Charles Hicks’ progression since becoming a Pro

It's perfectly plausible that he finds four seconds to get the standard over the next couple of months. Then at the trials, there's a lot of moving parts. Mills would be favourite, but he's not guaranteed to run as he might prefer to try for the 1500 team. Because the UK trials are only two days, it's not really possible to double. That brings Dever, Rowe, and Atkin into the race, all of whom have the standard. The top two are guaranteed a spot if they have the standard, the third place is discretionary. But then there are wildcards that could finish top two but don't have the standard, like West and Marc Scott (he's said he plans to go to the track if his marathon qualification bid goes wrong). That means we could have more than one discretionary selection. Of all those in contention, my preferred team would be Mills, Hicks, and Dever as I think there's more potential there longer-term compared to the others.

To your point about training with BTC (altitude and training partners), I don't think it's a big difference from what he had at Stanford. Charles is from a wealthy family and installed an altitude tent at his home possibly as early as high school and definitely in his Stanford dorm rooms, so unless you believe (as some do) that altitude tents don't really work then access to altitude training as a pro isn't a big change. Also, he had guys like Ky Robinson and Cole Sprout to train with at Stanford. Obviously those guys aren't as good as the top BTC guys, but it's not like he had no one to push him in training.

More generally, Charles was running big miles at Stanford and training at a high level. I think he was much closer to maxing his potential than, say, Grant Fisher was when he graduated from Stanford.

With that said, I agree with the posters who are saying it's WAY too soon to make any judgments about how BTC has gone for him. Early returns actually look good imo.

The decision to go pro was intended to permit enough time to adjust to BTC training in order to make the Olympics. There's not much time left to do that. The 5000m standard is much, much easier than the 10k standard, so he will likely get the former. That doesn't mean that he has not fallen far behind college competition that he beat before turning pro. If he doesn't make it because there wasn't enough time to get results from BTC, but he would have had better current results by sticking with the same coach, as multiple proponents of his decision here have argued, then why didn't he stick with what got him to an NCAA xc championship?

He beat them in XC, sure. We’re talking about Track and he is improving and should be in the mix to make the British team. That would be harder to do from Stanford.

What? The decision to go pro was because he graduated after 4 years at Stanford and was ready to try to take it to the next level. By all accounts he was a perfectly adequate -- if not particularly motivated -- student at Stanford (his mom is an alum...wealthy, educated family) but was all-in on running. Sure, he had eligibility left for at least one season of cross country but with a degree and an NCAA title in hand it made sense for him to see if BTC would take him up a level. Time will tell.

Has there ever been a study showing altitude tents work for endurance athletes? I can think of a half dozen showing no improvements in performance or blood values. The combo of not enough hours and normal pressure seem to be a big enough difference.

with any change like this you got to give it 2 cycles.

Neither.

Either read, heard or saw a reference to him as "Charlie" a couple years back.

He is such a happy, laid-back guy that Charlie seemed more appropriate than "Charles."

However, he is British -- stiff upper lip et al -- so, if you say he prefers Charles, then I'll ditch Charlie.

Thx for clarifying.

Can't speak for how much time was missed due to quarantining vs. actual illness.

Just recall an LRC post stating some of the BTC guys tested positive for COVID following their 5k races at the BU Terrier DMR Challenge back on 2/16 -- with no proof provided.

However, upon their return to Flagstaff, Hicks, Hamilton & Jager were missing from BTC's IG training scenes posts.

Confirmation of their medical issues was finally provided in the following IG post from Duncan:

So, maybe Charles' slightly sub-par 27:33 over the weekend was due to missed training time back in February.

Or, it may have been due to going out in 13:35/5k split which was too fast for him regardless of what happened last month. Charles bonked hard after 7200 meters, even slowing to a 71 lap while finishing with a couple of slow-for-him 63s.

However, Charles was very happy with his 13:09/5k from BU as he attested in his recent Youtube video.

So, have to believe everything is still going well for him and loves being on BTC.

Correct on all accounts above.

Charles is so in love with running that he told an interviewer after he won a race -- it might have been his 2022 NCAA XC win -- that he was going to celebrate by going out for a run because that's what he loves to do more than anything else.

And, motivated by his studies or not, Charles was a multiple Academic All-American:

gostanford.com

Charles Hicks - Track & Field

Charles HicksDistance - TFRRS Performance Profile Video feature 2022: Better Together, with Ky Robinson, Cole Sprout (GoStanford.com) Career Accolades NCAA

Open link

Correct on all above.

Better comparison example: Grant Fisher.

Grant started training w/BTC in summer 2019 when he ran one race in a BTC kit then shut it down. Fast forward to BTC's pandemic intrasquad meets in summer 2020. There, he took his college 5k pr from 13:29 down to 13:11. A year later he was down to 13:02 and (debut) 27:11/10k and made both Oly teams.

Charles started training w/BTC in summer 2023 when he ran one race in a BTC kit then shut it down. Fast forward to February 2024 where he took his college pr from 13:22 down to 13:09. Now, in March 2024, he has taken his college 10k pr from 27:40 down to 27:33.

Both have raced and trained in the supershoe/superspike era so apples-to-apples comparison there.

And, Charles' pro rookie racing season is just getting started.

Baring injury -- and Charles has been pretty much indestructible -- he has a chance to make an Olympic team his first year w/BTC.

Think any just-turned-pro runner would take that improvement any day.

You were right, Charles Hicks has now been added to the start list for the Night of the 10K PBs. Looks like he’s not done with the 10k qualification route just yet. Really hope he can pull off something special!

Good catch.

Thank you!!

Is Charles Hicks going to run Euro XC this year? In his first season as a pro, Jerry sent him to Austin instead (sigh…). He’s a 2-time U23 champ. Sure he probably won’t win, but I’d love to see how he’d fair with the rest of the European senior field.

he is not entered in the trials at liverpool this weekend, and i cant see him getting a discretionary spot as i dont think he has run anything else recently.

Such a shame. XC clearly plays to his strengths as a runner. Fingers crossed we see him as a last minute add to the trials lineup this weekend!