Was Ritz crying in his flotrack interview?

Dude, seriously, no, Ritz is not as good as Rupp + is older than Rupp and has a slower top speed so I think there is basically zero chance that Ritz is going to catch up to Rupp now.

Rupp is not as good as Mo for now, but Rupp is a few years younger than Mo and has some chance of catching him.

Look, Ritz has had a nice career and it isn't over yet, but he is not now nor will he ever be truly competitive with the best in the world. Same came be said of Solinsky.

On the bright side, that time qualified him for Boston!

Retardalert. wrote:

someone had to do it wrote:

Ritz =/= Galen/Mo

P.S. drugs work

Ritz is just as good as them actually. He just is more injury prone. With all his injuries the fact he's still run 12:56, 60:00 for 3rd in world champs is ridiculous. You think Galen or Mo would even still be racing if they had gone through all Ritz has?

Being injury resistant is part of talent. Just like a high LT or pure speed. To say he is just more injury prone is to say he is less talented(or you are saying he is NOT as good as them..actually).

Hey troll, he's not crying, obviously just disappointed and probably exhausted, physically and emotionally. I wasn't aware of his foot problem or the fact that it hindered faster interval training for this marathon cycle as compare to last year. Plus, he had a more compressed window to work with this year after worlds.

Next year will be interesting. He says he's going to run two marathons, and I wonder if a Spring marathon will set him up well for some fast track times, which could then lead to a nice fall marathon in 2014. I'm firmly convinced that Ritz was capable of 2:07 back in 2009, but he went out way too fast (14:37 for the first 5k) and blew up. However, the training he did for London set him up very well for his best track season ever and his world half-marathon bronze.

Clearly, with last year being the outlier, he hasn't solved the cramping issues. But, again, last year he was able to lay down some hard interval work during the build-up, unlike this year. I wonder if training with Rupp and Mo isn't causing him to overtrain a bit (foot issue), because he also mentioned he felt pretty bad on some of his recovery days and had some doubt. I still hope he gets an opportunity to run sub-27:00, but even if his career ended tomorrow, he's been spectacular. 12:56-2:07. No other American has had that range. Maybe Rupp will one day.

No, Ritz will probably never run sub-2:05 or win a major marathon, but the only thing really missing from his resume that he was probably capable of was a world cross-country medal in his prime. Heck, he might've been able to do that this year, what with True getting sixth. Three Olympic teams, three American cross titles, a bronze medal as a junior at world cross and a bronze at the world half-marathon champs, 8:11, 12:56, 27:22 (sixth in the heat at the WCs), 1:00:00, and 2:07:47 PRs... Pretty rock solid.

I like Ritz, but he is guy that is always going to fall a little short.

LM wrote:

J.R. wrote:

Maybe he needs to run the 400m a bit faster.

Is there some backstory here...or do you seriously think Ritz needs more speed to run a good marathon?

He needs to run consistent 22 milers at his marathon pace, and to stay away from the 400m sprints.

You sound like a man who eats the booty.

YouErrorRate wrote:

You sound like a man who eats the booty.

why do you even come to this web site? troll.

Pretty rock solid if it were the years between 1984-1994. Dude you used to be a great/smart poster here on lrc; what happened...?

These winners have to be on something. Used to be 2:06's and 2:05's. Now random unknowns are running 20:4's and 2:03's.

Your inferiority complex is getting out of hand.

Do you honestly think all the Kenyans/Ethiopian are on drugs and none of them ever get caught? Do they really have that sophisticated drug system that they can afford to evade testing? (there may be one or two exception out of like 40 sub 2:05 performances).

Just get over it. Better talent are emerging. They have better training and just plain better.

Why can't you accept that reality?

Actually many kenyans have been busted in the past two years. Drug use is rampant amongst the africans and this has been admitted by africans themselves. look at kisorio.

The improvement from 2009 to 2011 is laughable. There is not less money on the track than there was in 2006. There is not more money on the roads than there was in 2006. These are both made up things perpetuated by the brojos/canova.

Do you really think Wanjiru (a 26:30ish guy who was a marathon SPECIALIST) who was dominant during 2010 would be the 50th best marathoner in the world today? Struggling to podium in 2nd-tier marathons? What changed during that tiny period of time?

He was weeping because the superior African's referred to the slow "white Skins" allowed in the elite group.

There's no crying in road racing.

nikeFan wrote:

These winners have to be on something. Used to be 2:06's and 2:05's. Now random unknowns are running 20:4's and 2:03's.

Holy crap, average winning times are IMPROVING? Has that ever happened before in the history of running?

cmon now boi wrote:

Do you really think Wanjiru (a 26:30ish guy who was a marathon SPECIALIST) who was dominant during 2010 would be the 50th best marathoner in the world today? Struggling to podium in 2nd-tier marathons? What changed during that tiny period of time?

what are you talking about? Wanjiru at his peak would be right with today's top guys, and beating them if he ran like he did in Beijing. He never really did a pure time trial race (correct me if I am wrong) on a course like Berlin, so yeah, his PR isn't 2:04-flat or better, but would have been in the right race. And as is well known now, he was not exactly the most dedicated trainer every (like to party). And other guys have simply come along who are as good as him, What's so shocking? Tadesse is a faster 10k and 1/2 marathoner than all these 2:03/04 guys, but he can't break 2:10. Did he not get the secret drug memo? Or because is not KEN/ETH, they are not letting him in on the deal?

You're grasping at straws for a drug explanation.

Apparently medical technology is much more advanced in Kenya than it is in the US.

More likely, the Kenyans run well because there's no market for medical hypocrisy there.

You use one person not running fast as reasoning that nobody is doping? Who is grasping at straws now.

Also - since you asked to be corrected if wrong, yes he did run MANY fast fast time-trial style marathons. Marathons with MANY world records and hyper-fast times in the past decade. He won london, he won chicago twice. Most recently in 2010.

Show me any statistical improvement in world-class performances even close to marathoning between 2010 and 2011. The only ones that come to mind? 5000-10000 running 1993-1995 and 100-200 running 2008-2009 are the only ones that comes close. EPO debuted in one case, SARMS in the other.

Oh wait - I forgot nobody was paying people to win marathons before 2011. It isn't like they had the same exact prize structure at this race for at least the past five years.