This was in my head too. I don't know the reasons, but it seems like when runners get especially skinnier, they start to suffer in things like marathons. We know so little about his prep that it's hard to say, though.
People talk about fitness staying with you for a lifetime, but idk if 12 weeks is enough when he was hardly running for a year prior
Good point.
As an adult man who has already had (amazing) success in the Marathon you don't want to be racing in high school weight.
I disagree. The single reason he underperformed was that he cut out "junk" mileage. I don't know why we Americans keep thinking we will just get handed success without putting in the work. We SUCKED in the 90s because everyone thought low mileage was the way to go. Now Ryan Hall is infecting a whole new generation with this crippling mindset. Read a description of Paul Tergat preparing for the 2000 Olympic 10k and you'll realize that those who espouse that they need to cut down on mileage to improve quality are just taking it easy. I'm not willing to train long or hard enough to win a major marathon. But I will admit that. Those who won't put in the work and won't admit that they're taking it easy are being disingenuous.
That's quite a proclamation.
Ok. Lets take Hall out of this equation and substitute myself.
I was in great shape 3 weeks ago. I could have run 3:00 marathon just like I was hoping on that day. But I skipped too many snacks in the last few weeks and ran 3:20 because of that error. Of course it means nothing. I'll do all the same things next time except keep the snacks. That will bump me right back to 20 mins faster.
Now it sounds kind of silly when I say that, doesn't it?
I agree that too much weight loss is bad. But he clearly was not fit (well, by his standards anyway) for this race and it wasn't something that just happened in the last few days!
adroit181 wrote:
We SUCKED in the 90s because everyone thought low mileage was the way to go.
That's a big assumption. There are many possible reasons why the US wasn't as good in running in the 90s. I don't think it was all that bad. Didn't we have some 27:xx 10k guys as well as Bob Kennedy, etc?
its a whole different ball game when you are dealing with 3% body fat vs 10% body fat, or more
madmandoc wrote:
Ok. Lets take Hall out of this equation and substitute myself.
I was in great shape 3 weeks ago. I could have run 3:00 marathon just like I was hoping on that day. But I skipped too many snacks in the last few weeks and ran 3:20 because of that error. Of course it means nothing. I'll do all the same things next time except keep the snacks. That will bump me right back to 20 mins faster.
Now it sounds kind of silly when I say that, doesn't it?
I agree that too much weight loss is bad. But he clearly was not fit (well, by his standards anyway) for this race and it wasn't something that just happened in the last few days!
He isn't as thin as Meb. However, since Meb runs twice as much he may be cutting calories to stay as thin as when he ran 150 a week.
The quality of the quantity is what's important. According to Canova, most of the top Kenyans don't run any junk mileage, although they might be running 130+ miles per week. In the 90's junk mileage was cut, but so was quality mileage.
Either way, as another poster stated, it gets to be dangerous if you are playing around with your weight at what is an already extremely low body fat percentile.
What exactly was his HS weight? If he's 5'10" 130 that would typically point towards enough muscle mass to run about a 2:11:00.
That would make sense that going out at 2:08-2:09 blew him up.
I don't know about everyone else on this board, but I was really disappointed the Ryan Hall didn't run better today. He's not too old, so what's the problem? How can a man run by far the best marathon ever by an American (2:04:58) and then come nowhere close to that time again? I wish Hall well, and I hope he can pull it all together again.
any pic i saw from the race today doesn't look much different than this:
http://running.competitor.com/files/2009/09/hall_ryanfv-houstonh07.jpg
unless you have records of his weight throughout training in months leading to good races vs. bad races to go off of, who really knows if he is heavier or lighter & how it might affect performance. "how a guy looks" to you is not data to base a claim like this on.
Isn't Hall another guy with thyroid issues? I'm pretty sure he is. I wonder if that plays into it at all.
skeptical.... wrote:
any pic i saw from the race today doesn't look much different than this:
http://running.competitor.com/files/2009/09/hall_ryanfv-houstonh07.jpg
Nice pic of him glorifying god. Go ryan! Ryan Hall = God, that's all we need to know. And he really won Boston 2014 as history will be rewritten by god-fearing republicans. Go god. Go USA! Only Obamacare-loving dumcrats think Ryan Hall did not win Boston 2014. Amen.
Shawn H wrote:
I don't know about everyone else on this board, but I was really disappointed the Ryan Hall didn't run better today. He's not too old, so what's the problem? How can a man run by far the best marathon ever by an American (2:04:58) and then come nowhere close to that time again? I wish Hall well, and I hope he can pull it all together again.
Do you not know that 2:04 was massively wind-aided. It was more like 2:06-7.
crhthc wrote:
Do you not know that 2:04 was massively wind-aided. It was more like 2:06-7.
the guy that won went on to run 2''05'02 in NYC that same year
ask yourself what that equates to in pancake flat berlin with pacers
madmandoc wrote:
Ok. Lets take Hall out of this equation and substitute myself.
I was in great shape 3 weeks ago. I could have run 3:00 marathon just like I was hoping on that day. But I skipped too many snacks in the last few weeks and ran 3:20 because of that error. Of course it means nothing. I'll do all the same things next time except keep the snacks. That will bump me right back to 20 mins faster.
Now it sounds kind of silly when I say that, doesn't it?
I agree that too much weight loss is bad. But he clearly was not fit (well, by his standards anyway) for this race and it wasn't something that just happened in the last few days!
I don't understand your argument
X_Fit_Guy_The_Real_1 has been right all along about training and performance. If you become skinny-fat from eating too many grains and not running at a high enough intensity, that will hurt your performance on race day. You can see in this video that, leading up to the Boston Marathon, Ryan Hall had become skinny-fat and was eating grains:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZGlH_paK9Y
. Go to 5:14 and you see him slurping down spaghetti.
He's not the only runner who has suffered. Another notable example is Alan Webb. Here's Alan Webb back when he was fast:
. Compare that to the picture I took of him this January:
http://i.imgur.com/NVgu8SZ.jpg
. His arms looked weak and his stomach looked pudgy.
Agreeing with xfit guy? This is anecdotal evidence at best but in reality (like skeptical said) it's just subjective analysis of a few pics/video footage. You need to learn to look at actual numbers instead of handpicking some pics and results that agree.
nothing is more ignorant than making generalizations about how people trained at various time periods
