Connor Mantz Ran 14:24 Indoors SEVEN Years Ago

Kieran Tuntivate is younger than Conner Mantz, although they are both currently 24. Could KT have won today? Probably he wins easily...

One of the females on the roster graduated HS in 2014 . How is that ? 25 ?

He ran that 14:24 as a junior in HS. You don't think Young could have placed top 100 as a junior in HS? How about Fisher or Hunter or Clinger?

This year is a free year so she may be back next year.

That was just a pure guts race! It was amazing to see him take the top talent in the NCAA into the “Mantz pain chamber.”

These posts on age advantages are older than Mantz himself. It’s like they’ve been copied and pasted every year.

I doubt many posting on this thread have been on the other side of taking 2 years off. It’s ridiculously tough. My experience was a five year setback having placed 10th in the 1999 as 1500 final as an 18 yr old freshman and not placing higher than that - or running faster until my senior year in 2005, yes as a 24 year old, having overcome 3 stress fractures.

I would imagine most taking shots at mission advantages would not take that trade-off.

Having said that - it was never in the decision process of why I decided to go on a mission trip - to gain an advantage. It was a huge risk of maybe not regaining my form and a tough decision.

Also, further proof that BYU is an elite program - regardless of age accusations - is they’ve have olympians in the distance events from the 1500 to the Marathon in 76, 80*, 84, 88, 92, 96, 00, 08, 16 and only had 2 coaches in that time span. (James and Eyestone). How many programs are that consistent for so long? The Olympics is no respecter of age and BYU certainly places a disproportionate # of Olympians for a program that has only one XC title in its history.

At the end of the day, Manzt deserves huge praise and props for his tenacious running style and his ability to overcome injuries to achieve his goal. When was the last American to win this thing?! We should focus on that:-).

Wow. I will take your word but that seems almost impossible.

You do realize that Charlie Hunter was born in July 1996 (5 months before Conner). Hunter is also a junior.

Lucas Bons ran a 3:55 mile this year as a freshman after his mission. Casey Clinger placed 24th as a true freshman at XC and after his two year mission placed 13th at XC today. Maybe the mission doesn't take away as much talent as you think

...also, freshman Eliud Kipsang was born in Sep 1996.

Let’s not pretend that BYU has the monopoly on old runners

He said he gained 30 lbs in the first 8-9 months while in Ghana then stopped running.

For every one like Mantz there are 10 others that never regain form. I'm sure some of those just have a change in priorities after taking a couple of years off.

https://www.deseret.com/sports/2021/2/24/22285524/byu-cougars-conner-mantz-one-of-best-distance-runners-in-the-world

Doesn’t Alabama have a 24 year old FRESHMAN? I wonder if he’ll win NCAA XC seven years from now.

age limit wrote:

It's false to assume that Mantz did no aerobic activity while at Ghana:

Another quote:

"I'll try to run if I can get my companion to come with me, but if not, I'll survive. You get 30 minutes every day to exercise, so hopefully I'll be able to run 30 minutes everyday. If not, I'll do core, jump rope, or something else"

He was given 30 minutes a day to train and there's no evidence to suggest he wasn't banging out 5 or 6 mile tempos in Ghana for all we know.

https://www.milesplit.com/articles/154240/mantzs-mission-before-his-mission?page=3

Here’s an article with quotes from Mantz this year, rather than from before his mission. It seems to provide evidence that he wasn’t banging out 5 or 6 mile tempos in Ghana. He’s be pretty hard-pressed to find a companion that would want to do that between 6:30-7:00 in the morning.

geritol wrote:

nent wrote:

....and then he'd still be eligible to compete again the following year, NINE years removed.

WTF? I mean does this grampa just not care at all about ever making a living? Imagine giving up 5 extra years of no income just to go jogging. Some people just hate work so much that they will do anything to avoid it, and Mantz is the poster grampa.

The kid was a 4.0 student in high school and is an engineering major. If all he cared about was running, he would take the easy way out with an exercise physiology degree like so many of you so he could get more sleep and rest.

Speaking of which, how many engineering majors have won NCAAs? Brojos, let’s do a project.

Claiming they can’t run a step for two years is a lie and always has been.

Any college athlete could take a 2-year deferral for military service. Why doesn't anyone try that if it's such an advantage? The athlete would get 2 years of growth, earn money, get to work out every day, and have 2 years of tuition paid for, which would save the program scholarship when he got back. There's no way any college or athletic department would want to deal with the huge PR nightmare of not welcoming back a student who had served his country for two years. Just like a Mormon mission, there are already NCAA rules to let athletes stop their eligibility clock for military service.

So if it's such a big advantage, why doesn't anyone go this route?

under a bridge wrote:

GuestUser2017 wrote:

Here’s an article with quotes from Mantz this year, rather than from before his mission. It seems to provide evidence that he wasn’t banging out 5 or 6 mile tempos in Ghana. He’s be pretty hard-pressed to find a companion that would want to do that between 6:30-7:00 in the morning.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.deseret.com/platform/amp/sports/2021/2/24/22285524/byu-cougars-conner-mantz-one-of-best-distance-runners-in-the-world

Claiming they can’t run a step for two years is a lie and always has been.

Where has that claim been made? I've never heard that claim before. The claim is that there's very minimal training happening on missions, if you can even call it training. I'm sure a lot of them run a bit, but it's nothing like actual training. That's not a focus on the mission, and they only allot 30 minutes for exercise each day. Most of the time, the person they're working with won't want to run, so they aren't doing hardly any running with them. If they were committed to serious training as missionaries, they wouldn't go on a mission in the first place. They know they're sacrificing that.

I can count on probably two hands the number of times I "ran" while I was a missionary, and they certainly weren't training runs. Do you know some missionaries that trained pretty hard while they were out there?

Herrio wrote:

This does not exactly make it shocking that he could win NCAA Cross Country 7 years later.

Wrong perspective. He took 2 years completely off. His starting point was an 18 minute 5K in July 2017. THAT'S INCREDIBLE.

I ran exactly 2 times on my mission. I walked a lot. I played pickup basketball a couple times a month. That's it. I came home 10 lbs heavier. I had to run a 1.5 mile fitness test for a class my first week off the mission. I finished in 9:15...a whopping 2 minutes slower than I had run 2 years prior. Yeah I get it I was super slow even before my mission, but I lost 80 seconds per mile of fitness. Anecdotally, this is pretty typical for a college athlete that goes on a mission.