Official 2017 D3 Cross Country Thread

Yet when there was a proposal from the coaches association that would have balanced the region sizes more the New England coaches were the ones that complained the most, saying that it would damage historical rivalries. Don't complain about region size and courses that don't handle 60 teams if you want your "history". Either regions need to realign, and shocker here some teams would be in a different region, or stop complaining.

I don't recall complaining about the size of the region in that post. I said it was going to be impossible (and impractical) to have every region run their regional championship on a roughly equal course, and used the current situation in New England as an example. Other good reasons would be how drastically different weather might make a region that had to run in mud, snow, or a freak 80+ degree day look worse compared to other regions, and the potential to 'game' the system with every region trying to create a course more equal than the others if we start using absolute time as a basis for comparison.

As for the re-alignment, that wasn't a coaches' proposal, that was an NCAA proposal. It was also killed off by way more than just new england coaches, as re-alignment as it was proposed would have had a way bigger impact on the Atlantic and Mid-East regions than New England, even though that is the region that needs to be broken up most. That proposal, as I recall, also would have added 3 of the traditional power New England teams (Williams, Middlebury, Amherst) to the Atlantic region. How well do you think the committee would have done with 8 men's teams that qualified for nationals this year on the men's side, and 6 on the women's, all now potentially sharing one region?

This is wrong. New England region had nothing to do with that proposal failing. Coaches passed it and NCAA shot it down

Locks for All American Predictions:

New England: Brunette, Maloney, Hussein (3)

Atlantic: O'Connor, IGC, Veltre (3)

Mid-East: Woods, Peet (2)

Mid-West: Lau, Patel, Borowsky, Lee, O'Gara (5)

South-Southeast: Reid (1)

Central: Fairley, Cook-Gallardo, Pinkowski (3)

Great Lakes: McVey (1)

West: Reishling, Hodkinson, Sandoval (3)

So there's 14 spots that are theoretically up for grabs, as I don't see any of these 21 finishing out of the top 35. The Mid-West will likely get more than five, New England and Atlantic more than 3, and South/Southeast and Great Lakes more than one.

I ran at Saukie as well (women's race) and ran a huge PR but that was because I was ready for a PR, the women's race was fast, I finally had fast people to run with, and the course is practically a track. At 2k, the front pack (me) was at 7:50 to give you an idea of what the pace was. My mile splits were as follows= 5:48, 11:28 (5:40), 17:10 (5:42). If it helps my 5k PR is a 17:48 on an incredibly windy day.

The 3k was either at or around the finish line when bypassing it on the first loop to begin the second loop so the discrepancy is very minimal.

I think that your "locks" are really more like "people who can get All-American for sure." Brunette, for instance? He has a 14:57 5k PR, and ran the race of his life last week. He definitely can get All-American, but he absolutely is not a lock. And that's just the Northeast. Also, isn't All-American 40 people this year?

Umadbro wrote:

A lot of butt hurt preppy private college losers mad tonight. Don’t worry...you’d get crushed by D2 schools and would look like high schoolers compared to D1. Have fun at baby nats.

Except for Ian Lamere, or Nick Symmonds, or Noah Droddy, or Will Leer, or John Crane, or Christie cazzola, or Emily Richardson... want me to go on? Guarantee you couldn't win d3 nats, so have fun watching your team run while you sit on your mediocre ass watching the flotrack stream

AA Predictor wrote:

Locks for All American Predictions:

New England: Brunette, Maloney, Hussein (3)

Atlantic: O'Connor, IGC, Veltre (3)

Mid-East: Woods, Peet (2)

Mid-West: Lau, Patel, Borowsky, Lee, O'Gara (5)

South-Southeast: Reid (1)

Central: Fairley, Cook-Gallardo, Pinkowski (3)

Great Lakes: McVey (1)

West: Reishling, Hodkinson, Sandoval (3)

So there's 14 spots that are theoretically up for grabs, as I don't see any of these 21 finishing out of the top 35. The Mid-West will likely get more than five, New England and Atlantic more than 3, and South/Southeast and Great Lakes more than one.

As for New England Region, you forgot Scott Mason who beat Maloney at Regionals and was runner-up to Hussein at NESCACs.

Also starting this year, All-American honors this year are awarded to Top 40.

South region still sucks is right CMU wouldn’t have made it in if they were 5th but it’s not their fault Dickinson messed. Also no way Allegheny goes except that Otterbein also did poorly at regionals. Bates totally got hosed but that’s on Otterbein and Dickinson not performing, it’s not on CMU or Allegheny.

JumboDad wrote:

Also starting this year, All-American honors this year are awarded to Top 40.

Classic snowflakes handing out more and more awards. Just wait, soon enough AA "accolades" will just be a participation medal from nationals.

What's up my fellow D3 Harriers!

I took a break from D&D this weekend and gathered up some data on the Men's Midwest Regional race. As many of you are aware, the race was fast, really, really fast. But would you like to know how fast? Check it out:

90.6% of finishers (230 out of 254) set a season best ( most of them set lifetime bests, but I didn't cross-check everyone for times sake)

I was able to find 123 5k PR's out of the 240 runners. Of that 123 data sample, 56 of them (46%) matched or exceeded their 5k PR pace through 8k. This is assuming that the 8K was in fact, an 8k.

The average season PR for the entire field was 40 seconds

The average season PR for the top 50 men was 68 seconds

The average season PR for first place (North Central College) was 68 seconds

Of the 24 men that did not PR, 11 of them ran SLIAC, which was apparently very fast, because the runners that PR'd at Midwest that also ran SLIAC PR'd well below the average.

Other races/courses that were fast include H.W. Wright and WI Private College Champs.

Now, the point of this is not to say that the course is short. Everyone ran the same course, so it doesn't really matter. It's XC season and that means that times don't mean sh!t. I just figured it would be cool to pull some data and throw out some averages. Do with this information what you will.

This is a great post, and really interesting data. The course is most likely short, but I think your last paragraph is the correct take.

Don't worry Midwesterners, you can still use these times as your '8k' PRs when bragging to friends!

All these east coast and mid atlantic fan boys throwing mud at the Midwest course to hide the sh!t stains left in their shorts after seeing results come in. It’s probably scary now knowing the Midwest runners are faster and better racers than all you!

JumboDad wrote:

AA Predictor wrote:

Locks for All American Predictions:

New England: Brunette, Maloney, Hussein (3)

Atlantic: O'Connor, IGC, Veltre (3)

Mid-East: Woods, Peet (2)

Mid-West: Lau, Patel, Borowsky, Lee, O'Gara (5)

South-Southeast: Reid (1)

Central: Fairley, Cook-Gallardo, Pinkowski (3)

Great Lakes: McVey (1)

West: Reishling, Hodkinson, Sandoval (3)

So there's 14 spots that are theoretically up for grabs, as I don't see any of these 21 finishing out of the top 35. The Mid-West will likely get more than five, New England and Atlantic more than 3, and South/Southeast and Great Lakes more than one.

As for New England Region, you forgot Scott Mason who beat Maloney at Regionals and was runner-up to Hussein at NESCACs.

Also starting this year, All-American honors this year are awarded to Top 40.

Logan McKenzie from Berea College in the south region has a pretty good shot at AA, I think. He's been steadily improving over the season from his TFRRS page.

As an aside, the south course is pretty blatantly short. From the results, it looks like the mats for the mile and 3 mile were right on, and 7k was pretty close. But the 7k time for the leaders has them closing in 4:30 pace for the last K (which is sort of plausible, I guess). The 3 mile time is more damning, with leaders through in 14:55 (average of 4:58.5) and finishing in an average of 4:50 through 8k. Seems a little fishy to me.

Impossible and impractical wrote:

As for the re-alignment, that wasn't a coaches' proposal, that was an NCAA proposal. It was also killed off by way more than just new england coaches, as re-alignment as it was proposed would have had a way bigger impact on the Atlantic and Mid-East regions than New England, even though that is the region that needs to be broken up most. That proposal, as I recall, also would have added 3 of the traditional power New England teams (Williams, Middlebury, Amherst) to the Atlantic region. How well do you think the committee would have done with 8 men's teams that qualified for nationals this year on the men's side, and 6 on the women's, all now potentially sharing one region?

Cfdxgb wrote:

This is wrong. New England region had nothing to do with that proposal failing. Coaches passed it and NCAA shot it down

The USTFCCCA put a proposal forward in response to the NCAA proposal (which was conference based and horrible for everyone). If I remember correctly the proposal would have shifted part of New England with part of eastern NY, western ny and western pa would have been part of the Great Lakes, eastern PA and NJ would have been together. Other regions would have also shifted to give all regions except the west close to 50 teams (i think Texas was in the west to make it a little larger). Yes this would have altered multiple regions. The New England coaches were the most outspoken against it for "tradition". The proposal passed on to the NCAA with the coaches being for the plan if realignment happened but preferred to not realign at all if possible. The NCAA chose not to realign. The Mideast and New England continue to have trouble finding courses that can hold their field size (a third of the Atlantic teams don't show up so they have less problems). Currently there are 73 Atlantic teams, 74 Mideast teams, and 77 New England teams (give or take 1 or 2 as I just did a quick count)(

)

That is 224 of the 423 programs coming from 3 regions. Realignment should happen to more evenly align the regions, but probably won't because people are more likely to complain then do anything about the problem, especially if the best way to solve the problem effects them.

Also from NE: it seems to me though that almost everyone should be able to find an essentially flat place to have their regional race. Conn would be just fine for the NE people, and there's definitely no shortage of open flat land in the midwest. Have it at Conn every year. The other regions can pick their own pool table and do their thing. NCAA comes in and measures them all, neutral officials set up the course, it would be fine. Again, you can't put all the stock into this, since weather, wind, etc can make a big difference, but if you could look at the times of Allegheny and Bates something like this just would not happen. Small errors would still happen, but not glaring ones like bates's omission

Seems like someone is an old, d3 alumni (most likely from NCC based on just using that school) who never ran very fast, but still loves to revel in past glories. Interesting stats for sure but like don't you have something better to do with your day than to put down some "prs" for college kids. I am NOT saying that the course was legit because I was not there and did not experience it...BUT why not just let someone take that first ever sub 26, 27, 28, etc. and have their day. Maybe move on in life. Jealousy is not a good look on you honey. ;)

I'm failing to see any jealousy in the original post? The person simply went through and took a ton of time and put together a ton of data that is actually pretty cool to see. By all means, call the person a nerd but I don't see where your animosity is coming from? If this course was actually an 8k, then these are amazing stats to look at and truly one of the best individual running meets of all time with so many individuals PRing on the same day. Don't YOU have something better to do than talk crap to someone else for doing something helpful for the rest of us? Negativity is not a good look on you sweetie ;)

MoveOnOldMan wrote:

Seems like someone is an old, d3 alumni (most likely from NCC based on just using that school) who never ran very fast, but still loves to revel in past glories. Interesting stats for sure but like don't you have something better to do with your day than to put down some "prs" for college kids. I am NOT saying that the course was legit because I was not there and did not experience it...BUT why not just let someone take that first ever sub 26, 27, 28, etc. and have their day. Maybe move on in life. Jealousy is not a good look on you honey. ;)

Says the dude who is so angry someone posted a well-researched and factual response that they resorted to a bunch of non-sequitors and personal attacks. Maybe move on in life. Jealousy is not a good look on you honey. ;)