Ritz to run worlds best 10k on sunday

Flagpole wrote:

Employee #1 wrote:

the IAAF article is here

http://www.iaaf.org/LRR10/news/newsid=55659.html

Love this quote - "He also has plenty of leg speed, clocking a 12:56 for 5000m last fall." About freakin' time someone gave Ritz his due credit. Someone here has been saying Ritz had serious leg speed years before he ran that 12:56. I can't remember who that was.

You never said that Ritz had serious leg speed.

Google before you post wrote:

SERIOUSLY IT'S SPELLED RITZENHEIN WHY DO PEOPLE PUT AN M ON THE END? ARE YOU ALL RETARDED?

Sorry I just had to get that out. Some people post on this forum, and still can't spell the name of our American Record holder...

Calm down. It'll just be a few more years until Ritzenheim is overshadowed by German Hernandez

I am seriously digging this Nathan Ritzenheim dude. To go out and seek the best in the world - nobody does that in track. I can't even imagine, say, Tyson Gaye going out and saying "I want to race Hussein Bolt and Asafa Powel because that's how I will get better." It's like a joke.

Not even Gebb does that. Lagat seems to look for good races.

I suspect Rits' viewpoint is influenced by being so hurt for so long and figuring that now he is healthy, fast fast fast and he needs to take advantage of this time because it may not come again.

I don't remember Salasar ducking people either, so maybe he has had an influence also.

asfsf wrote:

You never said that Ritz had serious leg speed.

BS.

nj wrote:Crescent City is point to point, so even though it is perfectly flat (there are no hills to go up or down in New Orleans) it isn't recognized as a record because the start and finish are more then 30% the distance of the race apart from each other. It is the same reason times from the New York City marathon are considered aided even though the race is a net uphill. Its a fairly dumb rule but I suppose someone ran a crazy fast time on a flat course with a great tail wind and some AAU rules junkie got a hard-on to make sure it wouldn't be recognized and so it remains today.

When the IAAF started recognizing road WRs, they were far more lax with standards than any other body that recognizes road records.

Why? Let Ken Young explain it:

The definition of a "record-quality" course includes, "The start and finish points on a course, measured along a straight line between them, shall not be further apart than 50% of the race distance." This has been discussed at some length in the previous issue of ADR and again in this issue. The real question is "Why has the IAAF adopted this 50% S/F rule?"

Apparently one member of the committee (council) that made this decision insisted that courses with up to a 50% separation between the start and finish be allowed. It turns out that two of the performances on the list proposed for acceptance as "world records" were set in this person's country by nationals of his country. If a 30% rule were adopted, neither of these marks would have qualified. This serves to demonstrate that the basis for the IAAF road record criteria is political rather than technical. Score this as a big step backwards.

This isn't the only shortcoming in the IAAF's setup.

Young's all-time US list for the road 10k

includes the Nenow mark in question with an "a" after it. This means it's generally considered valid but doesn't meet the criteria for a record. Here's to hoping Ritz beats 27:22 and clears up the issue.

Plus, there's a difference between saying "Ritzenhein is going to do great things" and saying he has great leg speed. Evan Jager has great leg speed. Ritzenhein has great speed endurance.

haha, YO wrote:

I seriously want to know why you thought that.

I've posted time and time again how Ritz had great leg speed and much better than anyone was giving him credit for. Since "great leg speed" is subjective, I'll say simply that I've been saying he would break Kennedy's 5,000 AR ever since he ran 13:27 as a college freshman, and I always defended his "leg speed" when others said he didn't have the leg speed necessary to run sub 13; I knew better. Ryan Hall initially was thought of as a speed demon, especially compared to Ritz. I correctly said that if that NCAA XC race came down to a kick between Ritz and Hall that Ritz would win. Well, that's exactly what happened. He ran that 1500 time of his very early on in his career. If he trained for it, he could easily run better than 3:42. He runs 8:11 for 2 miles and still people weren't giving him the respect he deserved. Even when he was beaten by Alan Webb in that 10,000 (where admittedly I said Ritz would win), Webb, with his SUPERIOR kick to Ritz, barely pulled away at the end...not like he left him in the dust.

Ritzenhein will never be a world class miler, but he's still damn fast, and certainly when talking within the context of a 10,000 on the roads, he has great "leg speed". Are people's jaws going to drop when he runs a 10,000 on the track in 26:52? Well, they shouldn't. Dude is uber talented.

So you can set a "World Record" in the NYCMarathon

but you can`t set an "American Record".

This is excellent news -- good for Ritz.

Merga has a habit of going balls out after road WRs, so it should be a quick race if anyone follows...

My money is on Mathathi.....This guy is on fire.He avoided the Kenyan cross-country trials purely to focus on this race.I also believe if conditions are good Kogo's WR will go.Some other guys who could run exceptionally well are Kitwara,Kogo himself and Moses Masai.Merga took awhile to recover from the injury sustained at Abu Dhabi Half marathon ealier in the year.As for the women i think it is too close to call between Keitank,Cheruiyot and Abelegese but Paula Radclife WR is in serious jeopardy.

get your story straight wrote:

So............ in other words (dear God why am I bothering with this guy), what you are really saying here, turkey lips, in your patent round-about, beat-around-the-fu@*ing-mulberry-bush kinda way, is that, bottom line, you never explicitly said, "Ritz has great leg speed." In other words, the poster above just nailed your self-contradictory ass.

Folks, it's like dealing with a horse's butt.

The point is he may not have EXACTLY said that statement, but he has said many times that Ritz is fast and has a lot of leg speed. If you're going to take everything literally than you're more of a horse's ass than he is.

ritz isn't running, according to the front page, from salazar.

sorry for starting this thread i got the info from what is just about always a very reliable site iaaf.org

if you click on the race's website and click where it says registration and then click on confirm entry, they have a look for person either by name, bib number, or what country they are from, example if you click on KE it list's all the kenyans in the race, if you click ET it list's all the ethiopians in the race, example it said tirunesh dibaba did a walk in entry on 2-27-2010 which is today as did linet masai and meselech melkamu and you can look at some of the other big names added or dropped.

Right, Ritz is still listed, bib number 16

For the men I think Peter Kamais might be the dark horse. He ran 27:09 last year. Moses Maasai with his 27:22 could also factor. But the real favorite is Kitwara. The race is his to lose. For the women, that field is the best ever: 10,000m Olympic and world champs as well as the runner ups, 5,000m world champ, and world half marathon champion. And all of them at the start of the season. It is a sure bet on the world best. I wish men would do the same with Haile facing off with the best of Kenyans. It is sad Ritz pulled out. It would have been interesting to see how well he would have faired. I think he had a chance to finish in the top three.

douglas burke wrote:

sorry for starting this thread i got the info from what is just about always a very reliable site iaaf.org

Do better research before wasting everybody's time next time. His masking agent must not be working yet.

lottsa bridges wrote:

So you can set a "World Record" in the NYCMarathon

but you can`t set an "American Record".

Yes, this is correct. In practicality, though, there are only three marathon courses that could produce an AR in the forseeable future.

coach bigfoot wrote:

Adam R. wrote:

There's this thing called the Internet.

http://www.usatf.org/statistics/records/

Actually, he IS using the internet, dumbass.

Haha, I laughed. Good point.

Google before you post wrote:

SERIOUSLY IT'S SPELLED RITZENHEIN WHY DO PEOPLE PUT AN M ON THE END? ARE YOU ALL RETARDED?

Sorry I just had to get that out. Some people post on this forum, and still can't spell the name of our American Record holder...

2nd that. I really don't know what the deal is. I actually used to think it was 'heim when I first saw his name, but I have no idea why now. People need to get that right.