable. It didn't work, for example, for German Fernandez (who might be the most talented athlete to go to the group).
But Dathan has done a fantastic job at integrating races strategically into training, working with injury prone runners to get the most out of them (Geordie Beamish now running well), and creating a bigger connection between fans of the sport who get to see people they like racing, instead of hiding from the camera, training all the time, and being one of the biggest hermits in the sport.
I'm excited for the future because it is going to look more like OAC than it will BTC.
I feel like Jerry's biggest flaw is that he sees racing and training as being zero-sum (aka if you do too many races, you're not going to be training well). And this may very well be true for his approach (which emphasizes volume heavily). Lots of people used to revere Jerry for how mysterious and ascetic his program was. But this only works if you have athletes who are both immensely talented and incredibly durable. It didn't work, for example, for German Fernandez (who might be the most talented athlete to go to the group).
But Dathan has done a fantastic job at integrating races strategically into training, working with injury prone runners to get the most out of them (Geordie Beamish now running well), and creating a bigger connection between fans of the sport who get to see people they like racing, instead of hiding from the camera, training all the time, and being one of the biggest hermits in the sport.
I'm excited for the future because it is going to look more like OAC than it will BTC.
Until BTC starts operating with transparency across the board and puts up times against actual competition like they do in their time trials, they're all cheaters in my book.
There's absolutely no reason to duck DL meets (with prize money on the line) for a random meet at a high school where they're definitely not getting tested. Unless of course, they don't want to be tested.
Plenty of US runners eating burritos. Not just Jerry. Especially those that come out of nowhere in the 1500 and 5k to be in the top 3 last year. To the Gills!
There is nothing wrong with eating burritos. To add: I have never heard of gills!
To have an American record be ratified you need to be drug tested. Similarly with other counties (ie. Canada) there needs to be drug testing at the meet. So ya there would have been drug testing at The Ten.
Any meets that are on the WA continental tour need to have drug testing, which includes Portland Track Festival.
just try to understand some basic things about the sport before bashing BTC.