Breaking: On is starting a new training group in Boulder coached by Dathan Ritzenhein and headlined by Joe Klecker

An interesting article by Jonathan. Several thoughts. 1) How low can Joe go?

LetsRun.com wrote:

One workout stands out: a set of 6 x mile with 3:00 rest in which Klecker averaged 4:21 on a hot day.

"I did that exact workout at sea level a month before I ran 12:56 and broke the American record," Ritzenhein says. "Some of [my reps] were on grass, but he did it at altitude. So he’s doing the kind of quality work that I was doing at my best."

As a running fan, that's what most jumped out at me. I know some may be thinking, "But Klecker never won an NCAA title." Well neither did Tegenkamp, Chelimo, etc.

2) I thought it was interesting how Wetmore and Coloardo coaches wanted him to vet the company he was signing with. I wonder if they did that because of Adam Goucher. That anecdote certainly made me thinkg of Goucher. Anyone remember when Goucher came out of college and signed with Fila? You want to sign with someone that knows what they are doing and is committed for the long haul.

Are we starting to have too many groups?

Can’t name an American in Chris Fox group, Tinman Elite isn’t even sponsored, FURMAN Elite has closed shop, Zap just roads, NYNJ really underperformed 2019; all these groups keep more people in the sport, but after BTC/Julian’s group, and a couple lone people, can anyone else make our National team?

Not without Nike or Adidas on their feet, no.

Who else is going to be in this group?

I think a thread had some speculation a few weeks ago, are those names confirmed?

I am a Ritz fan - he seems like a good person and was a great runner. But I have no, like zero idea why a major talent would trust their career to his coaching. He was kind of a disaster in terms of wasting talent on silly stuff as a "pro". The amount of straight-up stupid $hit he did is well documented. He changed horses waaay to often, because "this time" he was going to get it right. Other than the 12:56 detraining 5K, he was sort of middling. This kid is dropping hero workouts but training ain't racin'.

From what I've seen the group has Klecker, Carlos Villarreal, Geordie Beamish, Ollie Hoare, Alicia Monson and some more. On follows all those runners orr have been seen in ON/training with Klecker

Ritzencoaching wrote:

I am a Ritz fan - he seems like a good person and was a great runner. But I have no, like zero idea why a major talent would trust their career to his coaching. He was kind of a disaster in terms of wasting talent on silly stuff as a "pro". The amount of straight-up stupid $hit he did is well documented. He changed horses waaay to often, because "this time" he was going to get it right. Other than the 12:56 detraining 5K, he was sort of middling. This kid is dropping hero workouts but training ain't racin'.

“Training ain’t racing.”

Well there aren’t a lot of races right now, are there.

Also, will Parker Stinson join the group?

It’s good to see another group. Ritz and Wheating are first rate. On is stepping up with money but the product is lacking. More gimmicks than engineering. But if pro’s can run on Hoka’s these guys should make this product work.

Ok. Let me respond to the following post.

While I've said in the past, I personally think supreme talents in running normally aren't the first people I'd hire to be a coach as many of them have no idea that their surpreme talent allowed them to make a ton of training mistakes, I'm going to defend Ritz here. Since I led the Ritz fan club during the early part of his career, that may not be a surprise, but I think Ritz might be better than most ungoldy talents as he was injury prone so he needed to pay attention to details more than most. Plus I think his experience with several different coaches is useful.

And let me please correct the fake news part of your post.

Changed horses way way too often? What are you talking about?

Here is who coached RItz during his career.

Pre-2001 - HS

2001-2004 Wetmore

2005-2009 Hudson

2009 - 2014 Salazar

2014-2019 - Himself/Hansens.

The guy was staying with every single coach for at least 4 years.

As for having a middling career, that's not really true. He was national class throughout. He was just not a factor on the world scene really at any point except for 2009.

5 coaches is a lot of coaches for any athlete.

No reduction clauses means a small base salary. It is a sign of the times that someone like Klecker could not sign with a company that has performance shoes. I know they like to spin it as "starting his own group" but thats just a cover for the truth which is that he had no other options.

sizlin wrote:

5 coaches is a lot of coaches for any athlete.

+1

He’s no Webb, but that’s a lot.

I appreciate that perspective and thanks for setting the record straight on the coach count, point well taken. Part of the reason for my misconception was because he actually had along career - 5 is a lot of changes for the average runner duration but Ritz was almost 2X the normal length. Truth is that he was an almost perfect talent - the first time I saw him in person, I thought he was a 6th grader (which is a good way to look for running a long distance). I think my misunderstanding is that as a casual follower of the sport it just felt like the lead up to every marathon went something like "THIS time, Ritz has it right. He changed, X,Y,Z and has this new cool gadget and it finally was THE missing piece". I felt the beginning of the end was when he went to the Gatorade "lab" where they "calculated"that he had to drink a full bottle of Gatorade every 5K or some craziness.

The idea behind the group is great. I think Joe is a great talent. However, On’s performance product offering is laughable. Their flats fall apart after one workout and they are nowhere close to making a shoe with a carbon fiber plate to rival even the 4%s or spikes. They’re so far behind with this product. It will be hard to catch up to Adi, Nike, New Balance, Saucony, etc. It’s not going to be fun to line up at the Olympic trials in whatever On throws together in the next year.

sizlin wrote:

5 coaches is a lot of coaches for any athlete.

You cant really count the HS and college coaches in that total.

truth or go in wrote:

Are we starting to have too many groups?

Can’t name an American in Chris Fox group, Tinman Elite isn’t even sponsored, FURMAN Elite has closed shop, Zap just roads, NYNJ really underperformed 2019; all these groups keep more people in the sport, but after BTC/Julian’s group, and a couple lone people, can anyone else make our National team?

So if you can't make a national team and be a top 3 American at what you do there's no sense of training ? Many groups are filled with people who work regular jobs but still want to run fast and see what they can do. Some of these people can pick up an additional $10k-$20k on top of their regular job income, a nice chunk of change for doing something they enjoy doing. And it's hard to train alone, which is why people group together and form these training groups. Why would you want to all live in the same place? The United States is very big, people live in many different places. That's why we have many different training groups. Saying it's National team or bust is like saying MLB players shouldn't play unless they win the world series or make the All-Star game.

For some people their big goal isn't to make the Olympic team, but it might be "qualify for the US track championships" or "place top 10 at the US championships" or maybe it's just the goal of continuing to break their PR's. Maybe they ran 13:50 in college and they think they could run faster and keep trying to run 13:30's because they enjoy the journey of seeing what they can do.

And if it did ever get to the point where there were 100 different groups, but somehow there was funding for them all and we could have 100's of runners making $100k to run, that would be amazing for these runners. Why wouldn't you train if there was a good living to be made?

sizlin wrote:

5 coaches is a lot of coaches for any athlete.

No it isn't. 1 HS, 1 college, 2 professional and then self-coached. That's basically only one conscious coaching change and an otherwise natural evolution.

usnspecialist wrote:

sizlin wrote:

5 coaches is a lot of coaches for any athlete.

You cant really count the HS and college coaches in that total.

Then 3 distinctly different coaches in a pro career is curiously (though not ridiculously) high, regardless of career length. Of course, one of those changes was necessitated by being dropped by a sponsor, so it's akin to being traded or being released to free agency in the NBA. Hopefully Ritz turns out to be a better coach than his first coach as a pro.

Yes!!!! Ritz > Tinman. And with the help of Wheating this group will surpass them on all fronts in no time!