Dathan Ritzenhein OUT of 2018 Boston Marathon

I saw him a couple of times during this training cycle and while I know that he is very light, he definitely looked to have a fair amount of muscle on him in person, and did not look at all fragile. And for what it is worth, he and Kevin Hanson seemed to have a pretty congenial relationship from what I could observe during a few minutes of small talk.

Ritz doesn't need advice from this board. I talked with him in NY and I have never seen him happier in his career. Injuries happen. His attitude is awesome at this stage of his career.

Ritz is at the end of his career, why doesn't he just gut it out and run through the pain and make this his last race. It isn't like he has a long career ahead of him.

Smoove wrote:

I saw him a couple of times during this training cycle and while I know that he is very light, he definitely looked to have a fair amount of muscle on him in person, and did not look at all fragile. And for what it is worth, he and Kevin Hanson seemed to have a pretty congenial relationship from what I could observe during a few minutes of small talk.

It is a scientific fact that if your body fat drops to low it dramatically increases one chances of fractures, because it messes up your hormones. If your body fat drops to low you can't produce enough estrogen which is crucial to bone health.

dbsquirt21 wrote:

Doesn't matter he's washed up and would get his rectum caved in by daddy RUPP anyway

Speaking of all this rectum talk,

....Is that the new super-secret way NOP injects L-cartinine?

This sounds like textbook AlSal methodology.

gotta think this might be it for him. to put all of the effort in and not be able to get to the starting yet again...

it's gotta weigh on him. I wonder if he might call it quite

So he doesn't even get to go home devastated

Just not tough enough

Non-factor anyway...

Who is Dathan Ritzenhein?

poor guy.

He must be feeling terrible. i hope he gets healthy and can have a few more good races, but that just seems like a stretch based on his past few years. must be a lot of anxiety involved feeling like his time is running out (not a pun)

he should go have coffee with Alan Webb

Kris Krinkle wrote:

Who is Dathan Ritzenhein?

Nathan*

Hounddogharrier wrote:

Just not tough enough

No Not that, he is just so fragile, maybe he needs a few more pound son that frame.

why not wrote:

Ritz is at the end of his career, why doesn't he just gut it out and run through the pain and make this his last race. It isn't like he has a long career ahead of him.

Clearly you have never had an SI injury. Inflaming that sort of injury can lead to a lifetime of discomfort and sleeplessness. Not worth the risk. Ritz has his eye on one more round of the Olympics. That is a fine priority.

why not wrote:

Ritz is at the end of his career, why doesn't he just gut it out and run through the pain and make this his last race. It isn't like he has a long career ahead of him.

Clearly this^^^ person has never run a marathon.

I believe that Ritz is an honest dude that crossed over to the dark side when he was part of NOP. I feel the rest of his career wil be a result of bad karma.

Honestly, I couldn’t give a sh@$&t.

Hayduke wrote:

Honestly, I couldn’t give a sh@$&t.

You cared enough to post. Thanks.

Fentrekker wrote:

why not wrote:

Ritz is at the end of his career, why doesn't he just gut it out and run through the pain and make this his last race. It isn't like he has a long career ahead of him.

Clearly you have never had an SI injury. Inflaming that sort of injury can lead to a lifetime of discomfort and sleeplessness. Not worth the risk. Ritz has his eye on one more round of the Olympics. That is a fine priority.

Potential for making a injury worse down the road aside, the odds of gutting it out and running through the pain resulting in even a mediocre marathon performance are slim at best. Being a bit dinged up is somewhat manageable in 5K, 10K and even a half marathon - but in a marathon where even small issues become disasters, trying to compete with a injury however minor makes no sense whatsoever.

As for those wondering why this always seems to happen near the end of his training cycle is like wondering if its that last drink that made you drunk and ignoring the 8 before it. Most of Ritz's injuries have come not from a specific trauma but from accumulated stress - its not that last few weeks workout(s) but rather likely something that started in one of his primary training cycles and that's also the reason its so darn hard to figure out exactly what went wrong and when and figurte out a way to avoid it next time.