Ryan hall - I don't get it.

His right leg seemed a little off, anyone notice that?

My guess is that he had no intention of finishing but got some sponsorship incentive for hyping it up and then going out fast. Otherwise 4:40 1st mile makes no sense, unless he truly is delusional or has poor pace sense. At best he's a 2:13 to 2:15 runner now, more likely 2:15 to 2:17.

That said the hater threads are over the top and annoying.

This isn't a hater thread. I genuinely want to see him succeed, as he's one of only a few Americans that has the talent to compete with the top international guys. It's just frustrating that he seems to have absolutely no idea how fast he's actually currently capable of running and I don't understand how he could be so far off from reality in his mind.

I am not a hater, but Hall baffles me. The OP is spot-on. Hall seems to have no sense of strategy or of his own fitness on a given day.

Mr. Ryan had a great 5 year stretch of running marathons.
It seems that a marathoner's body can't take much more than that.
Salazar, Shorter, and Rodgers each had about 5 years of top performance although Mr. Rodgers had additional good years and declined more slowly than the others.

bottom line: the number of years and miles have taken their toll and the aging process has won again.

Wilson Kipsang turned 33 years old today. Ryan Hall is only 32...how much you want to bet Kipsang still has some fast marathons in him?

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outsiderunner wrote:
Hall seems to have no sense of strategy or of his own fitness on a given day.

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He is probably still fixated on his 2:04 and thinks he can do it again, sans the tailwind.

It may be time to fire God as a running coach and get a human coach ( No offense to God as lord and savior) . Any coach would help him improve right now. I have to think really hard to find another runner who has wasted so much talent over so many years.

The problem with Ryan is that he has a spiritual / religious world-view that is very adolescent - one that tends to focus on identity structure and self-worth ... and as I pointed out in another thread ... this has led to both a form of spiritual narcissism and an exaggerated sense of self-importance. Ryan's adolescent religious / spiritual world view tends to work through the teenage years. But given the complexities of adult life, this world-view is not nuanced enough to give "real world" religious / spiritual answers. So, from my perspective, Ryan can change coaches until the end of time and it will have no bearing on his running future. Ryan needs to develop a more "adult", complex and nuanced religious and spiritual understanding of life in general and then, and only then, will he have any chance of returning to the level of an elite athlete.

I think the main problem is that for his body, he's done marathoning. He's probably torn up his muscles too many times - they just stopped healing.

But no reason he shouldn't be running 2:12...he trains alone, right? maybe he needs a big pack to get lost in, to have fun with, to race, to see how peers deal with setbacks, to let a little of his pride go, to get beaten on 'race back to the barn' days...

Asics doesn't really have a team, but maybe there is some group that would take him in.

He's having a Blonde Moment that is lasting a lifetime.

I've definitely experienced going out pretty fast in a 5k then suffering from it later on.

I don't wanna know how that feels for a Marathon though...

The only Marathon Hall had finished recently was Boston last year where he ran 2:17:50. That's 5:15/mile. You're really going to run 35 seconds/mile faster than your most recent race performance, KNOWING the temps in LA were drastically going to RISE throughout the race, haven't raced a full Marathon in almost a year, and then get dropped @ 10k???

I still have respect for Hall but I mean, cmon.

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I don't get it at all. wrote:

This isn't a hater thread. I genuinely want to see him succeed, as he's one of only a few Americans that has the talent to compete with the top international guys. It's just frustrating that he seems to have absolutely no idea how fast he's actually currently capable of running and I don't understand how he could be so far off from reality in his mind.

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His "coach" told him to go out hard.

At this point, I feel lied to.

For Ryan to state at the beginning of these past 4+ races that he is back on track and back to his 2008 form or close when in actuality he is nowhere close to that form, at this point, comes across to me as blatant dishonesty with his fan base. I am finding it difficult to be a fan of someone who lies to me and who appears show not remorse.

His righteousness (not self-righteous, but what appears to be an extension of his religious righteousness) seems to be the culprit in this lack of remorse to his fans when he repeatedly lies to them before the race and lies to the race organizers in his intention to be competitive and to finish the race when they provide him with appearance money.

How many threads have been here over the years from people wanting, and getting, predictions about how fast they can run for a specific distance based on a workout or series of workouts they've done? Loads of them, right? Running now is crawling with formulas and people who believe in them. So if Hall is doing the kinds of workouts he was doing when he was running well under 2:10 it's reasonable that he honestly believes he's ready to run well under 2:10 again. Hence the comments about how well he's running and how well he plans to do.

The trouble with that kind of thinking is that racing is different from training and turning in monster workouts does not mean you'll run monster races. The best way of knowing what sort of racing performances you're capable of is by racing and Hall, like many, maybe most, top level guys these days, doesn't do very much of that.

I don't think there's anything mysterious here. He's probably capable of running marathons in the 2:12-2:15 range right now, maybe even a tad faster under ideal conditions, which he evidently did not have yesterday. But his history and perhaps recent training have him convinced that he's capable of much more than that and when he sets off at a pace that he believes he's ready for but really isn't the result is the same as when a 3:30 guy sets off at 3:00 pace.

Some great comments, a couple very well articulated by the posters today, well done.
Bottom line for Mr. Hall is that until he gets a coach that can know him, understand his body and be able to tell him "here is todays race plan" based on our workouts, todays conditions and competitors. Removing the emotional excitement and ego.Until its replaced with a strategic, realistic approach to racing and training Mr. Hall will continue his spiral down.
He cannot train like he used to , he cannot race like he used to , something needs to change so he can get the best out of the athlete he is today not of his past.

Sarah has the same religious point of view, and yet she's had a pretty decent last 6-8 months even with the appendicitis in the middle of it all. Who knows what yesterday means for her in terms of longer distances, but given the conditions, given that it was her first marathon, and given that she apparently had a lot of cramping going on, yesterday wasn't a bad debut at all. Maybe she should coach Ryan?

I wonder if Ryan knows exactly what he is doing. I also wonder if he has a near future target in mind. Think he does things his way and win lose or draw he can live with that. Would like to see a great coach learn Ryan and protect him. Ryan knows how to get there, he has done it again and again. If your coaching, say his top US competitor, would you not think Hall has a plan, he is not just flopping around out there. I don't know I just feel some kind of method to this madness. Just me I guess.