Alberto Salazar: “ (Rupp) Got tripped and went down hard, with less than 1K to go.”

Perspectivation wrote:

I knew a guy who went down with 2K to go a 5000. He got up and finished in 13:50. He was a college freshman.

His next race he finished the 2nd half of a 10,000 in 13:58.

As a senior he stopped, fixed his shoe, caught back up and blasted the field in an NCAA final. He was finishing 20,000 of racing over a couple days.

His name is Rupp.

What happened to him?

info wrote:

I knew a guy once who used to "step on the rail" right about time the race got hard. It was a great excuse. He later saw a sports phsycologist and actually turned his running career around. Maybe Rupp can't handle the pressure of other US guys kicking his butt.

"Pressure"?

He's a year out of college racing US guys that are 3-11 years out of college all of whom were NCAA champs themselves, have made world or olympic teams and have faster PRs than him. Exactly what pressure would he be unable to handle? No pressure? The chance to break 13:00 when all he had to do was not fall down the last 1000 meters? That's not pressure, that's a dream race until it became a nightmare.

Pressure was coming back from the olympics and racing ncaa cross after just a couple races prior to it and running against a stud kenyan who was 2 years older than him and had a full cross season. Pressure was scoring the one point to help with the team victory. Pressure was going up against ulrey in the NCAA DMR after getting lit up by him earlier in the season on that very scenario, and needing to win it as well as 2 other races in 2 days to carry his team to the title. Pressure was doing a 5K-10K double at ncaa outdoors, when none of the top contendors were doubling, and having to win both to give the team a shot. In every case he won with a lot on the line. And it wasn't about finishing top 5. It was win or lose.

If you think Rupp has a problem with handling pressure than exactly who doesn't?

I just wish Rupp would go out and break the AR in the 10,000 and shut all of these fukking clowns up. Of course, not even then would he be devoid of criticism on letsriprupp.com.

that is amazing wrote:

Perspectivation wrote:

I knew a guy who went down with 2K to go a 5000. He got up and finished in 13:50. He was a college freshman.

His next race he finished the 2nd half of a 10,000 in 13:58.

As a senior he stopped, fixed his shoe, caught back up and blasted the field in an NCAA final. He was finishing 20,000 of racing over a couple days.

His name is Rupp.

What happened to him?

He went on to win a couple US titles and make 2 more international teams, run 3:56, 7:42 and 13:14 indoors. Recently ran 27:10 and 13:10 and will be PRing at 3K and 5K in the next 2 weeks.

Ohh, and he signed a massive shoe contract.

Solid, yes. But was it inane, feckless, devoid of sympathy? These function as currency on this website, so please don't invoke another standard!

Sagarin wrote:

Perspectivation wrote:

I knew a guy who went down with 2K to go a 5000. He got up and finished in 13:50. He was a college freshman.

His next race he finished the 2nd half of a 10,000 in 13:58.

As a senior he stopped, fixed his shoe, caught back up and blasted the field in an NCAA final. He was finishing 20,000 of racing over a couple days.

His name is Rupp.

Solid post.

Perspectivation wrote:

I knew a guy who went down with 2K to go a 5000. He got up and finished in 13:50. He was a college freshman.

His next race he finished the 2nd half of a 10,000 in 13:58.

As a senior he stopped, fixed his shoe, caught back up and blasted the field in an NCAA final. He was finishing 20,000 of racing over a couple days.

His name is Rupp.

that is amazing wrote:

What happened to him?

thisll bust your buns wrote:

He went on to win a couple US titles and make 2 more international teams, run 3:56, 7:42 and 13:14 indoors. Recently ran 27:10 and 13:10 and will be PRing at 3K and 5K in the next 2 weeks.

Ohh, and he signed a massive shoe contract.

Oh, and he DNFed on his supposed way to a PR just the other day.

the might have fallen wrote:

Perspectivation wrote:

I knew a guy who went down with 2K to go a 5000. He got up and finished in 13:50. He was a college freshman.

His next race he finished the 2nd half of a 10,000 in 13:58.

As a senior he stopped, fixed his shoe, caught back up and blasted the field in an NCAA final. He was finishing 20,000 of racing over a couple days.

His name is Rupp.

that is amazing wrote:

What happened to him?

thisll bust your buns wrote:

He went on to win a couple US titles and make 2 more international teams, run 3:56, 7:42 and 13:14 indoors. Recently ran 27:10 and 13:10 and will be PRing at 3K and 5K in the next 2 weeks.

Ohh, and he signed a massive shoe contract.

Oh, and he DNFed on his supposed way to a PR just the other day.

Correct. If you look at his last 50 races, maybe 100 races you have come up with one that you think is a dog. You think a dog is a DNF in a time trial race where you collide with other runners and go down hard and you are not out of the race with less than 1000 to go.

I think you'd be hard pressed to find ANY top runner, really any of the top 50 ranked runners in any event from 1500 to marathon who have a better record of past performances (relative to their ability) if you look at their last 100 races than Rupp. That is no joke. Wheating is super solid but he doesn't stack up. Forget the E. Africans, they are yo-yos. Geb, c'mon. Bekele has dropped out and had simply sub par races at times. The top westerners? Nobody is that solid.

On a side note,

Guys like Teg, Solinski and Wheathing have done very well in top level races. Rupp has yet to find his way.

Don't put Rupp on a pedestal. That type of excessive love is hard to live up to. Too much pressure. Best not to expect too much, in my opinion.

It would have been better for Rupp to have finished. Less negativity I think, but then again this letsrun.

Does anyone have a link to a full video of the 5k? I'm interested in watching how Solinski raced. Not so interested in Rupp, but now I'm interested in seeing what happened to him with 1k meters to go. I usually could care less about DNFs but this one seems interesting because Rupp was with the leaders.

the might have fallen wrote:

Guys like Teg, Solinski and Wheathing have done very well in top level races. Rupp has yet to find his way.

What is "top level racing"? I would guess NCAA championships when you are an NCAA runner. Perhaps US champsionships? International championships?

Rupp has 6 ncaa championships (more than any of those guys) and 2 US titles. Isn't that more US titles than those other guys combined? I'm not bagging on them, I'm just trying to remove the bias glasses so people can see the actual facts. Rupp has finished 13th at the OLYMPICS then 8th at worlds and 5th at indoor worlds all by age 23. Teg and Solinsky have several years on Rupp, how do they stack up?

Teg finished 4th at worlds as a 25 year old and 13th at the olympics as a 26 year old, then 7th at worlds as a 27 year old. Rupp will be 27 in 2013. Don't think he will be upgrading his resume?

Solinsky was 7th at the US champs as a 23 year old, 5th at the olympic trials as a 24 year old, and 12th at the world championships as a 25 year old. I don't think you can compare that to Rupps resume as a 23 year old.

Wheating is just gradutating and didn't even come on until his soph year in college and is a mid distance guy so he is apples and oranges when compared to Rupp, Teg and Solinsky. But Wheating is very consistent, has excellent PR's and is racing great in Europe. He will likely do big things in international championships but as of now only has a semifinal at the olympics to his name.

It just is what it is, it's not about loving Rupp, it's about seeing clearly what people have or have not done.

As far as times go, Solinsky and Teg have had several years of racing in Europe. It took Teg until last year to get under 13:04. It took Solinsky until this year to get under 13:12. Rupp had run 13:14 already on a 200 banked track. Heck Wheating has raced more races in Europe than Rupp in the past 4 years.

This is Solinskys 4th summer of racing after college. Realisticly he's probably going to match up pretty close with Rupp from the mile - 10K at summers end and this is Rupps second summer of racing the euro circuit. Where do you think Rupp will be by his 4th summer? Keep bias out and be real. Keep in mind that I don't think there has been a year where Rupp hasn't PR'd in a couple events or had a massive PR in one event. Not too easy to do when you already have marks of 4:02, sub 8:00, 13:37 and 29:09 as a teenager, and you race in college and not europe.

There are US runners who are faster than Rupp (not by much) and there are U.S. runners who have done more at the top level (Ritz, Meb and Lagat are probably the 3) but there are no current US runners who are better than Rupp across the board from consistency to PRs to top level performances other than Lagat.

That just is what it is. You don't have to like the guy, but you can't erase his resume except in your mind.

removing the goggles of bias wrote:

What is "top level racing"? I would guess NCAA championships when you are an NCAA runner. Perhaps US champsionships? International championships?...

This should be obvious, International. That's were Rupp is competing. That is where it is at.

I could care less about his past exploits/resume. We are talking about now and improving on his PRs.

It is always important to finish a race. DNFing can mess with your head. Rupp's not finishing has overtaken Solinski's exceptional race.

the might have fallen wrote:

removing the goggles of bias wrote:

What is "top level racing"? I would guess NCAA championships when you are an NCAA runner. Perhaps US champsionships? International championships?...

This should be obvious, International. That's were Rupp is competing. That is where it is at.

I could care less about his past exploits/resume. We are talking about now and improving on his PRs.

It is always important to finish a race. DNFing can mess with your head. Rupp's not finishing has overtaken Solinski's exceptional race.

Are you in high school or did you just never run professionally?

It might mess with your head, it's very unlikely it will mess with Rupps. If 4 years of finishing as the "bridesmaid" at NCAAs didn't stop him from racking up 6 in a single year, DNF'ing from a trip up late in a race won't. It's almost alwasy important to finish a race...when you are running for a team. As a pro their can be an exception, and in fact there may be times where it is smart to pull out. Hell even running for a team there can be exceptions and Vin Lanana has used that as a strategy. I'll let you excercise your brain to see if you can come up with scenarios. Obviously you can't see the one that just happened.

Another thing that you might not be able to bend your head around. Going down on the track is not like ordering a cheeseburger at mcdonalds where every time it's the same. People pull muscles, roll ankles, jar their legs or arms, tumble to the point of disorientation and any number of different things. Many times it's not too bad, may just be temporary pain and maybe if the adrenaline hits you don't even feel the pain right away. There have been people who took a fall got up to finish the race and by the time the race was over were clearly injured and should not have been running. That can be season ending and/or career hampering. None of us know what Rupps fall was like or what he felt when he went down, but given his career of dealing with pressure it's pretty fair to give him the benefit of the doubt that it didn't seem right to continue at that point. It should also be noted that when and where you fall in a race makes a big difference. Every top runner in that race was waiting for that last 1000 meters and the pace of :62s was not going to slow, if you come up 5 or more seconds behind that with 900 to go what are you going to do? Run a :57 with 800 to go to catch up right as they start to go into :57 or better? That after 4K at 12:55 pace? Yeah right. That's death over the last 200 and a 13:0my god that sucked with the last impression being the feeling of watching guys tear away from you. That's a great scenario. That's all assuming he pops up feeling fine, which he very well may not have. Personally I'd rather leave thinking I was ready to go with it, make sure I'm healthy and then go nail a workout because I'm pissed off. Racing professionally is about thinking smart, not thinking small.

the might have fallen wrote:

DNFing can mess with your head. Rupp's not finishing has overtaken Solinski's exceptional race.

Solinskys race was great, but not exceptional. You have to keep it in perspective. He's the 4th american to run between 12:58 and 12:54 in less than a year and if Rupp didn't go down he would be one of 5. Also coming from 26:59 and 12:56 this is what he should do on a good day, perhaps more, not exceptional. Exceptional for him now would be 12:52 or even winning the race. This is a good thing, that 12:55 is not exceptional, which is why he was not satisfied. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited for him and so his he. You can be excited and not satisfied. This is the way he thinks, no reason for us to think differently.

Nope, Rupp didn't finish. No finish, no time. I realize this is hard for a high schooler to grasp but Rupp pulled a DNF. This is tough for you. Someday you'll figure it out. There is hope for you.

Lets hope this DNF is a one time thing.

Also until someone who was there gives us eyewitness account we don't know how Rupp DNF. All these reports are heresay or 2nd hand text messages.

Where are T&F reporters to give us the REAL LIVE scoop? Or at least a post DNF interview with Rupp? Wait they were watching the same live feed all of us were watching! Hahaha

P.S. I hate say it but FLOtrack or T&F News didn't have their eye on the ball on this one.

[quote]short bus rolls on wrote:

[quote]info wrote:

The chance to break 13:00 when all he had to do was not fall down the last 1000 meters?

He's the 4th american to run between 12:58 and 12:54 in less than a year and if Rupp didn't go down he would be one of 5.

I'm not a Rupp hater - but the people who are saying that Rupp was a sure thing to break 13 are crazy. You do realize that Solinsky closed in 2.30. Rupp would have had to close in 2.35 to break 13. Again I'm not saying that he could not - but to think that he could have certainly suddenly changed from running 63's to 58 on the last lap is a big presumption.

The Africans continuously DNF in European races then come back and run a more competitive race and no one bashes them.

Solinsky is only 25. I've noticed a few people are calling him older. He's a year and change older than Rupp.

ehyo wrote:

he must've not wanted to get up and finish behind where he would've finished without falling.

can't blame him. so many noobs would see 13:13 or something around there and go "oh he's plateaued!" he made the right choice to keep his confidence in tact, and kick ass in Zurich to break 13.

I doubt that he cares what hater douchebags here think. If it bothered him, he would have folded by now.

Sometimes people trip, it's part of racing. I'm sure he'll be fine. This much I do know. He could have run 12:51 and the rabid Rupp haters would find a reason to rip him. ZOMG! breathe right, hyperbaric, Nike conspiracy blah blah blah.