There were some excellent marks at BU, some collegiate, some open. Besides UO runners Yearian & Brown running sub 3:55 in the mile teammate Aaron Bienenfeld ran 13:21.99 for 5K, breaking the German national record. 2nd was Ehab El-Sandali of Iona, at 13:25.01.
So out of the 48 spots (mile/3000/5000), 4 spots were filled at that meet. So 8.3%. That’s high, no?
There were some excellent marks at BU, some collegiate, some open. Besides UO runners Yearian & Brown running sub 3:55 in the mile teammate Aaron Bienenfeld ran 13:21.99 for 5K, breaking the German national record. 2nd was Ehab El-Sandali of Iona, at 13:25.01.
So out of the 48 spots (mile/3000/5000), 4 spots were filled at that meet. So 8.3%. That’s high, no?
Well this meet used to be the week between conference/USA's and nationals as those two usually always fall on the same week. Now, several years earlier you could still qualify for nationals the week after conference then the NCAA wanted to get rid of last chance meets due to logistics so now you have to get a qualifier by conference weekend. Now when they kept the same date it was mainly for the pros and they moved the meet to college conference weekend 2 years ago, but USA's was actually scheduled a week earlier so a lot of pros were able to show up and a few collegians who skipped conference (mainly P12).
With a lot of the pros laying low this indoor season, and the Sound Running 10k this week, there was really no good weekend to put it this year. You can put it the week before conference, but a lot of schools are doing DMR that week.
Well, first of all, to make money. Second, most conference championship distance races run tactically, so in most cases it is not in a runner's best interest to compete at their conference championship if they need to hit a qualifying time for NCAA's. For example, two Oregon guys both qualified in the mile at this meet. Would have been more difficult to do had they run at conference instead.
The original poster has an issue with the name of the meet, not the meet itself. It doesn't make a lot of sense to call it "last chance" since it doesn't provide many opportunities for nationals qualifying. Like someone said, if times counted this week and the meet was held this weekend, it'd make more sense to call it a "last chance" meet.
The original poster has an issue with the name of the meet, not the meet itself. It doesn't make a lot of sense to call it "last chance" since it doesn't provide many opportunities for nationals qualifying. Like someone said, if times counted this week and the meet was held this weekend, it'd make more sense to call it a "last chance" meet.
That's what I was thinking. Only one or two people have actually addressed what seems to be the main point of this thread, which is the name of the meet, not the existence of the meet. For the record, I think the abundance of meets called "last chance" is silly anyways.