Ryan Hall's Performance The (fill in the blank) Best American Performance EVER

Ryan Hall's great Half Marathon performance reminds me alot of Bill (or as he was called then 'Will') Rodgers 2:09:55 AR,CR at Boston in 1975. (We saw a glimpse of Bill's talent in the World X-c's a month earlier with a 3rd place finish. Americans just didn't do that well at this event.) Bill's 2:09:55 sent shock-waves through the national and international running communities! An American, other than Shorter, winning an internationally famous marathon in 2:09??!! Like Hall's brilliant run, he pulled quite a few other Americans to PRs. Along with Shorter at Munich and Fukuoka, Rodgers began a wave of American distance dominance that lasted into the early '80s.Watch for young upstarts like Andrew Carlson and Jason Lehmkuhle, Hanson guys, and others to pop some great Marathons. Are they guaranteed success at the marathon? Certainly not, but this Half Marathon performace in Houston, along with Meb's success and experience could usher in a new age of American distance excellence. Can they compete with Kenyans and Ethiopians ("A" teams) in the near future? This race indicates that they can!!

Steve -- Agreed, I thought of BR's '75 Boston race as well. The other one that occurred to me, though, was Bob Kennedy breaking 13:00 in the 5K. In each case, someone took the AR through a barrier (2:10 for BR, 13:00 for Kennedy, 1:00:00 for Hall). But BR, along with Shorter, opened a floodgate of Americans running fast, whereas Kennedy remained pretty much the sole American in the early 90's with a credible track time above the mile. I hope others look at Hall (and Deena and Meb and all the sub-27:45 10K runners and sub-2:12 marathoners we've been turning out) and keep at it.

One corollary reason I'm a bit more optimistic (but only a small bit) now than I was in the early 90's -- I think the drug testing has a chance of being seen as a wee bit more effective over the next decade than it was in the late 90's. I'd rather not open the old "everyone is on drugs" debate, but just the perception that testing has improved will give more people hope they can work and succeed. And if we see folks doing well in major championships with credentials around 13:00 5K or 3:48/3:30 mile/1500 or 27:00 10k, then that would be some reason to think things are improving.

KK=American citizen. But not American. How can you compare? If Bekele wanted to "change" his citizenship does that then mean when the next time he breaks his 5k and 10k world records it should be considered an American record? I'd like to see how many people agree...

Spider, yes, Kennedy's SUB-13 5k was an incredible break-through for U.S. distance. It's unfortunate that the "wave" did not follow! I have a gut feeling that this IS definitely the beginnings of an American resurgence in international distance running. I think that the biggest thing going on right now is getting back to the TEAM/CLUB training concept that existed here in the seventies through early eighties. Teams like GREATER BOSTON and FLORIDA TC are the obvious ones that come to mind, helping to make greater runners such as BR, Hodge, Thomas, Vinny Fleming,and of course Shorter, Bacheler, Galloway, Misner, Barry Brown, etc, etc. These guys were good to begin with, but the club atmosphere made them alot better! In Minnesota, we had the Twin Cities Track Club with Ron Daws as our guru. We all trained harder and ran faster because of the group effect. There were other lesser-known clubs like ours that existed and produced some very good runners. No financial rewards at all; the common goal was for EVERYONE to improve times, (usually at the marathon.)

Team USA and the Hansons are on the right track, and we are seeing the results. Here in Minnesota, there is a great training environment, and Carlson, Lehmkuhle, Gabrielsen, and others are seeing great improvements. On the women's side, Carrie Tollefson, Katie McGregor and others are thriving under this concept. It's really 1970s training taken to the next level, with a little more structure, science and money thrown in.

Ryan Hall's performance was AWESOME! If this were Saturday Night Live, it would be: Ryan Hall 127, Ditka and da Bears 2 1/2!!

Steve Hoag wrote:

Ryan Hall's performance was AWESOME! If this were Saturday Night Live, it would be: Ryan Hall 127, Ditka and da Bears 2 1/2!!

Have to derail you on this one brother. Ditka can beat a tornado and a hurricane. Ryan Hall can't do that.

Ditka vs. a tornado?...Ditka.

Ditka vs. a hurricane?...Ditka.

Ditka vs. Ryan Hall?...DITKA!

Flagpole Willy wrote:

True. This is why I say he has a real shot at beating a HEALTHY Ritzenhein. As stellar as this performance of Hall's was, Ritz is still a GREAT CC runner, and even if Hall ends u being overall a better runner, Ritz may still compete with him at CC.

I don't think that Ritz is done progressing though. He'll probably use this race of Hall's as motivation. Looks like Webb, Ritz, Tegenkamp and Hall are all continuing to progress. Tegenkamp and Hall have progressed leaps and bounds the last year though. Hopefully Ritz will do the same in the near future.

Ritz is quite young and has a ton of upside if he can get a stretch of consistent training, which I believe he had leading up to NYC. He is an immense talent and has an eventual shot at the AR in the 10k if it isn't lowered by the time he gets there. Nevertheless, Hall has established himself as the man to beat with his range. This seemingly amazing half that he ran merely confirmed that his breakaway performance last year at xc nationals was no fluke. Even a healthy and fit Ritz would not have touched him that day.

100

Spider wrote:

I'd rather not open the old "everyone is on drugs" debate, BUT........... if we see folks doing well in major championships with credentials around 13:00 5K or 3:48/3:30 mile/1500 or 27:00 10k, then that would be some reason to think things are improving.

So, you don't want a debate that "everyone" (meaning the best of the best, meaning the East and North Africans) is on drugs, you just want to insinuate that probably everyone was. Interesting........

So Hall and Teg come from NOWHERE (I'm talking about their college years. Hall had ONE truly oustanding race in college) to running near 13:00 (Teg) and a near top 10 ten all time 1/2 marathon in a debut(Hall), and talk of breaking 13:00 and 27:00 for both of them......and you assume that they are clearly clean. But those East Africans and their "hard-to-believe" sub 27's and sub 12:55's.......THOSE peformers must be dirty, right

Did I read between the lines correctly?

SIr Lance-alot wrote:

So, you don't want a debate that "everyone" (meaning the best of the best, meaning the East and North Africans) is on drugs, you just want to insinuate that probably everyone was. Interesting........

So Hall and Teg come from NOWHERE (I'm talking about their college years. Hall had ONE truly oustanding race in college) to running near 13:00 (Teg) and a near top 10 ten all time 1/2 marathon in a debut(Hall), and talk of breaking 13:00 and 27:00 for both of them......and you assume that they are clearly clean. But those East Africans and their "hard-to-believe" sub 27's and sub 12:55's.......THOSE peformers must be dirty, right

Did I read between the lines correctly?

I don't know about other people, but I have no trouble whatsoever believing the africans can run 12:50's clean. In fact, I have no trouble believing that the very best of the best can run low 12:40's clean. I do, however, start to doubt the legitimacy of people when they start running 12:3x and faster. Hall is clean. Teg is clean. Webb is clean... those guys aren't THAT spectacular.

I agree. Hall is clean. He's a Christian and those people are usually pretty clean.

No love for Hall in this pre-race write up....

Other Sports

Jan. 7, 2007, 3:06AM

A look at top half-marathon runners

By DALE ROBERTSON

Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

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The sixth annual Aramco Houston Half Marathon will serve as the U.S. championship event for women and men. The top runners:

Men

• Meb Keflezighi, 31: At the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Keflezighi became the first American man since Frank Shorter in 1976 to win an Olympic medal in the men's marathon, taking the silver in 2:11:29. He followed up with a second-place finish at the New York City Marathon in November with a personal-best time of 2:09:53, good for the highest men's finish in New York since 1993. Born in Eritrea as one of 11 children, Keflezighi (pronounced Ka-FLEZ-gee) and his family moved to San Diego in 1987. He became an American citizen in 1998.

• Brian Sell, 28: A self-proclaimed "redneck who likes to run" from Woodbury, Pa., he's the reigning U.S. champion after finishing in a personal best of 1:02:39 here last year. At the World Marathon Championships in 2006, his time of 2:13:27 was the best by an American at the event. He also helped Team USA place fourth in the accompanying 11th World Marathon Cup.

• Dan Browne, 31: The West Point grad lost the 2004 Houston half-marathon by less than half a second in a controversial finish but returned in 2005 to claim the U.S. half-marathon title for a second time. He missed last year's race because of an injury. A native of the Portland, Ore., area, Browne has won U.S. championships at almost every long distance.

• Ryan Shay, 27: A former Notre Dame runner who took the NCAA 10,000-meter title in 2001, he won the 2003 and '04 U.S. half-marathon titles, sandwiched between Browne's two championships. He also won the 2003 U.S. marathon title and the 20K title in 2004. A Michigan native, Shay has trained with Keflezighi on Team USA California.

SIr Lance-alot wrote:

Did I read between the lines correctly?

________________

Not really. I was speaking to the issue of why BR/Shorter seemed to be followed by a flood of excellent American distance runners, whereas Bob Kennedy's achievement seemed free of any similar coattails. I think in the mid-90's a fair number of good runners perceived, rightly or wrongly, that it was going to be difficult to compete at the highest levels because the drug question seemed only likely to get worse. And consequently, fewer runners commited themselves to the manic 4-5 year effort to reach that level. There were sundry other reasons too, among them a lack of teams/clubs and also monetary support that was still pretty thin relative to American cost of living. But my assertion was that a young runner may now believe (again, rightly or wrongly) that a drug-free athlete has a better chance now than in the 90's.

For what it is worth, I have no reason to believe the runners discussed here or their contemporaries in East Africa (and Japan and Mexico and Spain and Russia and other countries producing top-rate marathoners) are anything but clean. I am thrilled to pieces by Ryan's performance. Watching it on the video, he is one of the smoothest taller runners I have seen since Viren.

IAAF scoring tables are useless when comparing most top level times and records. They are what they are, nothing else.

Spider wrote:

I was speaking to the issue of why BR/Shorter seemed to be followed by a flood of excellent American distance runners, whereas Bob Kennedy's achievement seemed free of any similar coattails ... fewer runners commited themselves to the manic 4-5 year effort to reach that level.

The Shorter/Rodgers years were characterized by the masses running a lot more mileage. Serious marathons and other regular long road races were in; road 5ks and marathon walk/jogs were not. Boston was the biggie; nearly every American from 2:09 to 2:45 wanted to run it and PR there. One hundred miles per week was standard fare, not "out there." Even high schoolers were doing that much and post-college roadies were doing more. And it wasn't a bunch of jogging; people trained their butts off. Media influences reflected the training trends of the day. But this kind of running became a lost art and nearly disappeared for awhile in America. The last of the old-school sub-28:00 holdovers, Bickford, Eyestone, Nenow, Sandoval, et al, exited the stage in the middle or late 1980s. Sixty miles per week with "VO2max work" was all you supposedly needed. Track was in. Road racing, except for the occasional local 5k that could be won in 15:20-16:00, was out. By the 1990s, fewer people found success. Fewer people cared. There weren't enough runners at that time who knew how to make a proper commitment to running even if they wanted to.

But there are a lot more now. The internet has brought access to the knowledge base America's heyday was built on and has created a huge, enthusiatic virtual running club. The high schoolers of the early internet days in the very late 1990s began bringing the high school depth charts back to 1970s levels, they went to college in the early 2000s and continue to make college running the best it has ever been, and now some of them are out there sticking with it because they have a reason to. The difference between the 1990s and now is that more of today's runners have found the joy of training like runners should, more have had success through that training, more have had a virtual support group along the way, more see hope and more know what they have to do to keep it going. They know they have to run like the 1970s animals used to run, like the only world class long-distance Americans of the 1990s (Williams, Kennedy, Lawson, Morris) ran, like Ryan Hall, Brian Sell and Alan Culpepper run - lots and lots of mileage, some strong, long tempo running, and a good amount of old-fashioned, butt-busting hard work. They also have a lot of perks these days and can use heart rate monitors, pace charts, core strength work, recovery drinks and can apply as much theoretical science as they like, but they should never think those things will replace old-school running or will be shortcuts to success.

SIr Lance-alot wrote:

Did I read between the lines correctly?

well Sir, I am amazed that this thread isn't littered with the normal drug insinuations, it just confirms the status quo of these boards

No way to tell. Hall's CC win that day wasn't SO dominating that it's inconceivable that a healthy Ritz couldn't have kept up with him. Only his half marathon puts him on another plane. Right now Hall is in another class. But, in running, you're only as good as your last race. Things can change in an instant.

But the question is, who would win in a 3k, ritz or webb?

I always find the theory that the internet is what is bringing US distance running back towards the top a specious one. If we introduce more East African househoulds to the internet, will they get even better?? So, the internet, the thing that kids and adults waste hours and hours on goofing off, betting on sports or cards, doing the facebook or whatever thing, playing video games against people around the world, arguing with anonymous strangers for much too long, etc, etc, etc.....the thing that keeps kids from being MORE active even more so than television ever did....THAT is the thing that is at the core of the US revival in distance running??? If not for the internet, Alan Webb would nto have run a 3:53 mile in HS? Ryan Hall with his absurd amount of talent would not have been born and then coached by good people later in life? D Ritz would not have had his inherent drive to win?? Ok, whatever you say.