Why can't Ritz run sub 13?

"knows" not "know," and "his words" not "he words"--my apologies for the typos

No, Ritz won't break 13 and Juan Pierre won't ever lead the league in homers.

Great White Hope wrote:

Seriously Willy, Marius has it right on. There is a huge difference between 13:10 and 13:00 . . . He may have the ability to break 13:00 if he reaches his FULL potential, but he has yet to give any indication that he's capable of it.

No doubt, but dozens of people have dropped from 13:10 to 13:00 in a season or two in their early twenties. Of course it's unlikely that anyone will break 13:00. That's painfully obvious. And it's even more obvious that virtually no one can do it without coming close to their "full potential." But I wouldn't say that he has yet to give ANY indication that he's capable of it. He has managed to get pretty close to the top of his sport despite a rash of injuries. So we don't have to tax our imaginations too much to believe his best days lie ahead.

I predict that he will do it if he has two injury-free seasons in the next three.

6 pages into this discussion, and still no definition of what "talent" is. As someone eloquently pointed out, until Flagpole can define talent in some measurable way, then saying Ritz is more talented than people with PRs 5 seconds either side of his, is nothing more than saying you have a dream for Ritz.

So I'll help the discussion along. Here are some possible definitions of talent

* good natural 400m speed

* high natural endurance. This could be reflected either in untrained speed at lactate threshold being high, or the difference in time between untrained LT and untrained VO2 max being quite small. Or both

* naturally high VO2 max

These things often reveal themselves as "talent" in younger runners who achieve good results on little mileage (good and little all being relative, of course)

However, and I'm not a scientist so I'm open to correction on this, it seems that another component of talent is how much the measures above can be improved by training. That component of talent--ability to improve--would have to include;

* latent ability to improve. It's possible that some people with high natural endurance or speed might actually have relatively less ability to improve those measures with training

* physical ability to handle the training required to maximize speed and endurance.

This last, of course, is what most everyone concedes is Ritz's potential problem, that he gets injured frequently.

Shouldn't some all-encompassing definition of talent include the ability to train and improve basic speed and endurance. Otherwise "talent" is just the fallback for injured losers, and I don't mean "injured losers" pejoratively, I mean it descriptively.

If Ritz has a higher natural lactate threshold than Teg (for example) but can't go over 80 miles a week without getting injured, but Teg has a lower natural threshold than Ritz but can handle 140 miles per week at a good pace and breaks 13:00, who is more talented?

So, Flagpole, in what specific way is Ritz more talented than any of the other American runners with PRs around his?

this is some good trollin FW, 100 posts in a couple of days, between 35-45 are yours. just before the golden gala aswell, nice!

For the record, why does it have to be so black and white, I'll happily conceed it's possible for Ritz to break 13 and I'll be wrapped if he does, but like other people have stated it's an exceedingly tough mark to better, and on the balance of probabilities it is very unlikely that ritz does go on to break it.

Also for the record, Paul Tergat only ran 3.58/3.42 for the mile/1500 and went on to run 12.49 for 5km, sure he's probably the strongest runner in the history of the sport but it is possible without going 3.50 for a mile. (note also that tergat ran 7.28 for 3km!)

Tergat would have been able to run at least 3:52 at his peak, perhaps quicker. 7:28 is 3:44 twice. 3:42 was NOT his limit.

And 6 pages into this discussion we have still not had an admission from FW that one of his MAIN points on why Ritz can break 13:00 (hell, he thinks he'll run 12:50 "for sure") WAS FLAT-OUT WRONG.

This is deja vu for me. Last year (can't find the thread), FW went on and on saying how Ritz was more taleneted than Kennedy and he backed up this "matter of fact" (for him at least) by saying that Ritz has run faster 5k's than Kennedy at a younger age. And repeats those "facts" again here. Of course it wasn't true then, and it STILL isn't true. But FW doesn't want to acknowledge his misstatements I guess. He just plugs on with other points that have little basis in reality.

I agree with you 100%. The single most important quality of "talent" is the "training threshhold." How many increases in training stimulus/load and punishment can one's body absorb and a) remain healthy, and B) translate that increased training load (of quality and quantity) into improved perfomance/a stronger athlete.

THAT is the most important aspect of talent. And it remains to be seen where Ritz's training threshhold lies. He gets hurt a lot, and has had periods of stagnation. He has already been training at a high level for many years. Can he up the load and keep getting better and better??? THAT is the question. His 13:16 was a breakthrough that shows lots of promise that he can indeed take it to a new level. But remember, right now, he has only achieved the level of former HS rivals Hall, Tegenkamp, and Dobson. He's still got a way to go to think about sub 13:10. And Sub 13:00 ???? 12:50????????? Now those times would take huge increases in training load. I don't think he has the natural resiliency and training threshhold to absorb such punishment and get a lot faster. We will see.

But I will take Marius' opinion of FW's any day of the week: no sub 13:00 for Ritz.

(and for

Flagpole,

I think Ritz is one of the toughest American distance runners. He has proven this since he was in Highschool, by challenging records and winning races. However, I believe this has come mostly from his passion and dedication to put in the very hard running required to run and race at a high level. His inability to avoid injury while training at high speed intensities shows me that he is lacking running economy. It doesn't appear that he will be capable of training at the intensity needed to break 13 minutes. I do wish him the best of luck if he makes an attempt to prove me wrong. I was in the race that he ran his personal best 1500m, so I have witnessed his abilities firsthand. BTW- I was just ahead of him in around 3:42.xx.

Would you suggest Ritz spend some time learning about the Pose method to improve his economoy and possibly break 13 minutes Mr. Huffman?

You guys need to realize that Flagpole Willy is an *extremely* talented troll. There are other trolls out there, myself included, who have our own trolling styles. But I can only aspire to reach the trolling heights of Flagpole Willy. He is capable of dragging posters through pointless discussions for days.

Flagpole's MO is to comment on a topic on which there will be much interest. His post will usually be fairly well-written (i.e., it won't contain glaring spelling or grammar errors), but he will be sure to include a couple of huge logic holes. When other posters take the bait by exploiting his flawed logic, Flagpole then responds to everything except the strong points, acting as if he never made the logical errors in the first place. This further infuriates the other posters, and the cycle continues. Eventually, the other posters grow weary and Flagpole eventually "wins" the debate through a sort of mind-numbing attrition.

What makes Flagpole Willy a great troll--as opposed to just a very good troll--is that he will start a new topic with the exact same approach, sometimes just hours later, and still manage to sucker dozens of posters into an absurd argument. Even more remarkable, many of the same posters who "argued" with him on an earlier topic will take up this quixotic quest anew even though they must know, on some level, that Flagpole is a troll.

We are in the presence of greatness. Let's not take it for granted.

I bow down to the Flag Troll.

You give me too much credit. I am NOT a troll and do not post the way I do for trolling purposes. Trust me though that so many of you are so emotional that I could wrap you around my finger if I wanted to, but this is not a game I play. I love track and cross country and have since I was a little kid. I'm a former decent high school, college and local runner, and I still love the sport.

Was I a troll when I said Aish would only run 2:19 at Chicago in his debut and everyone and their brother told me I was a dumbass that a 28 flat 10,000 runner like Aish should run 2:11-2:12 on a fast course like Chicago? (Aish then ran 2:19:12). Many of you said I was full of it then.

Was I a troll when I said Warhurst was full of it for bad mouthing Webb and that Webb would by now run sub 3:50 for the mile when many of you said Webb was washed up and just a high school phenom who would NEVER run faster than his HS mile PR? Many of you said I was full of it then.

Was I a troll when I said Kennedy's 10,000 meter PR against Ritz in 2004 in Palo Alto was likely his last decent race?

Was I a troll when I said an unfit Ritz would win the NCAA CC championships and that if it came down to a kick against Hall that Ritz had the strength in a CC race to outkick him? Many of you said I was full of it then.

Sure I've been wrong about some things. Webb beat Ritz in a 10,000 meter race (by a second) when I said he wouldn't. Big deal. Unfortunately since Ritz may take 2-3 years to get below 13:00, we'll have to have this discussion all the way until when he does it.

Just be patient and keep waiting. It will happen.

A broken clock is right twice a day. If you throw enough shit against a wall something will stick. You've been wrong more than you've been right and you only bring up the things you are right on. If I take 10 athletes and make 3-4 predictions for each I will undoubtedly come back with at least 10 correct predictions.

Flagpole, you're not a prophet. You've said a LOT of stupid shit and you continue to do so. Stop pretending you know what the hell you're talking about.

I feel as though an athlete has to be around 3:55 miler to break 13:00. Obviously that makes Webb the most likely in our young group (Teg is close, 3:56), (Goucher is close?), Ritz is a bit away from that, but has superior 10k time. Dobson, Hall, Broe, are all possibilities, but most likely only 1 or 2 will realistically reach that very tough level!

webby wrote:

No doubt, but dozens of people have dropped from 13:10 to 13:00 in a season or two in their early twenties.

See, this is exactly what I mean when I say that not many on this board seems to grasp how difficult and rare breaking 13:00 is. "webby" says that dozens of guys have dropped from 13:10 to sub-13 in a season or two. 51 guys have ever ran sub 13. 51! Of the 51, the list has a Baumann, a Boulami, and a Mourhit. So we can reduce the list to a "clean" 48. Out of that 48, ~32 ran a sub-13 under the age of 25. (Ritz will be 25 at the end of this year.) So, there were ~16 clean guys who hadn't run sub-13 at Ritz's age and did so in the following seasons. Not dozens, not even 1 1/2 dozen. 16.

Either you all know something about Ritz that isn't apparent, or you're all just fooling yourselves.

Gaze wrote:

Thanks for the wonderful list. And just for the sake of completeness, you need to add Ritz's 27:45.xx at Hengelo.[quote]malmo wrote:

Thanks. I'll try to keep the data up to date.

Mtn Dew wrote:

A broken clock is right twice a day. If you throw enough shit against a wall something will stick. You've been wrong more than you've been right and you only bring up the things you are right on. If I take 10 athletes and make 3-4 predictions for each I will undoubtedly come back with at least 10 correct predictions.

Flagpole, you're not a prophet. You've said a LOT of stupid shit and you continue to do so. Stop pretending you know what the hell you're talking about.

Mtn Dew,

1) I don't make enough predictions for your analogy to work. I make very few predictions actually, and the VAST majority of them are right on the money.

2) I never said I was a prophet, and there's no need for me to pretend that I know what I'm talking about. The facts show that the vast majority of the time my predictions are right (and I don't make easy ones like Stanford will win the team race). Even in that 10,000 race when I said Webb wouldn't beat Ritz (although actually I said that a year before, not leading up to the race, but I'm splitting hairs there) I said worse case for Ritz was a PR of 27:35. Remind me what he ran again...

Jhuffman wrote:

BTW- I was just ahead of him in around 3:42.xx.

I'd like to see you beat Ritz in a 1500 these days.

Silverback wrote:

webby wrote:

...(Ritz will be 25 at the end of this year....)

Either you all know something about Ritz that isn't apparent, or you're all just fooling yourselves.

The Ritzmeister is 23, he will turn 24 at the end of this year.