Shalane Flanagan is no longer even the best American runner at the 5k now

Well, it seems like her last 3 races were not up to her expectations. She's having a rough start this year, never looked comfortable in this or the 10K race earlier.

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

My point exactly. She had a really bad day but her season overall hasn't been stellar either. She made a mistake running away from Cook.

Flanagan has said that she increased her training intensity & volume this year. That is what people usually must do to develop... everyone knows this. It leaves you laboring and flat in the early season (and there is a risk of overcooking yourself), but when she drops her mileage and gets fresh and sharp, look out.

Nothing against Barringer. She's also a beast.

I think Wejo/Rojo purposely wrote that SF "bombed" when she didn't really perform much under their personal expectations for her. One or both of them said an American record was unlikely given the temperature.

The reason they purposely did it is because they are dickholes and got some flack for saying that Kara Goucher faded badly (or something similar) at a half marathon earlier. They were actually right about that and some homer for an Oregon paper called them out on it.

So they want to show that they are not going to change their style because of some negative feedback.

It's a common reaction for immature people with thin skin. It's like when you are at a park grilling out or something and some assbag is sitting in the parking lot with the stereo at near full blast. If you complain to them, they are probably just going to turn it up louder. You know the type. That is Rojo/Wejo.

They could have honestly written that Sara Hall bombed, but nobody really cares about her.

You know, at this time more than a year ago, Flanagan could split 15:10-20 as part of a 10k...

16:33!!! Seriously what does Asics pay Hall or do they just pay Ryan and give Sara a uniform.

Shalane was overtrained and looked bad on her mechanics. She is not a high volume athlete.

Won't work with Jerry.

We all know why she didn't run so fast.

You mean the last track race or the road race?

Cook was huge into mechanics and muscular work. Looked weak and tired.

Perhaps she is trying to do everything. Cooks mechanics and Jerry's mileage.

Jerry is really just getting started with her. Seems like the real deal so let's see where it goes.

But so much of coaching is the nuance. Her husband was trying to replicate Cook on the cheap and the results have been what would be expected. She really responded well to Cook's training last year, all year, so it's odd she would make such a change. Jerry and her might work out fine, but he's a different coach than Cook so there is risk.

Tough to top last year though. I mean, food posioning and then a few days later a bronze medal? It was just amazing.

How much did she get paid to go train in Portland?

ScuHmacher has one way. High volume.

If these two were from Morrocco instead of the US, we would be calling their drop in performance suspicious.

from a training perspective there was obviously no reason to leave cooke, she responded well to the program and pretty much accomplished everything she could on the track (with dibaba and crew around I dont think she can realistic expect an accomplishment higher than that bronze)

the one training related aspect where the move has some reasoning is her desire to move up to the marathon in the near future (probably related to the above statement about how theres not much more she can expect to do on the track)...cooke has publicly stated that he has no desire to coach a marathoner and his low mileage, high off track work emphasis is not well suited for it

from what Ive read though, I believe it was more than that...largely related to the fact that cooke is known to be something of a dick...but regardless something about the relationship was not workable

it was not, however, due to a belief that jerry could get her to run faster track times than cooke could...I dont think shalane or anyone on here believes that

jerry is every bit as accomplished as cooke though and it takes time to adjust to a drastically different regimen...even if shes not on the medal stand this year as long as shes running close to her old self by the end of the season Id say that would indicate good things long term

Ritz will be in the same jersey as Flanagan as soon as the deal is done.