Ritz hurt again and out of XC race

I'll never understand why he doesn't take 6 months and just runs straight mileage until he's strong enough to stay healthy (kind of like his marathon base before his AR without workouts). It seems he's never spending the time to build a huge base to stay healthy enough when workouts come around. He always seems to get injured very close to races, so I'm assuming it's the sharpening that hurts him most and that can be avoided with a base I bet.

A lot of people can race well off just straight mileage.

I agree. It was a stupid decision. It doesn't make him weak, just made a wrong decision. I've had little tweaks from running tight turns. It's nothing if you just take care of it. Hey may not be a wuss like all these old-school hillbillies like to think as they ponder the "good ol' days" (a myth if there ever was one), but he is still a bit of a head case if you ask me. He doesn't know what to do, but he wants to do SOMETHING and ends up making stupid mistakes. Totally predictable.

malmo wrote:

ken bob wrote: Viren beat guys with PR's stronger than Ritz's. Not to mention 4 Olympic golds.

Rit's PRs (8:11, 12:56, 27:22) would have been WRs when Viren won his four gold medals.

Viren beat (killed) Lopes in the Montreal 10k and Lopes has a 10k pr about 5 seconds faster than Ritzs'. Ritz's 8:11 is less than 3 secs faster than Viren's 8:14. In the marathon, Viren's 2:13 in Montreal is only 3 mins slower than Ritzs' pr. However, Ritz has run 5 marathons, whereas that was the only marathon Viren ever ran. Also Viren raced the olympic 5k the night before (as well as the 10k a week before and the respective heats for both events). Additionally, Viren hadn't run farther than 30k (18.6 miles) in his preparatio. Oh yeah and Viren only got 5 hours of sleep the night before.

ken bob wrote: Viren beat guys with PR's stronger than Ritz's. Not to mention 4 Olympic golds.

ken bob wrote:

Viren beat (killed) Lopes in the Montreal 10k and Lopes has a 10k pr about 5 seconds faster than Ritzs'. Ritz's 8:11 is less than 3 secs faster than Viren's 8:14. In the marathon, Viren's 2:13 in Montreal is only 3 mins slower than Ritzs' pr. However, Ritz has run 5 marathons, whereas that was the only marathon Viren ever ran. Also Viren raced the olympic 5k the night before (as well as the 10k a week before and the respective heats for both events). Additionally, Viren hadn't run farther than 30k (18.6 miles) in his preparatio. Oh yeah and Viren only got 5 hours of sleep the night before.

I see your logic here. Lopes ran his PR at 10k YEARS after Viren won his last medal so that makes your statement that Viren beat guys with stronger PRS than Ritz's true?. And Viren's PR in the two mile being three seconds slower than Ritz's somehow supports your statement too?

The best thing I've learned from this thread is that there's a Solstice of Malmo. Let's hear about it.

ken bob wrote:

malmo wrote:

Rit's PRs (8:11, 12:56, 27:22) would have been WRs when Viren won his four gold medals.

Viren beat (killed) Lopes in the Montreal 10k and Lopes has a 10k pr about 5 seconds faster than Ritzs'. Ritz's 8:11 is less than 3 secs faster than Viren's 8:14. In the marathon, Viren's 2:13 in Montreal is only 3 mins slower than Ritzs' pr. However, Ritz has run 5 marathons, whereas that was the only marathon Viren ever ran. Also Viren raced the olympic 5k the night before (as well as the 10k a week before and the respective heats for both events). Additionally, Viren hadn't run farther than 30k (18.6 miles) in his preparatio. Oh yeah and Viren only got 5 hours of sleep the night before.

So you're saying is Ritz has faster PRs?

In the day, Viren was the best in the World. Today, Ritz is not....even.....close

I am LOLing at the person who said Ritz 'isn't fragile'. This is the guy that got injured KICKING A SOCCER BALL. KICKING A SOCCER BALL.

Why would he think it's a good idea to run 7 miles of intervals on an indoor track?

How can you be that dumb?

Still not sure about this guys.

D. isn't reckless as I know him, nor does he lack common sense as I can tell. This doesn't seem to be the attitude of some posts here. I don't have direct evidence to the contrary of what was reported and so I accept this report at face value, but with suspicion.

The decisions that this guy makes now is based on over a decade of running. Or put another way, 365* 10years(3650 * 1.5( for including doubles) as a rough estimate = 5500 sessions on the low side.

Given this rich knowledge about himself and the things that make him prone to injury, I seriously doubt and I do believe it unlikely for him to make a single calculated training decision on his own volition that would make him injured.

That's not to say he could do something against his own intuition if instructed that would get him injured, or become involved in some method that involved weeks or months of misapplied training that could get him injured or perhaps he could have some unforeseen accident that got him injured.

It seems more beneficial for he and Alberto given his last 2 performances to make this claim now then to race poorly. If circumstances were different, I would join in and think that he made a "boneheaded" training decision, I just find that difficult given the circumstances.

It was actually better to have some "convenient excuse" then get his confidence, not to mention his name on L.R., ripped apart by a sub par performance.

what am i missing wrote:

So what?

Like Dathan, you must be an idiot. Seriously, have you ever tried running fast around an indoor track? I'm not talking about your 5:30/mile pace, I'm talking like 2:10s for 800s and 400s at sub-60. That shit gets really tiresome on your ankles taking those sharp turns. If you've ever had an ankle problem while trying to do a speed workout on an indoor track, you'd know what I'm talking about. It's easy to imagine Dathan, at his speed, doing 7 miles of the stuff around turns like that. Something's bound to happen, and he should have known that.

Ahh let the armchair quarterbacking begin...

You know, Mark Nenow ran pretty dang fast for his era simply running twice per day and a long one on Sundays at a generally fast pace, doing very little to no track sharpening by his own admission. Seems as though he got a lot of threshold training in and fartleking on hilly terrain, but nothing specific, though he may have been even faster with specific track work.

So what's my point? Seems like a pretty good approach to sustain durability. In Ritz's case, training like a marathoner, but periodizing just once or twice per year has been the only formula that's worked. Oh, and getting a quit shot of EPO and VEGF living in an altitude house.