I don't think he is done. I saw him run today and he looked relaxed. NY is a tuff course. Let's see how he does in London.
Tuff?
The course has a lot of hills especially on 7th Ave which just goes straight up for almost two miles. When you get inside central park there is a gradual incline that goes on before you hit the downhill before the finish.
He looked pretty dejected. I saw a lot of soul searching in that video. London will be make or break for him. If he doesn't qualify, he might call it a day. Still the GOAT.
He had stomach issues, so did well to be able to run only a few minutes off his marathon pace. If someone in 3 hour shape had a bad stomach they would be lucky to be able to run a 93 minute half mary. He would of easily won otherwise. Hills wouldn't be an issue for him. I'm sure he will run another WR in London. He has a full month and can do a lot in that time. Nobody cares about New York. It is a dumb race anyway.
I think he had the flu during his Valencia training where he blew the doors off the WR. If he ran a half mary during the training for that race you would of been saying that he would do badly in Valencia
what was savage about it? if you think "you didn't start very fast" is savage no wonder we have so much over-moderation on these boards with mindsets like that.
I am a "bit" worried about this performance, but not sure if the course is a bit slow? On the other hand Reed Fischer beat him and to be honest, that shouldn't happen. It's not that long since Bekele ran 2:04 at Valencia so his shape shouldn't be totally off... In the interview after the race it seemed like Bekele was very disapointed (my interpretation), but he also mentioned bad sleep and stomach issues... I feel like he has used that one before.
He also stated that "I need more preparation" several times, so he knows that he needs to work much harder... The Olympic team seems far away, unless he does a top5 and/or a fast time at London..
that's the problem with aging though, the inconsistency. it's not that he can't put up a good performance in London, but the chances that he runs a sub-par race or DNFs has increased (especially given the performance today IMO). plus he's already shown himself to be a relatively inconsistent marathoner lately (though of course still capable of great things, cc: Valencia)
as a master's runner, he's probably already having to work harder than before to get the same results but it's a catch-22 bc the body loses the capacity to hit that top level of training consistently so often results from tune-up races like yesterday decrease even further (in his prime he would be able to get the same result with less training)...
hoping for the best in the U.K. in April
incosistency makes the selectors for national teams nervous (see the debate about whether Kipchoge himself will be selected for this summer, of course maybe Ethiopia will try something different since Tokyo's team all raced super close to the actual Olympics to make the team on short notice iirc and then all 3 proceeded to DNF)
I don't think he is done. I saw him run today and he looked relaxed. NY is a tuff course. Let's see how he does in London.
Like you, holding off until next month. Where do you think he has to finish there to get the Ethiopian selectors’ nod?
Definitely has to be in the top three in London to have a chance at getting selected, or at least run a good time. If not the chances of him getting selected are slim.
what was savage about it? if you think "you didn't start very fast" is savage no wonder we have so much over-moderation on these boards with mindsets like that.
"Did you hope to run faster?"
No, I'm sure he was hoping for 1:05 but was delighted on the day
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