Ritz should train to become the oldest person to break 4 for the first time

Kenny B has never officially broken 4, could probably do it in his sleep, is not actually retired yet, and he is older than ritz.

idc I'm still waiting for him to get another shot at the marathon WR, he can go for the mile after that tho

OP: fun idea for a former great who is still directly involved with the sport and it’s athletes.

You: more of the incessant bashing from has-beens and never-weres that the actual fans of the sport and its athletes must endure when coming on this silly little board.

1) peak ritz would’ve struggled (did struggle) to break 4. Zero chance now.

2) he wasn’t running that fast in the video. It’s an indoor track. So starting to 100m line are only 55m apart. Even if he ran a perfect square of infield, it would only be out 116 meters. He ran 900 ish meters.

Sub 4 ain't happening, but I bet if he had sufficient motivation he could be up there with the women he coaches in short order. Would be pretty fun and good for team morale if he hopped in with them during one of these time trials.

Hard for me to name a team this easy to root for that gives us the level of access that OAC does. Not just in running but sports period. Seems like a great group they've put together

Bad idea You should be embarrassed for posting such nonsense.

Ritz ran 3:42.99 as a freshman in college, not in his peak

12:56 Ritz is easily a 3:55 man at least

FWIW Ritz still trains. I was listening to a podcast recently (cant remember if it was Sweat Elite, someone interviewing Stinson, or something else, but whatever) and someone mentioned doing their SLR with him and then doing a workout with him the following week [recently] - didn't say what shape he was in and the tone was more that it was just recreational as opposed to anything serious, point is, he still trains

Interesting stat for Kenny Bednarek

Bekele ran 3:32 & 4:49 for 2k. His 5k is also basically 4:00 mile pace.

Ritz's 3:42 puts him right there.

WAS easily a 3:55 man. Quit this garbage talk about him breaking 4 now. 12:56 was THEN, not NOW.

I'd bet a large sum amount of money that he couldn't do it. With age you lose the speed, and even in the longer stuff 3-4 years ago in the marathon he wasn't running great, and now he's a few years older and hasn't even been training. No way he would be able to run sub 4 a year from now. It's been a decade since he ran track races, and even then in his last track season he was probably 'only' in 3:56 shape. He's too far removed from it to ever run sub 4.

Kenny B ran 7:25.7 for 3k. That is and average of sub-59.5 second laps for 7.5 laps. I without looking up the actual splits I think we can credit him with an in-route sub4. His 3:32 1500 also indicates such.

It was awesome watching Ritz to be so invested with his athletes. I think that he would care more about his athletes breaking a record than himself breaking the 4-minute mile. I hope the best for the best results for Dathan and his athletes. I hope they all set the world a fire with awesome achievements! The team seems to like to have fun being their goofy selves while training hard and racing hard! They seem real in my humble opinion. Ritz would move heaven and Earth to get his athletes to run fast, and to win races, so he likely is studying all past and current coaching philosophies to find a training and racing edge. He is a good coach and I hope becomes one the best coaches ever! I hope that I am alive to see the 60-to-70-year-old coach Ritz. He'll likely still be running the track infield to cheer his athletes.

If you run sub-4 pace for more than a mile, then it is a mathematical necessity that there is a 1-mile interval in there that was sub-4. Now if you want to be pedantic about the rules, it should be the first mile to account for a standing start.

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Dathan RITZENHEIN | Profile | World Athletics

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He ran 8:11/2 mile which points to 3:56.00 at least for the mile. Might have ran as low as 3:52.00 -3:54.00 had he focused on the event. When you see guys like Bob Tahri running 3:32 at the end of his career, recognizing that Bob was no speed merchant, also reinforces this idea. Ritz's 12:56/5000 points to 3:32-3:36/1500.

Does anyone actually know the current record for this (oldest first-time sub-4)?

Your post makes no sense. Peach Pit is both the OP you are praising and the poster your are bashing. Reading is hard I guess.

Ritzenhein could run 30 minutes for 10k tomorrow off moderate running 4-5 times per week. He's that talented. That said, his hamstrings would probably rip off his pelvis if he tried to run one let alone four 60s.