The Young Turks (Webb, Hall, Ritz, Teg & Rupp) -- Random Musings

You know what? I normally see eye-to-eye with you, Zat0pek, on virtually everything running related.

And, I used to always disregard Flagpole Willy's comment about Ritz being more talented than his peers (like Webb, for example) because I thought it was unfounded. However, I am coming around (kinda) to FW's view.

To buttress FW's point (doing the dirty work for him), I would say the best example of showing Ritz's talent vis-a-vis the other young guys is his quick "come-back-ability." The guy gets in shape very, very fast.

That is to say, Ritz has proven on more than one occasion how quickly he can come back from a set-back, have minimal training time and either 1)run to win, or 2)run fast.

Exhibit A would be FW's favorite race to cite--The 2005 XC Championships where Ritz outkicked Hall. Wetmore pegged Ritz at maybe having had 4-6 weeks of 50mpw behind him, I believe.

Exhibit B would be his former Amer. Collegiate Record of 27:37 and how that was run and how surprising (for many) that was considering it wasn't as if he had over a year straight of injury-free running behind him, nor had he put down any other marks in other distances at that point (in the season, especially) to suggest that 27.37. If one can "pop" a 10k performance, that was certainly it.

I guess those two things would be the best and closest pieces of evidence I can cite to come to FW's viewpoint about Ritz's superior OR EQUAL talent level to his American peers. All hinging on his quick come-back-ability.

HOWEVER, I'm sure FW would agree that more talent (or saying a guy has more) only gets you so far. If Ritz's peers continue to run marks superior to what he has done, than they are better--period. Ritz has to have a long block of consistent, high-level training to run with those guys now because those guys are running at the next level.

Flagpole Willy wrote:

Not syaing it's not a great time, because it is, but Ritz has run just less than 2 minutes back of that time

This doesn't sound very convincing when you think about it.

It's like saying that David Torrence has run just less than 10 seconds off of Webb's mile. So Webb isn't that much faster? huh?

I'm gonna give a nod to Ian Dobson, wish him the best, After all, he was there with hall just last year? Coulda been almost 2, i don't remember this shit anymore.

All time performances for each runner:

Rupp's 10k -- 351st all time (age 20, primary event)

Webb's 10k -- 372nd all time (age 23, not primary event)

Ritz's 10k -- 387th all time (age 23, primary event)

Hall's 26.2 -- 252nd all time (age 24, fair to say primary event now)

Hall's 13.1 -- 30th all time (age 24, primary event)

Webb's mile -- 55th all time (age 22, primary event but the rest of the world doesn't run it that much)

Webb's 1500 -- 442nd all time (age 22, primary event)

Teg's 5k -- 438th all time (age 24, primary event)

Ritz is not in the top 1000 all time performances for any event.

800 dude wrote:

Ritz's 10k -- 387th all time (age 23, primary event)

...

Ritz is not in the top 1000 all time performances for any event.

Come again?

Sorry,

Except 10k -- 387th (age 23, primary event)

Other event.

I'm not sure Ritz belongs on the same list as Teg, Webb and Hall. I believe Ritz works harder than any of them, but it looks as though he is not as talented. He is not as smooth as Teg or Hall and nowhere near as strong as Webb. He seems like a blue collar guy that we all want to do well, but it is unlikely he will ever be a serious contender on the international scene. I do see him, however, winning many more titles at USA championships and being the hard working guy we all love to root for.

rip rap wrote:

He seems like a blue collar guy that we all want to do well,.

I don't get it.

Define this "blue collar" runner jargon you guys always rattle about?

Yes. I agree with all of this. At the end of it all, whoever has the best times is or was the better runner. Talent doesn't factor into what someone did.

Of all of the current crop, I'll admit that Hall appears to have more talent than I thought he did, and Tegenkamp has WAY more than I thought he did. I always knew Webb had this level of talent, and I believe Scott's American Record in the mile is soon to be Webb's...something I've said since Webb was in high school.

Talentwise, I still have a hard time putting any American Record type limits on Ritz. The easiest one for him to get (if someone doesn't beat him to it) I think is Meb's 10,000 AR, BUT that will require him to be healthy for a while, something I'm now starting to doubt whether or not he can. I sure hope he can.

I do agree that Ritz could break the 10k AR. I just believe that it will also be broken by Fam, Hall, and possibly Abdi and Rupp.

Maybe even by Webb at some point?

Flagpole Willy is determined to be wrong in any given argument

Unrated wrote:

I do agree that Ritz could break the 10k AR. I just believe that it will also be broken by Fam, Hall, and possibly Abdi and Rupp.

Yep. There are a whole host of guys right now who have a legitimate shot at that record. No disrespect intended to Meb, but of the distance events, that record is probably the softest of them all (American Records).

jrun wrote: You know what? I normally see eye-to-eye with you, Zat0pek, on virtually everything running related.

And, I used to always disregard Flagpole Willy's comment about Ritz being more talented than his peers (like Webb, for example) because I thought it was unfounded. However, I am coming around (kinda) to FW's view.

First, discussions about degrees of talent at this level are absurd on several levels. With that out of the way, let's continue.

There is no doubt that Ritz's fragility is adversely affecting his development. To me, the biggest measure of his "talent" (and there's a whole lot of facets that make up "talent") was his NCAA Cross win off of just a few months of training. Simply incredible.

But Ritz has been generally healthy the last couple of years (even he mentioned that within the last week or so) and he is still on essentially the same plateau while guys like Hall, and even Webb (who would have thought two years ago that Webb could beat him straight up in a 10,000 in which Ritz PRd?) have gone off and left him.

But even that doesn't mean anything. Improvement isn't linear. Sometimes a guy is stuck on a plateau for a while and then, BOOM, there's the breakout performance. My point about Hall's 59:43 is think it is somewhat likely (say, 45% chance just to pull a number out of my ass for purposes of illustration) that Ritz never runs that fast even if healthy. That is just a monster performance.

But if Ritz ends up busting out a 10,000 AR, sub-1:00 HM and sub-2:09 marathon, I certainly won't be surprised.

I think the 10,000 AR is in for a beating in the coming years. Hall, Ritz, Abdi, Rupp and Teg are all legitimate contenders to take it down, plus probably a few others.

The 1999 Footlocker finals recently was posted on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K-66kjabU4

Ritz, Teg, Webb, Dobson, etc.

The 2000 race was posted at the same time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJQeq0C0vqg

Ritz (who kills everyone), Webb, Hall, etc.

The 1999 Footlocker finals recently was posted on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K-66kjabU4

Ritz, Teg, Webb, Dobson, etc.

The 2000 race was posted at the same time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJQeq0C0vqg

Ritz (who kills everyone), Webb, Hall, etc.

I think this is good wrote:

The 1999 Footlocker finals recently was posted on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K-66kjabU4

Ritz, Teg, Webb, Dobson, etc.

The 2000 race was posted at the same time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJQeq0C0vqg

Ritz (who kills everyone), Webb, Hall, etc.

A different interpretation of the above and of Flagpole's posts; Ritz could have simply been trained to near the max of his talent by the end of HS and start of college, and because of a huge base, not sheer talent, able to run great off of injuries that may actually have helped him by giving his body a break.