Galen Rupp's new coach is... NAU coach Mike Smith

Oh Please wrote:

I like this development all around. Could be good for Rupps reputation (I actually believe he is clean) and even the change in training could be good, though it would be pretty surprising for him to jump another level.

We've mostly all agreed that Rupp is capable of 204 and I doubt that will change to 202 because of this change.

yes, when rupp ran with 202 and 204 guys up to the last km in the OG, you knew that he was good for 203-4 some day, and probably 203 in a perfect outing, but the other handful of top guys guys are 200 to 202 on that perfect day. and there are about 20 or more guys now that can go 203 on a perfect day.

basically if the top guns don't show up in the OG and Rupp knocks out his A effort you got a medal,

that is the math.

David S wrote:

If you're Mike Smith, do you give Galen workouts that work well in your experience, or do you try to continue his previous training plan?

If you're Mike Smith, you make sure you pick up the phone every time Alberto calls.

importer maybe? wrote:

Get back to me when he can do it with Americans like Wetmore

What a sad, sad person you are.

This is smart

He still gets all the benefits of Nike in Oregon but is able to distance himself from the Salazar scandal a bit. That’s good for pr by making ruppy look better to the edgy runners on this site.

He will likely take the occasional altitude stints to flagstaff but stay in Oregon.

At this point in his career smith is likely more of an advisor than a developer to rupp. He’s an experienced Marathoner who will retire a marathoner. Not much coaching is needed at this point. So I think this is more for the perception.

importer maybe? wrote:

biggiepos wrote:Does this establish Smith as the #1 coach in America? Huge endorsement for him by Rupp and Salazar even.#1 college coach and now #1 pro guy too.How come when a coach imports a bunch of Kenyans - like Alabama - no one calls the coach the GOAT? But when a dude imports a bunch of white foreigners, they are viewed as some sort of guru?# of foreign born runner in Smith's top 5 aach year:In 2019: 3IN 2018:3In 2017: 3Get back to me when he can do it with Americans like Wetmore and have success on both the men's and women's side.In 2016:

I only count 1 in ‘19 and 2 in ‘18.

A few things come to mind:

Where was Smith ranked on the list of possible coaches?
Did Rupp contact other coaches? International coaches?

Smith’s training seems to be perfectly suited for ‘thoning. Nothing fancy, lots of kilometers with focus on tempo/steady state, not excessive hard intervals.

Interesting Smith commented on Rupp’s mentality. This shows how important the mind is in becoming a champion. Mentality > Physicality

Based on prs Rupp should be able to smash Hall/Khannouchi ARs(imho Hall’s 2:04 is the AR). Is Rupp too old/too late for improvement?

OT_Natty_’Thon_the_Full1 wrote:

Where was Smith ranked on the list of possible coaches?
Did Rupp contact other coaches? International coaches?
Smith’s training seems to be perfectly suited for ‘thoning. Nothing fancy, lots of kilometers with focus on tempo/steady state, not excessive hard intervals.

How many other coaches could he have contacted? With Smith he can do a lot of his easy days, maybe even a tempo or two with the top runners in college. It's at altitude with a lot of access to good running spots and he can drop to sea level quickly. He has the option to move from Portland and get a full reset after everything went down. Plus, Smith is well respected in the coaching business. Especially with the comments from Rojo about Salazar wanting him to coach at Oregon.

College
Ed Eyestone - because of his pedigree and his little post-collegiate marathon group. He's catholic though and almost everyone there is mormon.
Wetmore - made his comments on Salazar and with the whole Dr. Brown fiasco probably not a good move
Ray Treacy - but on the other side of the country, mostly pavement, and he'd still have to travel west for altitude stints + likely no male training partners except for Ben True who made comments about his own wife using beet roots before competitions
Joe Frankin- ehh maybe
Mick Byrne- ehh maybe

Nike Sponsored Pro Groups
Schumacher- umm no
OTC- no
Scott Simmons - maybe, but he's spent years being the only caucasian mixing it up with the E Africans now he's going to train with them? Plus for all he knows they could have most of top marathon rivals in the group over the next few years, there's already one in Leonard Korir.

Private coaches
Haas - only one to come to mind but he's got a sponsored group now

International coaches
Renato or Patrick Sang? - probably shouldn't go with any group with doping affiliations, you know again

Ed Eyestone to me seemed like the only other logical choice, maybe he hit him up

“He’s completing new types of training he’s never done in his career"

What kind of training would be new to him? Hasn't Alberto tried everything?

longjack wrote:. . . there are about 20 or more guys now that can go 203 on a perfect day.

basically if the top guns don't show up in the OG and Rupp knocks out his A effort you got a medal,

that is the math.

Kenya and Ethiopia only get 3 spots each. Both of these countries have spotty team selection histories and many of the guys selected have bad races. This helps the math.

A few thoughts.

I was bothered by Mike Smith saying (paraphrasing) "Name one thing Galen ever did that was wrong." Firstly, there were a lot of people who said the same about Salazar up until September 29th. I get innocent until proven guilty, but...really? There are email in the leaked USADA report of Salazar directing Galen to use drugs he didn't necessarily need for medical purposes (and PLEASE to those who think that he legitimately did), there's the testosterone medication note, there are all of these questionable behaviors brought up by multiple witnesses. Wall of secrecy between Galen and Salazar...now Salazar is banned? And does anyone actually believe Salazar's explanation as to why the testosterone experiment with his son was necessary?

On running twitter, people have brought up the possibility of a large Nike bonus Smith would be getting as a result.

The Mike Smith interview was as vague as Galen himself. I have so many follow up questions to it.

Is Galen moving to Flagstaff? I get that his home has always been Portland, but Portland puts him in close proximity with Salazar. There are a lot of jokes, but wouldn't any coach reasonably think he may not be the only one coaching him if he stays in Portland where Salazar is?

Follow up, what convinced Mike Smith that Galen is NOT working with Salazar at all in general? Galen all but admitted that he still speaks to Salazar as a "friend" at the Chicago marathon.

What specifically is it that the world needs to know about Galen? If it's so important to Mike Smith to share that wouldn't he want to share what it was specifically?

Did Mike Smith read the 2017 USADA report? Does he have concerns about that? Can we get specific answers about that?

Mike Smith seems like a great guy, but there might be more to him than meets the eye, just like Galen. Where did he say that "name one thing he did that was wrong," though? It might be in another interview, but I can't find it in Runners' World email one. Regardless, whatever he's done I think it's very good for everyone involved that he's taken on Rupp — Smith afaik has an untarnished reputation and if Galen performs at or better than his prior bests than it would be good proof of no wrongdoing on his part. I'm betting Smith's meditation type stuff won't be totally new to Rupp but it will probably help him focus in the next few months and recover from the past year.

Additionally, maybe the thing about Galen is nothing you can't put into words. I think it's something about his drive, just that you can't really understand that until you've worked with him and seen him train and that's what the world's not seeing, according to Smith.

Mike Smith is gambling with his entire career as Galen's former coach was banned for 4 years for doping violations regarding Galen, Mo, Ritz etc. If Galen gets popped, which is definitely possible, it will now be while under the tutelage of Mike Smith. This is not a win-win for him. I see this as a huge gamble.

Stopme99 wrote:
I only count 1 in ‘19 and 2 in ‘18.

Guess you aren't good at counting. That being said. 2 of the 3 thi syear did go to HS in the US.

This year.

Nur, Abdihamid - Somalia
Beamish - New Zealand.
Grijalva - Guatemala

2018:

Baxter- NZ,
Grijalva - GGuatemala
Lomong -South Sudan.

he said "what is rupp accused of" which is in the QOTD today.

Like Rupp is a victim of outrage culture.

For clarity, Rupp is accused of manipulating the TUE system to get medications and IVs he had no medical need for, but for performance gain. Among other things.

Ken Goe with the scoop from Rupp himself.

Go to his twitter--won't let me link.

I wanna see rupp move to flagstaff and change up a lot of the old stuff. No salazar assistance and still kick ass

Two things... Rupp had nowhere else to go.

There's only two Nike coaches I know of who have had athletes kick Rupp's butt. (Jerry hasn't)

Rowland's Mead embarrassed Rupp at 2017 US 10k. Simmons put three more in front of Rupp there, keeping him way off the 10k team for London.

I think Leonard Korir (Simmons) also spanked Rupp in a US Cross and a road race.

No way he can go to either of those coaches, especially with Korir kicking a 207 marathon debut.

It had to be a college coach to clean up Rupp's image. This is all PR.

And Mike gets thrown under the bus. Will he ever know how much L-C Rupp is infusing in his hotel room the night before the Oly Trials? No.

But my sources tell me the FBI will.

If they can get Kraft for a handie, they can get Rupp for L-C cheating too.

Just watch.

I feel sorry for Mike.

Holy Singlet Batman wrote:

gruppsterr wrote:

I recently re-watched the rio marathon and it finally clicked the lengths Rupp and Salazar were willing to go to gain an advantage. I'm sure this point has been made in the past, but Rupp's singlet in Rio was almost laughable (less so than the famous allergy mask). I know Nike actually made the singlet for the Olympics after the Rupp camp took the scissors to it themselves at the trials. That visual queue was enough to validate years of allegations for me--the guy will push boundaries wherever possible.

Salazar did the same thing at the LA Olympics.

https://trailmag.co.za/holey-shirt/

I never knew this. Interesting!

Sorry. Mike Smith is window dressing.

Too bad for an up and coming coach ( he continued Eric's legacy for a couple years only.... never coached a professional or Olympian)

It is so apparent Smith is the Beard and Salazar is still Salazar.

Wise up Mikey!