Mo probably didn't take enough gels in London. Rookie mistake. The trick is to get a good fanny pack and you'll never bonk again. If he was in my age group I wouldn't have mentioned this though.
Mo probably didn't take enough gels in London. Rookie mistake. The trick is to get a good fanny pack and you'll never bonk again. If he was in my age group I wouldn't have mentioned this though.
Dude still has speed.
Getting beat on home soil by some overweight, out-of-shape dude running his first half had to hurt him psychologically too.
Is this whole thread intentionally ironic? The whole world knows (or should do if you follow distance running with any kind of seriousness)that at London in 2013 Farah was only ever going to run half the distance ; it was some sort of familiarisation run to set him up for the real thing this year. It clearly was not a DNF in the accepted sense of the term.
I think Farah will run very well this year - including his marathon debut. I predict he will win the race in a very fast time. He would not have committed to the race unless he and his whole team of coaches/advisers etc. had solid evidence from tests and training that he could handle the race. There is simply too much riding on it in commercial/financial and reputation (for athlete and coach) terms for an athlete in Farah's position to "have a go" at something without being pretty certain of success. I know that there is no such thing as certainty in sport - least of all marathon running - but the success Farah's move up is as predictable as Paula Radcliffe's move was.
He will continue to run well and dominate the races he considers important until he suffers his first serious setback - then the doubts and demons set in and cause all sorts of problems in the athlete's head - think Ryun in 1968!!
mark b wrote:
Is this whole thread intentionally ironic?
Yes
grox wrote:
mark b wrote:Is this whole thread intentionally ironic?
Yes
No. Don't believe the spin coming out of the Salazar camp. They had already used the pollen excuse with Rupp so they had to come up with something new for a poor performance. But they didn't fool us at letsrun. Do we really think London was going to give Mo lavish appearance fees for planning to stop halfway? Could the British public take another DNF after Paula had marathon problems late in her career? How dumb do they think we are? I don't think the cover-up was well planned. We figured it out.
Personally, I'm a big Mo fan. I'm hoping he can bounce back from this defeat. When I was in London in the summer, I found t-shirts saying, "I Beat Mo!" I bought all of them I could and destroyed them. I couldn't stand the sight of those. Just because Mo doesn't have the endurance for the marathon is no reason to belittle a great runner. Hoping he has a great 2014.
How do you explain Mo Farah's poor performances at the Moscow World Champs? His times were a long way off his best. He's clearly regressed.
Did you see the LRC QOTD by Stephen Kiprotich? He's running London 2014 and knows he can go faster than he has, possibly break the WR. This can't be good for Mo. Last I read in the Times a couple of months ago, Mo was planning to run London again this year and it was more important to him than the Commonwealth Games. This could get ugly. I'm not sure why great runners think they have to conquer every distance, and if they fail at one they become obsessed with conquering it. I hope Mo doesn't DNF halfway again this year. Two halves don't make a whole.
At the London Marathon 2013 Farah was only ever going to run half the distance. He was paid a considerable sum for this AS PART OF A PACKAGE THAT GUARANTEED THE ORGANISERS THAT HE WOULD MAKE HIS REAL DEBUT THERE IN 2014. This is fact. It generated a lot of media publicity here in the UK and some unfavourable comments were made about Farah's financial rapacity - the only bad publicity he's had over here for several years.
At the moment ther's quite a lot of discussion about the likelihood of Farah lining up at the Commonwealth Games in 2014. Salazar has suggested it would be damaging for Farah to try and peak for a track meet so soon after London. There will be a lot of pressure placed on him to toe the line at some distance in Glasgow - and the Europeans which are only a week or so later in the season.
Won't be good for his image if he doesn't appear in these meets and his sponsors might well feel a bit aggrieved if he starts to attract adverse publicity.
mark b wrote:
At the London Marathon 2013 Farah was only ever going to run half the distance.
Sounds pretty far fetched. Don't believe everything Al Sal says
Pretty sure he won't win any Olympic gold medals in 2014
mark b wrote:
...
Won't be good for his image if he doesn't appear in these meets and his sponsors might well feel a bit aggrieved if he starts to attract adverse publicity.
Imagine how resentful the sponsors will be if he puts in another crummy performance. I don't know how much more pressure he can stand.
Mo Farah..???
Isn't he that amateur runner that won the New Orleans half-marathon having never run before?
This year, he should probably just run the second half of the London marathon. To get familiar with the whole course, before attempting to run it for real.
That's interesting. Salazar is already getting excuses ready for London 2014, blaming it on Glasgow. They did the same last year. They started realizing way before April that Mo couldn't run much farther than 12 or 13 miles so they started getting their excuses lined up in advance. They made it look intentional. And they did a good job. Most everyone bought it. The announcers on the BBC downplayed it hoping no one would notice. Interesting to see them employ a similar tactic this year using the Commonwealth games instead.
Actually, I think AlSal tried to be more subtle than that. He had Mo run with the pack as long as possible, otherwise viewers would wonder why they never saw him. But then Salazar had him slip out of the picture halfway while no one noticed. If he went any further people might start expecting Mo to win. Really sly on their part.
You'd think in the internet age we'd have video of Mo running farther than 13 miles, but there is none whatsoever. NOP has done an excellent job covering this up so no one notices.
Well, there is video of him running 13.1 like that race in New Orleans. But it's unclear if he had ever run before that. In fact, that's what the reporter asked.
But otherwise you're correct. Nothing further than 13.1.
This is why this website needs to remain anonymous. If people had to register, we never would have uncovered the big picture about Mo and his running.
He lost to 30,000 runners in London.
No medals at 2012 indoors.
He tried running a 1500m with only mediocre results.
Not running WC in 2014.
Not running XC at Sochi.
Not running in the Olympics this summer.
You'd think all the big running websites would be all over this, but no, it's only on this anonymous forum that the truth comes out.
read it in The Star wrote:
Doesn't he have a twin bro? Rumor has it that Mo was so distraught after London, he wouldn't go out in public and sent his bro out instead.
Completely forgot about his twin brother. How do we even know he's ever run 13.1 miles? I bet if we examine the film closely somewhere halfway in the race, he and his brother swap places. Maybe at a water station or something. We'll probably have to have it in slo-mo to catch it, but I bet this has happened a lot and no one ever picked up on it.
What if he and his twin brother did this at the Olympics? They never air the entire race, not even for the 5. All that Nike money could pay off the BBC, NBC, and everyone else to conveniently go to advertisements at just the right place so the two could swap places.
This is epic. Mo would be guaranteed to win double Olympic gold at home in London because he only ran the second half of each race. No wonder he could close so fast.
I'm surprised the Mail, the Star, and the Times didn't pick up on this. What a cover up. This is bigger than the U.S. fabricating all those moon landings back in the 60s and 70s.
Am I living in the twilight zone? The Boston Marathon weather was terrible!
Des Linden: "The entire sport" has changed since she first started running Boston.
Matt Choi was drinking beer halfway through the Boston Marathon
Is there a rule against attaching a helium balloon to yourself while running a road race?
2024 College Track & Field Open Coaching Positions Discussion
How rare is it to run a sub 5 minute mile AND bench press 225?