How did he go from 5th in the USA 5k Champs and a 3.55 indoor mile to barely able to hang with his own team in workouts?
The Dave Smith interview says he hopes German gets top 30?
How did he go from 5th in the USA 5k Champs and a 3.55 indoor mile to barely able to hang with his own team in workouts?
The Dave Smith interview says he hopes German gets top 30?
It said he took a significant amount of time off. I'm assuming he didn't get base over the summer and only got back to running over the past couple months. Not sure why though.
Yea I just think he and Smith decided Not to go for the big CC year this year. I'm sure they have something planned, sooner or later we will find out.
out of the loop wrote:
How did he go from 5th in the USA 5k Champs and a 3.55 indoor mile to barely able to hang with his own team in workouts?
The Dave Smith interview says he hopes German gets top 30?
This is part of the Smith Strategy!!!
German ran too fast in the spring, this is all part of the strategy to slow him back down. Besides that, he was working too hard!
Don't be so negative!!!
Sand bagging
He'll take the sand bags off for this race
Let's see you start training in September after a long layoff from running and be a top XC guy in the nation with 10 weeks of running under you. Plus, track is his future, track is waaaay more important than XC, so better to be raring to go for that than one sophomore XC season.
Me? No.
An NCCA and American Junior record holder who was the US top guy at Junior XC? Yes.
I agree track is way more important than XC but this is a guy who skipped NCCA indoor track champs to run world XC.
XC must be more important than track to him.
To be in 13:25 shape at the end of June and then take 8 weeks off.
10 weeks of running at that point would just about get you ready to run pretty fast.
I doubt he's been sand bagging. Maybe he has not been running all out, but if he was in great condition even with controlled efforts he should be able to keep up with JK and RV - especially since they have not been running all out either.
I think he's not in as good of condition as last year and is playing catch up.
If he's been running since mid to late august, then he could have a decent, but not great base by now. It would not surprise me at all if he has not been doing much more than solid base work. He could probably finish in the top 30 with just that.
In that case, it makes sense that Smith has him shooting for that. It takes a lot of pressure off him.
Still, I expect German to finish in the top 20. Maybe top 10 if he is on that day.
X-Runner wrote:
I agree track is way more important than XC but this is a guy who skipped NCCA indoor track champs to run world XC.
XC must be more important than track to him.
While your claim may be true (although I doubt it), your logic is faulty. Just because he and his coached decided last winter to run in the World Junior Championship XC rather that the National Collegiate Athletics Association Indoor National Championship does not mean that cross is more important than track to him.
One: I am mostly just arguing to argue.
Two: I haven't really been following XC so don't trust my opinion on how well he'll do.
But I do know that the guy is extremely talented and the collegiate system forces its elite athletes to make decisions on which events to peak for and make compromises on others.
He can be competetive in NCAA XC, NCAA indoors, World XC, NCAA outdoors, USTAF, the summer European season, WC/OG and then mix in conference collegiate meets which he has been doubling in.
But he can't do it all and must select from that while doing the proper cycle of base training and peak training.
So is he talented enough to grit out a top perfomance here on base training?
Let's see.