Why was Ritz so wrong with his prediction for Joe Klecker's 13.1?

Seems Klecker had an off day.

I know he expected to challenge the American record that day

The shoes help workouts more than races. The training load from doing the same sessions with shoes or no shoes is not the same.

Oh and Ritz is not a good coach.

it seems like in running we have this expectation that "W miles + X intervals + Y long runs = Z race performance", that the training you do "earns" a specific race performane. Interesting how 2 different athletes can do the same training and have very different results.

Conversly, interesting how 2 different athletes can train differently then end up with very similar performances (ie pace pusher Mantz and cruiser Young)

Yes! I think Dathan is a fantastic coach for Morgan!

I think he is a horrid coach for poor Joe :(

Just like with any of us, there are lots of factors. It was Joe's first race in more than 6 months. Maybe he left his race in his workouts. Is this a Ritz thing? Ironically, it's often a fear with Mantz. Maybe there was a mental letdown when he realized he couldn't go with the lead group pretty much from the gun.

Generally his athletes are ready to race when it's time to race, this is an exception as far as i remember. There are plenty of reasons he could've run so much slower though. The weather wasn't ideal, he had a bad day, losing some of his mental edge when he realized it wasn't gonna be a great day, plus it was his debut and first race in like 6 months.

I think Olli Hoare said he learned from his college coach that in any given race, 1/3 of the field will have a great day, 1/3 will have an ok day, and 1/3 will have a bad day, compared to their pbs and their training. I also keep that in mind whenever someone has a performance way below what I/they were expecting.

And even past that, Clayton Young literally trains with Mantz and has the same coach, and plenty of people thought he'd break it since Mantz picked up an injury a few weeks before, but Young only ran 60:52. But no one is asking why Eyestone was so off on him, because Mantz running well overshadows it. Fwiw on the LRC pod Mantz said he talked to Clayton after the race and he said he just knew he didn't have it that day.

Klecker's workouts really were not that crazy. I'm sure guys like Andrew Colley and Alex Maier were doing similar workouts.

also sorry for pulling this card but has anyone over 150-155 ever broken 60:30

Klecker trains harder than he races. The fact the Ritz hasn’t recognized this or reined it in is beyond me. In 2020 Ritz said that Klecker was doing workouts that were comparable to when Ritz ran 12:56. Klecker had a good year but only ran like 13:05. It wasn’t until two years later that he ran 12:55, IIRC.

Another poster said that OAC athletes are usually ready when it counts. I disagree. In fact, that’s been a recent criticism of Ritz - that he hasn’t figured out how to peak his athletes.

I follow Mantz and Joe on Strava and not only does mantz put in more miles in 6 days than Joe does in 7, the quality is much higher. Joe did lots of “workouts” that seemed to be his marathon pace.

No surprises here.

being capable of running x time and actually running x time are very different things. Performing on the day required is the hardest thing about the sport.

As others have noted it was his first race in a long time after an injury. It was also his first half marathon. With that context I don't find it surprising that it wasn't his best race.

I also find it interesting that threads about Klecker seem to be about evenly split between people who think he trains way too hard and people who think his workouts are not impressive. I suppose lots of opinions are to be expected on a pro runner who is so transparent about his training though. All I'll say on that is if you followed both Klecker and Mantz on Strava and had to pick just one of them to get the record based solely on their training, I think it would have been a very easy choice.

Ritz is a big marketing PR guy. Works up his athletes before major competitions with videos and interviews that all blow up in his face. Bottom line is he’s extremely full of himself

Or maybe he just isn’t as good as people thought

There have been some internal rumblings about not being happy with the team and his approach and attitude. As you may surmise it’s from the few not performing as expected.

Like many coaches, Ritz doesn't get it right all the time. Remember Monson's underperformance at Eugene 22? She recovered, regrouped and started rolling not long after. No reason Klecker can't do the same.

His wife underachieves, why shouldn't Joe?