Runners World Takes It To Ritz: "All the money in the world can't buy a faster marathon"

the funniest thing is that grown a$$ men are arguing like kids over how some guy they've never met, let alone talked to, ran in a race in a city that they've likely visited once, if at all. that's really weird.

Cheaper way for Nike to get their 2:07 from him: Hire one of the fast Kenyans to tow him through 30-35km on dead even pace. Ritz can treat it more like a training run and relax - the pacemaker can take the brunt.

Even cheaper: Drop him off in Kenya with $3000.00 (average yearly family income there is about $300.0, so he'd be relatively wealthy) and pay some of the faster Keyans to train with him. Then hire the guy to pace him in a marathon. Total yearly cost would be less than that of shipping the cryo-unit alone.

Hey Tinman, hope all is well.

Ritz could do 10000m training and do very well in the marathon, figure he'd need 80/week at most for 27/2:07's, roughly what Rupp needs for 27:08/2:08. Alberto will continue to overtrain Ritz, which is kinda ironic considering rest (and speed) got Ritz the AR and the medal at half marathon. (And ironic too because overtraining almost kept Alberto's from an Olympic team in 1980, and later cost him his chance for a medal in 1984.) I think Ritz still has a career because those regular injuries have serendipitously spared him some abuse.

I think Hall's problems run a bit deeper. He's feeling the effects of 2-3 years of overwork, so track focus alone will not solve that. Working against Hall is he's heard one paradigm no matter what, and now something has to give. I'm not saying I have the answer for Hall, but he's only got a few options, so he should be able to be revived.

Bob Dobbs wrote:

Cheaper way for Nike to get their 2:07 from him: Hire one of the fast Kenyans to tow him through 30-35km on dead even pace. Ritz can treat it more like a training run and relax - the pacemaker can take the brunt.

Even cheaper: Drop him off in Kenya with $3000.00 (average yearly family income there is about $300.0, so he'd be relatively wealthy) and pay some of the faster Keyans to train with him. Then hire the guy to pace him in a marathon. Total yearly cost would be less than that of shipping the cryo-unit alone.

Excellent ideas, particularly the first. I was hoping Josh Cox and others could act as windbreak for Hall running an 'even effort' over Boston (rather than Hall having to do all of them heavy lifting early on. Don't underestimate the contingent of Africans tag-teaming race-tacts against the one or two Americans that try to 'even-effort' these races to most efficiently expend energy. However, one problem with this strategy is that there are few available Americans that could pace their leader over a 2:07 effort for even 3/4 of the marathon. Thus, Nike (Ritz) or Asics (Hall) would need to bring is some ring-leader Africans to act as the 'clandestine' pacesetters for the local Americans.

One problem

^^^ sorry for the typos; meant 'ringer' instead of 'ring-leader', etc.

80'sdude wrote:

I agree with you Tinman.

Bill Rodgers did lots and lots of aerobic running, some occasional speed work (although he called them "rhythm repeats") and lots of racing. Ritz seems to do lots of quality stuff in training, very few races and well, I'm not sure what else. I know which one of those plans i like better.

If Ritz really wants a medal, it's going to have to be in the marathon, because he doesn't have the top end speed to close in 53 in a 5 or 10k on the track. I'd love to see him, or his coach, put it together to give him the best chance possible.

He closed on Bekele in his 5000 PB.

even weirder, you taking the time to respond to this thread.

Wakeup wrote:

Its just like rocky four. Ritz is the russian and Geb is rocky. But seriously, I dont think Ritz has his full heart set on the marathon. He doesnt get in that consistent year round training specifically for the marathon that is needed to really perform.

Damn you! Beat me to it.