NERunner053 wrote:
Saw people saying it drops 350 ft. but the net drop appears to be 150 ft. Downhill but not as bad as people might be thinking. The biggest drop seems to be in the final mile too. As others have said, Matt & Sam ran a touch faster at Houston but I would assume all three today are less tapered than they would have been for a race 3 weeks ago. Rupp can go through halfway in a major in 1:02-1:03. 1:01 is solid for him & makes you think he's still the favorite in 3 weeks. We shall see.
61 is a sort of a time that doesn't tell us much. It could be anything from him being in ~2:09 shape (i.e. as good as anyone in the field) if he was somewhat rested and going all out to being close to 2:06 (i.e. 2+ mins faster than the field) if we has training hard and held back a bit for the first 10k.
I got to imagine Rupps dream race is to cruise through 20 miles at about 2:10-2:12 pace and have the field reduced to a half dozen contenders, pick it up over the last 10k and run like a 2:09-2:10 for the win.