I am no expert, but here is my analysis of Webb, and I am curious if others have thought the same way.
My view of Webb is that he did not vary his distance racing enough. Even world class runners, if anything need to jump around in different events. I view this as a way to maximize one's potential. In my opinion, Ritzenhein(even though he gets injured a lot), has done a really good job at this. He has run solid performances from 5K-Marathon(yes some of those times aren't as good as others). But you can see Ritz's strongest performances are his 1:00:00 half marathon and 12:56 5K. It's unnecessary for Ritz to really race anything less than 3K-5K, because it lies outside of his prime range. So, perhaps you can say Ritz is a 5K-Marathon guy(with his half marathon being his better performance). It also makes sense to me that as Ritz ages, he will do better at the marathon as he loses his speed. For Webb, I view his prime range as an 800m-10,000m guy. I believe he had/has that much talent to have that much of a range. The PROBLEM is he only focused on the mile.
To me, it seemed he raced the mile too much, and thus became stale. Think about it, look at how good Rupp has gotten, yet he doesn't only focus on the mile. He doesn't race it all the time, and is working different systems. I'm not really a huge fan of Rupp or Salazar, but I can view what they are working on is the right balance. He isn't having Rupp doing too many of one type of race.
I'm not saying Webb's best event wasn't the mile, I just think he should've raced other distances at times. Remember he beat Ritz in that 10K, running 27:34? Imagine what Webb could've done in the 10K, with his speed and strength. He would've been a monster at the 10K, sub 27 easily. And the type of training he would do for that type of race would maximize his endurance, therefore when it came to Olympic races and World Championship races that he would compete in the mile, he would have the endurance to get through 3 rounds of the 1500m. In a way, this would have maximized his performance in the mile even more. I'm not sure if he could've run faster than 3:46, but as far as championship racing goes, I wouldn't be surprised if that's what made the difference for him in getting on the podium.
I think Steve Scott was on to something when he thought Webb was truly burned out(can't remember what year that was).
I think a big part of burnout results from doing the same thing over and over again. I know a lot of people said he was a headcase as well, but I wonder whether the physical part of being overtrained and overraced in the wrong distances, etc goes hand in hand with that.
Anyone have similar analysis on him here? What are your thoughts?