What Does Ryan Hall Need to Do in Houston For You to Consider it a Positive Performance?

I could care less about any one individual. May the best man and woman win.

He should win, more importantly if someone besides him dictates pace, makes a move or two and Ryan can cover then he is getting better.

Houston 2007 he ran by himself did great, london he had pacers keeping and even split and he fell off as soon as there were some changes in pace. If you put Hall against top 20 marathoners in a race he'd do horribly. Put those same 20 in individual trials, he'd probably finish a lot higher.

I'd consider it a positive performance if it looks like he learned or perhaps remembered how to race as opposed to just run fast.

it's positive if he significantly reverses his slowing trend.

62 would be okay but not enough to judge his progress well, since he hasn't run a marathon since the spring and in fact hasn't even raced since September.

60 would be an excellent sign.

I'd be very surprised by a 60 but wish him well.

Could Care less wrote:

I could care less

I couldn't care less that you could care less.

61's would be great for Hall. He's not going to twin because Mohamed Trafeh is gonna whoop his ass.

a time in the top 1000 performances of all time, currently 1000th best performer all time is 61:25 so anything under that i would consider a good sign.

He needs to provide water to the 5,000 plus people running the Marathon on Sunday with only 2 gallons of water....

... or just get a hair cut.

Run as hard as he can..hardly think he cares what letsrun really thinks. Whether he runs 58 or 68, he is the fastest american born marathoner in history. He has nothing to prove to anyone.

Nate

That dick that was interviewing him sounds like the same guy that does the play by play for the NXN National meet on the online coverage, for those that watched it. Not Rich Rodriguez, the white guy that looks like Conan's old announcer.

With his current beard, I'd say if there is a puddle on the course he better run over the top of it.

Sub 60 and he'll have everyone back on the bandwagon (god's a good coach). On track for another 208 at boston would be a 61 or so.

Here's a little details on his self training methods:

http://houstontolondon.runnersworld.com/2011/01/27/the-new-ryan-hall-looks-forward-to-saturdays-half-marathon/

As most responses reflect, we still believe that Ryan Hall is better than the top tier of Americans. Over the Half, we expect him to beat all Americans not named Dathan (which would be a toss-up) or perhaps Meb (though I believe most would pick Ryan). When Ryan sounds confident (as he did in his interview), we expect big things. A successful day will be a win. A more successful day will be a win in under 1:01.

Agree with many others, win.

Time to stop time-trialing and start racing.

Could Care less wrote:

I could care less about any one individual. May the best man and woman win.

Could NOT care less***

His 59:43 here 4 years ago was much more of an A race, but I think he ought to be no slower than 2 minutes from that if he expects to be competitive at Boston. His decreased mileage could be problematic for the marathon, but it sounds like he mostly just got rid of junk miles, so hopefully that won't really hurt him. I'm looking forward to seeing his time and hoping for a sub 61. 61:43 or better will be a good race, sub 61 will indicate that he has a shot at the W in Boston (if his on/off workouts help with the surges).

A positive performance means winning in a confident fashion. within 30 seconds of a PR or puts 30 seconds on 2nd place in the closing miles off a slower pace. If he wants to talk about winning Boston, or medaling at the Olympics, he should be able to handle this.

Any discussion about his coaching situation is best left on the back burner no matter what (even if he wins or gets dead last) until we have a few races to judge him off of. A lot can happen in 2011 leading up to the Trials.

Win/lose/injured/draw, who here is not willing to put money on him to finish top 3 at the Trials providing he makes it to the starting line right now?

1:01:45... I'd say 1:02 but apparently Antonio Vega ran that and, no disrespect to him, but Hall should be able to do that in marathon training. He's not focusing on it like he was when he ran 59:43 so I'm not expecting sub-60 but we'll see.

His last race was around 64 minutes over the distance, less than a year ago. You guys really expect him to adjust to a new training schedule, new advisors, and move training camps, THEN be ready to bust a sub 60 or beat all of the other runners that have been beating his times?

Tough crowd. Anything around 62 and competitive with the rest of the field would indicate a return to old form for Hall.

His modifications in training aren't groundbreaking, he is just learning to do some things that elites often have trouble with: running less miles on rest days, running easy on rest days, and actually giving the body a chance to recover and benefit from hard workouts.

wejo wrote:

Ryan's 59:43 run in Houston a few years ago was so stunning (Has anyone else ever broken 1 hour for the half and won by over 2.5 minutes? If you know please email me).

For what it's worth:

-Mekubo Mogusu won the 2007 Ichinoseki Int'l Half in 59:58 by a margin of 4:20 over Akira Kiniwa

-Samuel Wanjiru won the 2005 Sendai Int'l Half in 59:43 by a margin of 3:55 over Daniel Njenga

-Not quite 2:30, but Mekubo Mogusu also won the 2007 Marugame Int'l Half in 59:48 by 2:23 over Takayuki Matsumiya

None of these races had pacers.