Will Hall Win Chicago ?

Another Lunatic wrote:

KingAdRock wrote:

I hope he runs well, but I'd put my money on Wanjiru before I bet Hall for the win.

Wanjiru? Is he even running? He'd have to PR by like 10 minutes to win even if he is. He is 29, so that seems unlikely, but then again, his PR at both the marathon and the half marathon come from 2011, so he could be one of those late starters, like Duncan Kibet, and improve dramatically in his next few races.

I think this was a joke, Wanjiru is dead. I hope you were playing along...or maybe I am the idiot and there is another Wanjiru...

ifyouthinkso wrote:

Another Lunatic wrote:

Wanjiru? Is he even running? He'd have to PR by like 10 minutes to win even if he is. He is 29, so that seems unlikely, but then again, his PR at both the marathon and the half marathon come from 2011, so he could be one of those late starters, like Duncan Kibet, and improve dramatically in his next few races.

I think this was a joke, Wanjiru is dead. I hope you were playing along...or maybe I am the idiot and there is another Wanjiru...

So he wasn't talking about 1:02:56/2:15:25 man Peter Wanjiru? I just assumed he was, since Samuel Wanjiru is, as you mentioned, dead, and obviously has no chance to win. On the other hand, all it would take for Hall to win would be a great day for him and a bad day for Mosop.

He will be in the top 3. I'm thinking 2nd.

pirates1 wrote:

What are Hall's Chances at Chicago ?

this article says that hall realized that running fall and spring marathons was a bad idea and that it was really beneficial for him to have dropped out of chicago last year and gotten to rest until Boston. I'll buy that. I think that doing one marathon a year and then having a long period of working on your base, speed, and strength is very beneficial. And he ran very well at Boston, even if he gained more than a minute from the wind. But here's the thing: by running Chicago now, the Trials in January, and the Olympics next summer, if not another spring marathon as well, he'll be increasing his marathon frequency, running THREE in one year (Boston, April 2011; Chicago, October 2011; Houston, January 2012) and then following that with another. And after Houston he still gets the same six month rest, but before Houston, it's just three months. I hope this works out, but maybe he should ignore the money and take his own advice. (which also includes doing a track season, which he's said many times and not done).

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/more/10/05/Ryan-Hall-Olympic-marathoner.ap/index.html

Raptured wrote:

People that want to discount Boston pre-2011 at this point are incredibly stupid. etc. etc. etc. Yes, this year was wind-aided, to some extent. No-one is denying that. Previous years were not

Nothing worth responding to here except to say that many previous years at Boston have had significant tailwinds. That is the primary reason that start-finish separation is one of the criteria in determining validity of marks.

Link wrote:

You are correct that, *currently* there are some courses which are 'record' eligible and some which are not.(Of course which courses those are is likely to change as the people who make those decisions do as well). However, and this is important, there is no rule regarding which courses can be used to make an objective (or any other kind) of comparison of performances.

Thanks for this post. That's true, but I did establish criteria in setting up my comparison of Dos Santos, Hall and Sato, namely their five best performances on unaided courses. This is not to say that Hall is not as good as the other two, which is of course subjectively not true. It simply shows that on unaided courses such as Chicago he has averaged slower times than the other two, which is also true.

No doubt Hall's aided performances were great races. There are other great races not included in the comparison, such as Sato's 2:12 for 3rd in Tokyo last year in gale-force headwinds and sleet. The top four in that race have PB's from 2:07:13 to 2:08:40 and finished within a few seconds of each other. With better weather it would likely have been another 2:07-2:08 day for all of them, but that would be entirely subjective.

Good point. I was just going by hunches at the time of the posting but will say, I suppose it all depends on which will be a priority for him. In other words, Chicago this weekend, the trials and the Olympics? Maybe too much of a good thing (in this case, frequent marathons..) might not be the right choice for your overall goal, eh?

He will be 2nd to Mosop. Mosop 2:03:55, Hall 2:05:49

Is it only me? I think the race will not be won in under 2:06...

Yeah, but he'll only need to run about a 2:10 (if not slower) at the trials to qualify, which for him won't be too much stress on the body. If he does a spring marathon, then yes, he's crazy, but there's no indication he's considering this.

troof be told wrote:

No, I'm not trolling, nor am I suggesting that Boston performances should be omitted in a subjective consideration of an athlete's career. By the rules of the sport as they currently stand, however, they most definitely should be omitted from any attempt to make an objective comparison between histories of performances on unaided courses, which is what I did in showing that Dos Santos and Sato have career records superior to Hall's on such courses.

Fair enough, but I would suggest that it would be a rather subjective decision to select only that factoid when predicting their performances in Chicago. Again, do you think people were discounting Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot's 2:07 in Boston 06 when predicting his performance at Chicago 06? The actual result certainly shows that would have been a mistake.

I also think it is disingenuous to cite his "career top five" on record-eligible courses, when he has ONLY run 5 times total on record-eligible courses. In fact, should the 2:09:02 and 2:10:36 even be on your list? I am not sure those were record-eligible either. This list -

- has an "a" next to Meb's 2009 NYC winning time and Hall's 2007 Trials winning time. If so, you would have to look at Hall's "career top three" instead.

It seems what you are really analyzing here are athletes' choices of which marathons to race, which may be an interesting discussion topic on its own, but I am not sure of its relevance when analyzing the Chicago field.

On second thought... the trials course was a loop course right? So should definitely have been record eligible, so not sure why the "a" was on that list, but I am still not sure about NYC...

The same site has an "a" on this list for NYC

http://www.arrs.net/MaraList/ML_2009.htm

but not on this one for the trials

http://www.arrs.net/MaraList/ML_2007.htm

Really, what is the difference between a 2:03:30 with a team of kenyan pacers blocking the wind for you and a tough course like boston with a tailwind? NONE! 2:03:02 is the record.

bangalangadanga wrote:

Really, what is the difference between a 2:03:30 with a team of kenyan pacers blocking the wind for you and a tough course like boston with a tailwind? NONE! 2:03:02 is the record.

Have you ever actually gone for a run in the wind?

Their corrected times were 2:05:40 and 2:05:46

no, i've never run in the wind.

ironicler wrote:

If Chicago has pacers, then Mosop won't be eligible for a WR.

No wait, that only applies to women.

No wait, that only applies if you have pacers that are not in your competition.

This Mosop news is interesting. I'm sure Hall's chances are still pretty low, but if Mosop isn't really in shape, it certainly helps.