Allie and Brad move to Arizona

Boulder Pretenders wrote:

Brad Hudson is risking absolutely nothing. He can move back to Boulder in 5 years and start over with another group of pretenders that hang out in Boulder thinking that the city will make them great. People that aren't good enough to get paid have moved to Boulder for 30 years living off of Mommy and Daddy and searching for that special coach.

This is no lie, for as long as Folsom Field stands there will be plenty enough delusion and desperation to go around in Boulder's running scene.

Hounddogharrier wrote:

You have to say 8 women have a legitimate shot to make the Olympics : 1. Hasay 2. Flanagan 3. Linden 4. Craigg 5. Huddle 6. K. Taylor 7. Hall 8. Allie . Big question is whether time has caught up with Flanagan and Des and if Hasay and Craigg can shake injuries . The Olympic team will come from these 8. You heard it from the hounddog ? ?

Flanagan is out, she gains nothing by running another trials, might chase one more major for the money.

Linden will be that much older with a couple more high level marathons yet to race, she is at the backside of this group.

Hasay if she stays healthy is the cream of the crop.

Huddle knows how to compete, she can make the team.

Craigg stays healthy she can make the team.

Taylor, Hall and Allie, if they hang around and don't get caught up in upfront racing have a shot if the others fall off they would be considered long shots at the failure of others..

You always have that one athlete thats not on the list that runs the race of their life on the day.

Simply put---arrogance personified...aka look at me I'm amazing.

People feed into it and both of them sit around laughing and smiling saying "see, I told ya so", suckers!

She has very little chance to make the team. The only way it happens is for all of her stars to align PERFECTLY on that day and for the cream of the crop to have their stars completely out of whack, possible but not likely.

If Hasay and Huddle get to the starting line even remotely close to healthy, both will be in the top 3 (doesn't matter which one is first, second or third). Between Cragg, Flanagan and Linden, all will run, Cragg has the nod on an average day.

Sorry, Allie (yes her and Brad) is simply cashing in on her body type and SHE's making a big deal out of it for attention and nothing else.

Do any of you have a brain? It's marketing and trying to make cash on it by getting attention>>>interviews, instagram, youtube, etc...

100% agreement. Although few things are impossible, Allie is not making the team. Hudson can pump her up on every social media avenue that exists, but she's got a loooooong way to go to have a realistic chance.

I can name 10 women that have a better chance to make the 2020 team than Allie.

This is my projected order.

1. Jordan Hasay

2. Amy Cragg

3. Shalane Flanagan

4. Molly Huddle

5. Sara Hall

6. Sally Kipyego

7. Kellyn Taylor

8. Emma Bates

9. Desiree Linden

10. Emily Sisson

Evan Jogger wrote:

After penciling-in Cragg and Huddle for 2 of the top 3 spots at the finish, Hall, Bruce, Johnson, Linden, Hasay would all have to either DNS/DNF or just crap the bed for Keiffer to have a shot at a top 3 finish. 5th-8th is what could realistically be expected on a good day.

The only person on Earth who thinks that Stephanie Bruce has a real chance at the Olympic Team is Stephanie Bruce. I suppose if one and only one person is gonna hold such an idea about an athlete, it needs to be that athlete. But come on. She'll turn 36 in 2020 and her best marathon was seven years ago. She's broken 1:12:00 for the half-marathon once, and she'll need to run 1:12 back to back (or turn in an equivalent performance on Atlanta's hillier course) to make the 2020 team. Seriously, the only reason she's in this conversation is because of her aggressive self-marketing. At times her WIkipedia entry practically veers into the first person.

Great runner, tough as hell, fine career, but not even close to Olympic caliber.

So a fair number of you are triumphantly announcing that these two "might" be dating? Great work, detectives. If you happen upon a mangled and bloody corpse on the sidewalk in front of a skyscraper, and there is broken glass nearby, be sure to consider the possibility that someone might have leaped or been thrown from a window above you.

You two must be really regular regulars, to the point where you assume that every pro runner follows every Letsrun thread populated by snickering anonymous trolls to see what's up with their own reputation and make corrections where necessary. The first part may be somewhat true, but not the second. Most people regard this board as the Occupy Democrats of running. Lots of garbage and noise from the anonymous trolls and difficult to ignore altogether, but little to no impact in reality.

You are right about them wanting to attract a great deal of attention (this tends to be one of the reasons people start YouTube channels), but they couldn't care less about your attention, because you don't have any money to offer them.

This is true. If Hudson's habit of being disloyal to runners who move to Boulder specifically to train with him could ruin his reputation, it already would have done so. This goes all the way back to Ritz for him, and Allie is just the most blatant example of many of him trying to cash in on the talent of one standout athlete, one that in this case even comes with certain benefits that would not accrue if Allie's gonads were different.

To Hudson's dubious credit, he doesn't even hide his master plan, maybe because it stands so little chance of succeeding. The fraction of talented runners who thrive under him is no better than it is under any other "name" coach, and is probably lower. People move out to Boulder having somehow only heard the good stories, and then for whatever reason(s) three years later 90% of them have made minimal progress. You can argue, well, that's distance running for you at the top level, tons of attrition. But at some point people ought to wake up to the fact that his coaching record simply is not that good. Not worth packing up and moving to high altitude to work as a barista or fitness supplement rep so you can continually be demoralized by the crushing workouts and consistent underperforming at the races at sea level that eat up all of your minimal savings.

One of these days the "training at high altitude is an advantage" nonsense will go the way of the now-retired "lactic acid leads to muscle failure" myth.

I'm still astounded that more runners don't see it this way. I feel like we must have had similar experiences with Brad's group.... I've been around long enough, with one foot in the sub-elite world and one foot out, to see this pattern over and over and over again.

Not top 10 wrote:

I can name 10 women that have a better chance to make the 2020 team than Allie.

This is my projected order.

1. Jordan Hasay

2. Amy Cragg

3. Shalane Flanagan

4. Molly Huddle

5. Sara Hall

6. Sally Kipyego

7. Kellyn Taylor

8. Emma Bates

9. Desiree Linden

10. Emily Sisson

1. Molly Huddle (look at her margin of victory in the 15km champs!)

2. Jordan Hasay

3. Amy Cragg/ Flanagan

Think you're underestimating Taylor and Kipyego. Also, if Sisson does give the trials a shot expect her to be there or there about, not 10th!

mac nuggets wrote:

I'm still astounded that more runners don't see it this way. I feel like we must have had similar experiences with Brad's group.... I've been around long enough, with one foot in the sub-elite world and one foot out, to see this pattern over and over and over again.

Me too, but I think that runners are "go for it" types by nature, so even if they know that only 1 in 5 or 1 in 10 or even 1 in 25 runners makes the jump from solid D-1 NCAA level to having a real shot at the Olympics, they are willing to bet that they will be among the lucky ones. And maybe the stories of the few Boulder successes (because let's not pick on just Hudson here) somehow trickle out of the mountains with greater force than the torrent of disappointments do.

Also, perhaps runners see themselves as winding up in one of two camps: The few that make it big and the many that merely improve a little or stagnate. What they are not accounting for is the third, larger group: people whose running tends to be "forever" screwed (mentally if not physically) by a couple of years of badly overdoing it in workouts because one or two of the athletes present is a 2:32 marathoner and the rest are at 2:40-2:45 but doing the same basic training sessions. One can see from a great distance that this is sheer endurance Darwinism, but oh well.

Hudson also seems like a nice guy. He obviously lives and breathes running and seems very friendly and approachable. He may not be doing things "right" but he seems to be doing them mostly in the open.

My beef: In the video, Hudson leaves the place he's sharing with Allie, drives to a coffee place, comes back with a cup and the even more wasteful ooh-my-hand-might-temporarily-get-a-little-warm protector for Allie. Buy a freakin' coffee machine and make it at home!

You pronounce it far more extensively than I could – or would or should. It's not the proprietary course of Hudson's crew at any point in the past, it applies to many through the years. Since Mark Coogan's hazy trip through the byways of Atlanta (unaccompanied by Paper Boi), the only T&F Olympians out of Boulder have passed through the Wetmore (now plus Burroughs) Factor. Plenty of fine talent has trod Magnolia Road and the Boulder Res thoroughfares in that time, as many flowery Instagram accounts would indicate. Yet any number of passionate and dedicated individuals, well known and otherwise, haven't been able to coach that population up to the standard set by the ponytailed guru. Also note that others have been known to do wrong by their athletes as bad if not worse than what's alleged against Hudson.

I still don't regret issuing my curse.

Reminds me of:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yKJkfE1M9wA

Chief Niwot wrote:

Since Mark Coogan's hazy trip through the byways of Atlanta (unaccompanied by Paper Boi), the only USA T&F Olympians out of Boulder have passed through the Wetmore (now plus Burroughs) Factor.

Fixed.

Who are these 1 people ?

Not top 10 wrote:

I can name 10 women that have a better chance to make the 2020 team than Allie.

This is my projected order.

1. Jordan Hasay

2. Amy Cragg

3. Shalane Flanagan

4. Molly Huddle

5. Sara Hall

6. Sally Kipyego

7. Kellyn Taylor

8. Emma Bates

9. Desiree Linden

10. Emily Sisson

Decent effort but the potential list is simple. How many of these are capable of closing in unde 1:12 for the second half?

Jordan , Amy, Shalane and Molly all did it in the last 15 months.

Sally has run fast on the track but isn’t close to that 1:12 mark. Des did it a decade ago but never since including this year in NY when it went out super slow. Sara Hall never. Kellyn on an aided course so she is a maybe. Sisson has the talent.

Allie is improving so I would put her ahead of Des and Sally. Bates is interesting. I would add Thweatf to the list.

Just to clarify, Bruce plus a couple others were listed as even odds of finishing ahead of Keiffer. Throw in Thweatt if she gets a fully healthy 12+ months of training and racing leading into Atlanta. There are only about four or five on the list who have a real shot at the top 3.

The best prediction about the marathon team is that it’s going to be the most difficult track and field threesome predict. Out of all t&f events, the marathon is least likely to follow the form chart.

Question Marks wrote:

Flanagan is out, she gains nothing by running another trials, might chase one more major for the money.

Linden will be that much older with a couple more high level marathons yet to race, she is at the backside of this group.

Hasay if she stays healthy is the cream of the crop.

Huddle knows how to compete, she can make the team.

Craigg stays healthy she can make the team.

Taylor, Hall and Allie, if they hang around and don't get caught up in upfront racing have a shot if the others fall off they would be considered long shots at the failure of others..

You always have that one athlete thats not on the list that runs the race of their life on the day.

I agree with your analysis, except for Huddle, who has not yet shown any expertise at the marathon.