pacing vs racing wrote:
charles darwin wrote:Rupp's a reverse Alan Webb. An endurance guy who's starting to show a lot of promise at the "shorter" distances (1500-3K) after years of focusing on the longer stuff. And like Webb, he's much hated and mocked for both his success and unsuccess.
Also like Webb, he's known to run stellar time trials and then folds like a cheap lawn chair in a hurricane in championship settings. So many records, so few titles.
What are you referring to? US championship titles? There are still a handful of guys racing that have faster pr's in the 5K and a couple in the 10K here in the US. I wouldn't say he is EXPECTED to beat older more veteran guys with faster PR's? Would you? The fact that he can get up there and rub elbows as a 3rd and 4th year college guy with the pro's who have faster pr's is pretty impressive.
And out of all of them he is the one showing the most consistent progress. PR's from 800-5K (and doing it indoors) winning NCAA cross (over a 13:19 5K). Making the olympics and then finishing a half lap ahead of the Olympic Trials Champion.
The list of progress goes on and on, but like cream Rupp is rising to the top, FAST now. He is not a world beater, but he is progressing to the top of the US, and the US is getting pretty good overall. There are a good 5-8 US runners who could run between 13:00-13:10 outdoors this year, and in the right race Rupp may be able to beat all of them. 10k he's even scarier.
And that is pretty damn good for a guy with a season of eligibility left.