RUPP Galen

General
NEW COACH
In late 2019 he began training under coach Mike Smith ahead of the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. In February 2020 he won the Mesa Half Marathon in Mesa, AZ, United States of America, which was the first race he had finished in 16 months after struggling with Achilles tendon and calf injuries in that period. It was also his first complete race since leaving his previous training group the Nike Oregon Project [NOP]. "[I'm] feeling like my old self again. It's obviously been a long year and a half. What I loved most about it [starting to work with Smith] was Mike's honesty and how forthright he was about everything. You could tell he wasn't just saying what I wanted to hear or say, 'We're just going to do whatever you've been doing and try and replicate that'. You've got to keep evolving and trying new things." (runnersworld.com, 10 Jan 2020; olympics.nbcsports.com, 20 Feb 2020)

HAGLUND'S DEFORMITY
He was diagnosed with Haglund's deformity, a bony enlargement on the back of the heel, in both his feet when he was in high school. He had surgery to resolve the issue in his left foot in 2018. "I'd seen somebody in high school for something else and he noticed it. I remember vividly him saying, 'You're going to need to get this operated on at some point'. And of course being a kid, I was just like, 'It's not hurting right now, so I'm not going to worry about it'. Periodically, the left one would give me some problems here or there, but it always went away. Last year [2018], it kept getting worse and worse. I ended up kind of fraying my Achilles a little bit on the bone, and I had two tears on my Achilles in different places. I saw several different doctors. They all said if you don't [have surgery], your Achilles will rupture. So I was at peace with the decision. Doctors have looked at [the right foot] and said I don't necessarily need to do anything with it. I do take precautions. I don't run with heel counters, they take all those out of the back of my shoe now." (runnersworld.com, 11 Jun 2019)