Huge fan of Ryan and Sara Hall...but why is Sara over racing right now??

you guys are all soft.

You need to race to win.

You'd never last in pro cycling

I'd think a sponsor would love having someone actually racing instead of hiding behind workouts (as someone pointed out earlier). If people don't see the goods, what good does it do the sponsor?

Get 'em Sara!

Bringing home the bacon wrote:

She’s the bread winner for 6 in their family, but I hear ya.

This

what has Ryan got going on? asics? Muscle milk? pump iron and stay at home dad

Ryan interviewed Sara in the latest episode of his podcast days after Berlin. Maybe the answers you seek are contained within.

https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84YTIyY2IwL3BvZGNhc3QvcnNz

I think you left out the "dis" in front of a word.

Doesn't need the money wrote:

LOLOLOL if you think she's racing so much because they need the money.

I make $180,000 and have $900,000 in assets and I work because I need the money. Just because she has money doesn't mean she doesn't still need money.

What do you mean by "over racing"? She's done with racing or she's racing too much?

Roomed right across the hall from them at Trials in '08 and saw them a lot in '12, including a run on the trails together. Two of the nicest people you could ever meet.

What couple in US road running history has had more combined success than the Hall's? Maybe some couple in the 70's or something? They have to be #1 over the last 20-25 year time period at a minimum.

I think Sara has shown a lot of benefit in the past from incorporating racing into training blocks. There’s probably a monetary component of course, but Ryan still has some endorsements and a new movie coming out, so I don’t imagine that it’s solely on her to be supporting the family.

She’s a little older now and has been running serious mileage for a long time, so assuming she’s healthy, I think her body can handle a couple of races back to back. She’s done this before so I’m confident that this is a very well thought out plan and that she’ll be toeing the line for the trials in great shape.

Doesn't need the money wrote:

LOLOLOL if you think she's racing so much because they need the money.

Ryan's contract was HUGE, hers is solid, nothing like his was, but once you add in all of her prize money she's doing very well, averaging around $10k per race to go with her contract. Plus her and Ryan team up quite often to do 'talks' at random events and they get paid thousands of dollars to do that. They are doing perfectly fine and don't need to do a ton of races to try and get as much money as possible. But I guess they won't be able to rake it in forever, and they've got 30 years until social security would kick in, so they may be getting as much as they can while they can.

I think this is probably the best summary, because of the disclaimer at the end. Just as far richer baseball players who really are set for life negotiate for huge contact extensions at age 37, it's natural for someone like Sarah to understand she's probably near the end of her peak and perhaps pencil in an "extra" race here and there with that in mind. I don't see this as greed but merely as wanting to capitalize on one's peak skills while one still lives within that window. And as you recall, when it closed for Ryan, the descent was ugly (though lucrative).

I do think she loves to race and since she's proven multiple times that she's unusually resilient, why not?

At 36, Sara has had a long time to study how her body reacts. Yes, time is the enemy - Sara will be very aware of this.

Family economics and perhaps even a little lust for the dollar carrot being dangled in her face are also considerations that certainly a smart woman like Sara will weigh, constantly. She has good counsel in Ryan, too.

So, then, I would trust that her decision to put in a fast effort so soon after Berlin is a perfectly sane and wise one.

And, as a fan, it is a high to follow her on this trail of frequent racing.

I've often wondered why she races so much, too. I think that it's probably a combination of the factors that folks have mentioned above. I don't love the "it works for her so don't question it" rationale, though. Who's to say that if she focused more on one race and raced less that she wouldn't have run under 2:20 at Berlin?

Given that she likes to race and evidently recovers pretty well, I wonder if she's the next Mike Wardian. (Mike and Ryan are friends, FWIW.) Mike runs 50 races a year, over half of which are marathons or ultra-marathons, and he likes to do daffy things like set the WR for a marathon dressed as Elvis or run the fastest time for ten marathons in ten days. He still runs pretty fast, though; in his mid-40s, most of his marathons are under 2:35. Is this what we'll be seeing from Sara Hall in ten years?