A True Dark Horse - Luke Puskedra?

sp2 wrote:

BOHICA wrote:

This. Even with Abdi & Lagat (&Ritz) people are too much in love with things that happened too long ago.

As usual for the standard quality of 'analysis' we find on LR, you guys *completely* miss the point.

Luke's a big talent. He's a better talent than the large majority of 'second-tier' guys being discussed as potential factors in this race.

He's a got a set of half-mar and full-mar performances from a few years back that's clearly *superior* to those of most of these guys.

He ran 2:10:24 *before* the shoes that appear to make folks 2 minutes faster.

He's only 29.

He's already shown the ability to get badly out of shape, and then get back to national-caliber shape. (And he didn't get nearly as fat and out of shape this time as the first time.)

He's been healthy and motivated, and appears to have rediscovered his love of running for the first time in a long time.

He seems to have gotten in a really solid marathon build-up over the last 5 months or so.

We know he was fit enough to run a 1:05 half way back in November --which appears to have been much less than an all-out effort-- and that he's had 3 more months of solid training since.

We know that he seems to be happy and confident with how it's gone.

We know he did a 22-mile long-run 2 weeks ago, over rolling hills, at 5:14 pace.

All the above says it's *plausible* that Luke could be back to peak shape --or at least pretty close-- and that *his* peak shape might be better than the vast majority of guys in the field.

Does that make him a favorite for top 3? Of course not. It sure as hell *does* make him a *very* interesting dark-horse --just as the OP said.

His 'ceiling' is arguably higher than that of all but 2 or 3 guys in this field.

If you don't think he's worth watching here, you're probably an idiot.

LateRunnerPhil wrote:

MU northerner wrote:

Maybe he would have run better if he would have stopped acting so annoyed that someone was drafting off of him. He made himself look really stupid with his surge and then anger at someone going with him and drafting off of him.

Well he has the right to be tho. He is the tallest/biggest/heaviest runner by far, and drafting behind a giant like Puskedra is a massive advantage compared to drafting behind Rupp for example. Rupp is so thin and skinny he barely provides you any help. But behind Puskedra is a massive difference.

I'm a former cyclist, and the difference between size and weight of rider in front of you is gigantic. Sure, in running it's nowhere near as beneficial to draft, but in a super windy race like OT marathon it does make a huge difference. Other participants weren't stupid, they picked Puskedra to draft off on purpose, when there where other runners around - that's what got him upset, because he knew they are drafting behind him for a reason.