by Alfonz Juck
Keflezighi, Rupp, Pennel, 2016 Olympic Trials, photo by PhotoRun.net
PORTLAND (USA): Galen Rupp will contest the 10 000 m at the US Championships next June but his coach Alberto Salazar has said he will no longer race the 5000m as his training will be geared primarily to the marathon, informs Oregon Live. “You can be effective in the 10,000m while doing marathon training. There is precedent for that. But we won’t be doing all that training for a kick. And he won’t be running the 5000m anymore. That is gone,” he said. Rupp will contest the Boston Marathon next April and also looks likely to run an autumn marathon in 2017.
RunBlogRun opines: Galen Rupp has run two marathons. He won the Olympic Trials in his debut. In his second, he took bronze in the Olympics. This was a natural evolution for Galen Rupp, to move up to the marathon. In his conversation with Ken Goe at OregonLive, Alberto Salazar charted the next phase of Galen Rupp’s career. We wish him well.
At Nike Border Clash, I spoke with Galen for a few minutes. He was relaxed and basking in the joy of being a new parent for he and his wife’s third child. Galen noted how tired one feels at end of marathon, but how he was getting used to the distance. He still seemed to have interest in racing 10,000 meters, but, Galen Rupp is pretty relaxed. He trusts his coach, Alberto Salazar, impicitly. Rupp focuses on running and racing. Salazar focuses on coaching. It is not a protective device, it is how Rupp handles the pressure at his level of competition.
