Nike/Rupp fanboys, what happened to Luke Puskedra? Further Proof Al Sal can't coach the marathon?

Not quite as good as the Arne Gabius debut.

Maybe he can hook up with Arne's coach?

i wear adidas wrote:

Luke Puskedra ran 2:28:53 in his debut today.

How is the possible? He's coached by the greatest coach in the world - Al Sal.

Can you at least admit the coach makes the runner and not vice versa?

He can't coach any distance. The only truly world class performances that he has credit for are those of Rupp.... And that took him 10 years to do.

He shouldnt even be on the Oregon Project in my opinion. He hasn't had any really impressive races since joining the group. A lot of people say that his best chance of making an Olympic team is in the marathon; I'm sure he is in better shape than a 2:28, almost 2:29, but still. He's not even close to being top 3 in the US and he's not marketable.

505 wrote:

He shouldnt even be on the Oregon Project in my opinion. He hasn't had any really impressive races since joining the group. A lot of people say that his best chance of making an Olympic team is in the marathon; I'm sure he is in better shape than a 2:28, almost 2:29, but still. He's not even close to being top 3 in the US and he's not marketable.

He is like Dorian Ulrey - brought in to pace Rupp and Mo.

It took Dorian Ulrey too long to realize he was a practice pacemaker.

TLW wrote:

He is like Dorian Ulrey - brought in to pace Rupp and Mo.

It took Dorian Ulrey too long to realize he was a practice pacemaker.

At 2:28, he's hardly even that. More like an anchor.

he ran 1:01:36 2 years ago, suggesting a great future in the marathon. maybe things have not gone well since then. he is also a 13:31/27:56 guy, so the translations really suggested that he would get better and better as the distance went up.

b fcekjbkjfb wrote:

At 2:28, he's hardly even that. More like an anchor.

This is obviously hardly indicative of what he COULD do.

Problem is he is probably so over trained from pacing/working out with Rupp/Mo.

Similar to the reason Ulrey gave when he left, the training ie pace work was too hard

The focus of NOP is and always will be Rupp and MO.

jjjjjjjjj wrote:

he ran 1:01:36 2 years ago, suggesting a great future in the marathon. maybe things have not gone well since then. he is also a 13:31/27:56 guy, so the translations really suggested that he would get better and better as the distance went up.

He followed that 1:01 with a 1:02 the next year where Lelisa ran a 1:01 after a 59:23 the previous year, indicating perhaps a 1:00 on Luke's part. How many Americans can run that?

Yesterday I watched a video of Renato Canova talking about Abel Kirui (

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bI6gsgfFJ0

). I think Salazar needs to see this video. All Salazar's athletes have many years of high-level training behind them, and have very solid aerobic bases, yet in that schedule that was posted some months ago, it was full of "filler miles". No doubt it wasn't the full story, but Mo was putting in mega-mileage and it seems likely he wasn't hammering away at 90% of MP for 40k like Canova's athletes were doing.

The marathon is a gruelling and long race, and you have to replicate that in training. When you already have incredible aerobic fitness, why waste time and risk injury putting in all those mid-paced miles. Instead, follow Canova's training philosophy of specificity. Long runs at or near M marathon pace, and sessions at faster paces, while leaving the other days of the week to recover and absorb the training.

Mo Farah is a great example of how Salazar's training for the marathon doesn't work - though perhaps not as emphatically as Puskedra bombing a 2:28. Rumours of fast 200's on the track and sessions like 10x1600 in 4:36 make it sound like he's after a fast/WR 10K/HM, not a fast M debut. Of course, Mo wanted to keep his options open for a return to the track and didn't want to lose his speed. His botched marathon attempt may have scarred him though - I have a distinct feeling we've seen the best Mo (should have gone for 3K WR after Moscow). I would be delighted to be proven wrong though!

Salazar is very good as a 1500 - 10K coach, and his athletes should all stick to that or change coaches.

Who cares about one bad debut race. "Debut" time is overrated, and the time doesn't matter when you go out too fast and blow up. Next one will be better.

Luke was hurt for several weeks going into this race.

i wear adidas wrote:

Luke Puskedra ran 2:28:53 in his debut today.

How is the possible? He's coached by the greatest coach in the world - Al Sal.

Can you at least admit the coach makes the runner and not vice versa?

RUKM!

Luke had a bad race as do about 50% of debutaunts. This race is not an indictment Luke or AlSal, after all Luke has a 1:01 half on his resume.

TrackCocah wrote:

RUKM!

Luke had a bad race as do about 50% of debutaunts. This race is not an indictment Luke or AlSal, after all Luke has a 1:01 half on his resume.

2:18 would have been a bad race. 2:28 is beyond that.

AlSal cannot train marathoners. This has been proven time and time again all the way back to the early 2000s when the original Nike Oregon Project was strictly a marathon group and no one in the group ran what would be considered even a decent elite marathon time for that era.

Too stupid/stubborn to drop out of the race? A DNF at 18 miles has to be better than slogging home in a middling time (for an elite woman).

What was his goal time?

What was his time halfway?

Final 10k split?

Any interviews post-race?

TLW wrote:

TrackCocah wrote:

RUKM!

Luke had a bad race as do about 50% of debutaunts. This race is not an indictment Luke or AlSal, after all Luke has a 1:01 half on his resume.

2:18 would have been a bad race. 2:28 is beyond that.

AlSal cannot train marathoners. This has been proven time and time again all the way back to the early 2000s when the original Nike Oregon Project was strictly a marathon group and no one in the group ran what would be considered even a decent elite marathon time for that era.

2:28 is a debacle for a 1:01 half marathoner, marathon debut or not. He needs to run a lower tier marathon first in a confortable 2:20.

Maybe he shouldn't even finished this years if he blew up that bad. I didn't see the splits but he must have run the last half over 6:00 pace. Which really probably means he was running 2:50 marathon pace the last 5 miles.

Ritz Raff wrote:

Final 10k split?

Who cares? Once you blow up it does not really matter, you're just jogging anyways. 2:20, 2:28, 2:38, DNF, it's all the same at that point, no need to analyze how many miles per hour he was walk/jogging to the finish line.

He's too "skinny" for the marathon.

What I mean by that is he runs out of glycogen/glucose fuel in his system too fast.

He needs to eat more before and take in more glucose during the race to survive the full 26.2 distance.

oofk wrote:

i wear adidas wrote:

Luke Puskedra ran 2:28:53 in his debut today.

How is the possible? He's coached by the greatest coach in the world - Al Sal.

Can you at least admit the coach makes the runner and not vice versa?

He can't coach any distance. The only truly world class performances that he has credit for are those of Rupp.... And that took him 10 years to do.

He doesn't get credit for Centrowitz and Rowbury?

Hasay is knocking on the door of world class as well.