What if Galen Rupp wasn't training for Boston? What if his stated goal was to win this half marathon in Rome. He did all of his buildup and peaked for this performance. We'd all question why he picked this race and distance, but he goes out and does it anyway because that's what he and Alberto and his team decided was best for his progression. He goes out and dominates the field like he did today and now he takes a little downtime to get ready for the next big goal, whatever it may be.
In this hypothetical, are we analyzing this performance so closely? I mean, mission accomplished. He trained for the race and dominated the race, running within four seconds of the American record, albeit on an ineligible course. That's a pretty good day.
So in the reality of this race, where Rome was just a stepping stone to a more important race, what is there to be critical of? To be so close to an AR in a performance that isn't even the focus of his training and that he didn't peak for is pretty impressive, although most of the top American half marathons have probably been run under similar circumstances. If we are simply questioning whether this performance was superior to Hall's on a different course under different conditions and different circumstances is unanswerable and although we like to quantify these performances, honestly, who cares? If we believe that Rupp should be criticized every time he doesn't break an American record, I guess that is high praise. I get that people don't like Galen for understandable reasons and that other people are happy to overlook those reasons. But in evaluating this race, I would bet that Galen got exactly what he was looking for leading into Boston.