It would be suicide for Farah to run at WR pace in London

I believe he *can* win, even at WR pace, and not just in an uninteresting "anything's possible" sense. And here's why.

* There's going to be a rabbit at WR pace, through as much as 30km, and maybe longer for all we know. I do not know how common this is in marathons but will certainly be nice to have.

* Whether it's pure coaching or "Good Oregon Juice", it looks like whatever NOP is doing is working, at least for Rupp given his recent results, and so there's reason to believe Farah's past 13.1 PR et al might not be much of a limiting factor.

* Similarly, it does look like Farah and Salazar have a good thing going re race tactics. Granted those are at shorter distances, but even if Salazar is largely an overrated fraud he certainly has a good track record with Farah and it seems safe to assume Farah will be 100% on board with his coach.

* It seems reasonable that Farah is a greater running talent than some of the other guys, and talent makes weird things happen.

He probably won't win in 2'03'xx because 'probably' is such a strong word for such a difficult task. But 15:1? 50:1?

#YOBRO wrote:

3:28/12:53/26:46

Did we forget random 18 year old Ethiopians pop out 2:04s?

He's running what in iten? 150 a week?

He will go with the pace.

I think people are forgetting that he is training literally rubbing shoulders with the best of the best in East Africa. He's not in a lab somewhere in Oregon using that dumb Russian brain wave software that Salazar had the original NOP guys on or any of the other gimmicks. Yes, he is officially coached by Salazar, but here is a hypothetical:

Say Salazar gives him the same old crap from early-2000s that didn't work with his original NOP team for the marathon (he has learned and evolved as a coach, but that's why this is hypothetical). Do you think Farah would run by himself and ignore what the other Africans, and Canova, and the other proven Italian coaches, and just run by himself in Iten? Isn't one reason to go to Kenya is to get better via osmosis?

He will have trained with many of his London competitors for the months beforehand. He will be confident that if they can do it, he can do it. He will go with the pace.

Exactly. He believes Salazar 100% when he says he can run with anyone. He is in Iten putting in the same work as his competitors everyday. He didn't go to Kenya just for the altitude.

Farah knows his competitors and he knows they fear him to a certain extent. There is no doubt he will go with the pace. London, debut, payday all add up to the perfect storm. Now be no means is farah a lock but he will be there at 35k barring a surging pace, which doesn't look like it will be the case.

I can guarentee the field isn't blowing farah off like the majority of lrc.

nobody african teens are debuting at sub 205

go nuts like bill rodgers said

let the marathon humble him some other time

4 hour marathons hurt not wr

Like a good neighbor wrote:

Do you know the definition suicide?

Is "The definition Suicide" a movie?

It was typo.

Irunfastxc wrote:

Like a good neighbor wrote:

Do you know the definition suicide?

Is "The definition Suicide" a movie?

Did we all just forget about Mekonnen all of a sudden? 2:03:32 in his debut in Dubui. Went through the half in 1:01:37

Track Fan 1979 wrote:

I don't see Farah not going with the pace. If he doesn't he is going to be in no man's land. London is going to have pacers for the lead pack aiming for a WR. The next group of pacers is for the British athletes aiming for a sub 2:10. Farah has no choice but to go with the pace. This will lead to a hugh blow up. Boston would have been a much better debut for him. There is too much that can go wrong at London because of the fast pace.

The marathon website says nothing about a 2 hour pace group.

farah no question will go with the pace in london provided they are not going faster than a 1:01 half marathon pace.

in that event look for farah to lay back and work his way up in the second half.

for sure farah is capable of a 2:05 or under on the right day but again his body is tuned to shorter distances and the odds are at 30k the energy is not there. crash.

even if you are really good, you never know if you have that energy on the day.

guys like a frank shorter, gebreselasse, wanjiru are really rare birds indeed.

shorter is probably the most underrated marathoner of all time. he really had 2 golds, probably could have been the best at 5k if he really focused on that event.

From Wiki we have

Shorter won the U.S. national cross-country championships four times (1970, 1971, 1972, 1973). He was the U.S. Olympic Trials champion in both the 10,000-meter run and the marathon in both 1972 and 1976. He also won both the 10,000-meter run and the marathon at the 1971 Pan American Games. Shorter was a four-time winner of the Fukuoka Marathon (1971, 1972, 1973, 1974), generally recognized as the most prestigious marathon in the world at that time.

and there is a lot more, like taking on prefontaine at his best distance and very nearly running him into the ground.

Not with the drugs he's taking!

This is the least intelligent discussion I could have imagined from the topic.

He made his London deal before running 3:28, I think.

I think everyone agrees he's not at his best timing for a marathon. The WR pace is suicide for 90% of those who'll go with it. I hope he can hang on better than the others after breaking.

I'm predicting it right now: 60:30:00 through the first half

Leaves the field behind and pulls a 59:29:99 second half

It doesn't matter what Mo runs. Mathathi's got his number.

If Farah wins this marathon nothing will ever surprise me. Neither Farah beating Bolt at 100m in Rio 2016, nor Farah winning Tour de France. Just nothing. I will be only sure that although drugs may not work on the Kenyans they do work well on Farah.

here's what is going to happen

ridiculous heavy rain and hurricane force winds

on the day of the race. everyone will be off pace

at mile 1 and then they will slow down even more.

Mo will easily stay with the lead pack and comfortably

run away from them in the last 1500. doing mobot all through the last 400m. shabba.

time is irrelevant, kick is king and Mo is just plain

lucky in case you guys have not noticed

polar vortex wrote:

here's what is going to happen

Mo will easily stay with the lead pack and comfortably

run away from them in the last 1500. doing mobot all through the last 400m. shabba.

lol +1

They asked him how he felt after pulling up as planned at 1/2 way last year. Was expecting him to say not bad that sort of thing. His reply 'knackered' and you could tell he really meant it

He is really preparing for it this year but I can't see him sticking at WR pace much past 20m in first marathon. The big question is will go for it. He will know everyone wants to see him up front, so it's that vs the sensible choice of 2:05-6 pace

Gebrselassie will carry on running and beat everyone setting a new world best!

just the fax wrote:Let's see. he ran a 3:28 this past outdoor season but when did he last break 27:00 or 13:00?

err..

how on earth does a 5k/10k guy with vastly inferior basic 400 speed to elite 1500 guys run 3'28 ???

an answer : because he has absolutely huge 10k ability to hang onto that inferior basic speed for 1500m, no worse than 26'30