Galen Rupp nine days out from Prague — runs 24 miles on the TRACK finishing in 4:28

Just call him butter, 'cuz he's ready to roll.

Hmmm....Interesting choice by Alberto to have him run a near marathon 9 days before racing a marathon. But I guess for someone like Rupp, cruising 5:30's is just not that taxing, and I am sure he routinely runs long runs of 20-22 miles (if not more, I haven't studied his marathon training details, if they are out there). So......a run like this, with fast last mile, was a bit of a test/stress, but likely not a big deal for him, and he'll probably will recover easily.

Galen 2:04-2:05

This sounds stupid.

1. A 4:28 would be *easy* for someone of his caliber at the end of an aerobic run like that. 5:30s isn't fast for Rupp, it's his maintenance aerobic pace. It looked effortless because it was. If he collapsed on the track from 4:28, that belies a lack of recovery from Boston.

2. 24 miles on the track at any pace is flat-out dumb. Invitation to injury.

3. 24 miles seven days out from a goal race is borderline dumb, even at relatively slow paces like this. I say borderline, because ultimately it's just two hours of easy running, which should be bread and butter for Rupp at this point. Still, it's more than necessary, and it's coming off a busted race.

Not sure if I believe this happened. 4/10

Tyrone ReXXXing wrote:

Hmmm....Interesting choice by Alberto to have him run a near marathon 9 days before racing a marathon. But I guess for someone like Rupp, cruising 5:30's is just not that taxing, and I am sure he routinely runs long runs of 20-22 miles (if not more, I haven't studied his marathon training details, if they are out there). So......a run like this, with fast last mile, was a bit of a test/stress, but likely not a big deal for him, and he'll probably will recover easily.

I was thinking about it, and it makes sense why Yuki Kawauchi runs a marathon once a month. Why run a marathon in solitude? When you can go run a marathon and get some cash.

hagos pocket wrote:

This sounds stupid.

1. A 4:28 would be *easy* for someone of his caliber at the end of an aerobic run like that. 5:30s isn't fast for Rupp, it's his maintenance aerobic pace. It looked effortless because it was. If he collapsed on the track from 4:28, that belies a lack of recovery from Boston.

2. 24 miles on the track at any pace is flat-out dumb. Invitation to injury.

3. 24 miles seven days out from a goal race is borderline dumb, even at relatively slow paces like this. I say borderline, because ultimately it's just two hours of easy running, which should be bread and butter for Rupp at this point. Still, it's more than necessary, and it's coming off a busted race.

Not sure if I believe this happened. 4/10

I think that you think you're smarter than you actually are.

^^^ Agreed

When you've been steadily building up from 100-140 miles a week over the last 10 years, nearly injury free and you're so used to such a heavy work load, you can get away w/ doing stuff like this 9 days out from a marathon. No other marathoner in the country could do this cause no one has had the consistency and impressive work load that Galen has had. Hate him all you want, but it's true. Plus, it's been stated that they do long runs up to 27-28 miles so it's not like he's never been in this zone.

Also, he already tapered for Boston so he has to do something to at least take the staleness out of his body coming back from the taper. You have to throw some hard workouts in. It's like knowing you have an outside shot at making nationals from sectionals. You have to peak for sectionals, but if you end up making nationals, you can't just run easy for another 2 weeks until nationals.

Recall he ran Prague Half Marathon two weeks before Boston last year -- granted that's 15 days probably, but it was also race effort.

And recall he did the 10,000 in Rio like eight days before the Olympic marathon.

In both cases, he responded quite well in the actual race. I certainly wouldn't bash Rupp/Salazar for this workout.

Clearly they know what they're doing.

And 5:30 pace is like 40-43 seconds per mile SLOWER than his goal marathon pace

I guess that he didn't want to run on less predictable roads or trails , or the treadmill. Something in between like the track fits. If you have a reason to do something, it is generally going to be less of a mind numbing experience.

sounds.plausible wrote:

Recall he ran Prague Half Marathon two weeks before Boston last year -- granted that's 15 days probably, but it was also race effort.

And recall he did the 10,000 in Rio like eight days before the Olympic marathon.

In both cases, he responded quite well in the actual race. I certainly wouldn't bash Rupp/Salazar for this workout.

Clearly they know what they're doing.

And 5:30 pace is like 40-43 seconds per mile SLOWER than his goal marathon pace

That may be the case, but the much more relevant history is that he was unable to finish a marathon just a few weeks ago. If this was a pre-Boston workout, okay fine. But this is a post-Boston workout, and that matters...

Flipp wrote:

sounds.plausible wrote:

Recall he ran Prague Half Marathon two weeks before Boston last year -- granted that's 15 days probably, but it was also race effort.

And recall he did the 10,000 in Rio like eight days before the Olympic marathon.

In both cases, he responded quite well in the actual race. I certainly wouldn't bash Rupp/Salazar for this workout.

Clearly they know what they're doing.

And 5:30 pace is like 40-43 seconds per mile SLOWER than his goal marathon pace

That may be the case, but the much more relevant history is that he was unable to finish a marathon just a few weeks ago. If this was a pre-Boston workout, okay fine. But this is a post-Boston workout, and that matters...

No reason to change up what works because of one bad race that probably had nothing to do with actual running(injury or fitness)

Flipp wrote:

That may be the case, but the much more relevant history is that he was unable to finish a marathon just a few weeks ago. If this was a pre-Boston workout, okay fine. But this is a post-Boston workout, and that matters...

Meh, if he did indeed have an asthma attack triggered by the cold, then the Boston DNF would be very irrelevant -- a freak event, really.

And if he'd grinded through to a 2:18 finish, then he wouldn't be doing Prague now.

So I disagree.

How much does an elite like Rupp even taper for a marathon? Probably just like 10 days, right? If so, it's not like that happening pre-Boston should really sap his fitness now heading into Prague. Effectively, he had a down week in training, then a hard 20 mile effort. Could actually serve him well now...

As written, it's unclear whether the entire run was on the track. The implication from the write-up is that this guy shows up as it's in progress. I'm not saying it wasn't all on the track, but it's also possible it started elsewhere and finished on the track. Afterward this guy talks to Alberto, who says it was a 24-miler with a fast last mile, but in this write-up there's no evidence either way where those 24 miles were run. This is how urban legends can get started.

Yeah sure Rupp had an asthma attack. That's not what it looked like when he tried to respond to Yuki's break and was easily dropped. He was utterly demoralized and went home devastated.

^^^ Agreed. Sounds like it very well could've just ended with the last few miles on the track.

In any case, if you aspire to be elite or sub-elite and can't maintain mental sharpness for two hours for a hard workout regardless of the setting, then you definitely haven't developed your mental game to the point that you're optimizing your performance in races. Not saying that I don't love variety, novelty and beautiful scenery on a run, but there are times when none of that should matter.

Also, I like (don't love) Rupp and dislike Salazar overall, but I think it's safe to say that Sal knows more about training elite runners in general and Rupp in particular than anybody on this board.

in the zone wrote:

Also, I like (don't love) Rupp and dislike Salazar overall, but I think it's safe to say that Sal knows more about training elite runners in general and Rupp in particular than anybody on this board.

Salazar ran himself into the ground. He didn't have the mentality anymore. So, what makes you think Salazar learned his lesson, and hasn't managed to Rupp into the mentality ground? Running 24 miles so close to a marathon, plus the ear electrodes in Rupp, and Rupp failing to finish at Boston, tell you that Rupp's mentality is screwed up.

Does this really matter when your last race, you drop out?

456 wrote:

Does this really matter when your last race, you drop out?

Rupp dropped out because his use-other-elites-as-personal-pacers-and-draft-horses strategy was foiled. Yuki's surges were part of the reason for that. So, don't let Rupp draft, and don't let him use you to set his pace, then toss in some surges, and Rupp will not hold it together.

hagos pocket wrote:

2. 24 miles on the track at any pace is flat-out dumb. Invitation to injury.

If he really did that, then both of them are really, really ignorant.