Hey Chris what about me?
Hey Chris what about me?
Living in New England,I have seen Josh running when he was being home schooled.Since he was not allowed to run against High Schoolers except at Footlocker, you would see him running agaist college kids at open events. His success has been a progression and forever he has flourished on hard training and long miles which has worked very well for him but would be disastrous for many others. It might be a big mistake to declare such a program a failure just because of one indifferent race,albeit the NCAAs. There are a lot of other causes for a subpar performance,other than a poor coaching philosophy
My hunch is overtraining. His end of the season fade suggests that. Jordan, literally following in his brother's training tracks, was likely a victim of the same thing. They'd have been better off at a conventional D1 program. Sorry God.
Overtraining/racing for sure....
Good coaches hold athletes back (e.g. Wetmore, Dellinger etc)
What has JD or JD done on the track? Anything of note in terms of placing?
College runners who consistently have their best races in October, and then only pop the odd good one through to the following spring, are overtrained.
As Dellinger used to have to remind his guys, "...the race is not on Tuesday. Its Saturday".
Wetmore could have turned Josh into a champion im sure of that. A coach with authority, Josh seems to follow his own head little too much.
Although I have not said some of the things you are saying, I do believe the following things---none of which contradict eachother in my opinion:
The McDougals are some of the potentially best American runners of the last several years.
I am fans of them because of their "all-in" approach to running.
They go to strange university, and assuming that they subscribe to the same beliefs as the university's founder, they have some wacko, psuedo-religious beliefs.
I don't judge them for subscribing to these beliefs as they are very young people who were forcefully conditioned to see the world in a very limited way. Whatever.
My biggest problem with their attendance at Liberty is that it isn't the place for potentially elite runners. This is abundantly clear because of their repeated underperformance.
Assuming that they are to continue at Liberty, I encourage them to find outside running mentorship/coaching.
McDougal did burn out....both of them. Burn out is a temporary state, and is excusable if it doesn't become a pattern. I predicted McD to DNF because, from 1000 miles away, it was obvious what was going to happen. Frankly, I am beyond amazed that the people who watch him train every day were oblivious to the impending disaster. I am impressed as heck with his performance---given the training and season schedule.
At some level I believe that the McDougals are at fault for their performances as they choose to stay somewhere that obviously isn't working for their running---and running is clearly one of their priorities.
The world ain't black and white, Brother Hall. I don't hate the playas, I hate the game. The fact that you don't seem to be able to wrap your mind around this frustrates me.
If you support the McDougals, you don't have to support the mistakes. Part of the equation, here, is that their current mistakes remind me of my own. These are different mistakes and situations (and my talent is a notch down from their's), but my rants are inspired by personal regret, frustration with ineffective coaches in American distance running, and NCAA meets that feature a litany of runners who are "giving their left nut" for their running, but are being set up for failure. Sad.
Huh?
The McDougal article on the front page adds fuel to my fire---Jimmerson alluding to the fact that the weak performance was mental, is the ultimate pass of the buck.
Nowhere does he say, clearly we screwed him up. He doesn't even hint at taking responsibility.
...And taking a bus 9 hours to the regional??? What? This is part of my rail against Liberty. The dudes from Stanford probably don't even drive to Cal.
Most of these people who post on here are just stupid.
What if Mcdougal went to Wisconsin and trained there, maybe he woulda bombed out like Solinsky did?
Ever think of that?
You can't blame it on his college or coaches, he had a bad race, it happens.
That is kinda what I was thinking. Why is McDougal overtrained but Solinsky just had a bad race?I would bet in both cases when they saw they weren't going to win it really effected them. Losing your focus for a minute in a race like that will drop you fast. probably as simple as that.
Error wrote:
Most of these people who post on here are just stupid.
What if Mcdougal went to Wisconsin and trained there, maybe he woulda bombed out like Solinsky did?
Ever think of that?
You can't blame it on his college or coaches, he had a bad race, it happens.
The real Coach Caboose wrote:
Hey Chris what about me?
That's what the "huh?" was directed to, btw.
Nice time for girls wrote:
This is also what goes on at many other institutions. Look at Minnesota, NC State, Duke (women), etc. These programs consistently do well when is doesn't count and poorly when it does. Like McDougal was after nationals, these folks are disappointed when they underpeform---rightly so.
Yeah, chris rombough has really been sucking it up...
or not
You refuse ot acknowledge that, aside from his very recent loss to korir and his sub-par, ONE TIME performance at nationals this past monday, every xc race Mcdougal has run since grduating High School has been EXTREMELY SUCCESSFUL. You cannot say that finishing 13th at nationals as a true freshman (especially in a race where so many tactical errors were made by the entire field of runners) and 4th as a sophomore (especially considering he had the previous year's national champion up front, a 3 time ncaa distance track champion and a low 28 10k guy ahead of him, after having led a large part of the race) was either a failure or a set of runs below his potential. You're saying that both Mcdougals have been unsuccessful come big time races....that is just ridiculous...what other examples prior to this yr's regional and national meets can you think of to support this? 4th as a soph wasn't an unsuccessful run--he was in contention, but by no means was he BY FAR the ABSOLUTE FAVORITE and COMPLETELY expected ot win. It was no shock that Bairu won.
This is jsut a perfect example of the mentality of many of the posters on letsrun--One bad race and they all jump off the bandwagon and accuse runners and thier coaches of being inept. We've seen it on here with Wejo, Goucher, Meb...even Bekele and Khannouchi. It is exactly what you are doing and it is a poison to this sport. Also, how dare you belittle his spirituality with an underhand comment like, "I don't judge them for subscribing to these beliefs as they are very young people who were forcefully conditioned to see the world in a very limited way. Whatever." Who are you? What is it your say? Do you know them personally or is that simply ignorant assumption?
First off, this is yet another example of you masking the words you've been preaching for weeks on this board--you do judge them for thier beliefs as evangelical christians (which, in all honesty, you have absolutely no right to do. one can disagree with the spiritual beliefs of others, but by no means is one qualified to JUDGE them on that basis), othwerwise you would have refrained from adding the, "they are very young people who were forcefully conditioned to see the world in a very limited way. Whatever." comment. Second, you HAVE called him a "has-been," a "burn-out," knocked his training, predicted he would soon fail even when he was doing extremely well, predicted him to DNF and HAVE constantly bashed him for his own, personal spiritual dedication Everythign I have said you said, you have...and I can find examples to prove it. Also, where do you think he should go that he will do any better than he's done thus far...be any more consistant in xc than he has been thus far? Colorado? Because Goucher, Ritz, Vaughn and Torres never had ANY problems there. Standford? Jennings and Sage NEVER met inconsistancy there. Wisconsin? Oregon? THESE THINGS HAPPEN IN RUNNING.
It is awe-inspiring that Mcdougal has met such little adversity in cross country, when compare to many of his peers. To simply fault the coach for everything...to look at liberty and say, "This is a little program...it is not meant for top-end runners," is ridiculous, because there are in fact more examples of squandered talent in the high end schools than there will ever be at a school like liberty or ole miss.
You say, "The world ain't black and white, Brother Hall. I don't hate the playas, I hate the game. The fact that you don't seem to be able to wrap your mind around this frustrates me." You, however, have one of the most myopic and condescending viewpoints I have ever seen on this board. In no way is the world black and white and THAT is what I am "defending." There will be highs, but there will always be lows. It's running...it's a sport that rests solely on ONE individual person...one individual body. Injury, peaking, just having a bad day--they're all products of the sport. Faith without works is dead, friend. Only a fool would follow your advice and take one disappointment and throw everything out the window because of it.
I'm not saying he wasn't overtraining...I'm not saying something didn't go wrong...I'm not saying anything like that....I do not know. I AM NOT HIM NOR AM I HIS COACHES. I am simply saying that, no, the world IS NOT black and white...and your assessment, assumptions and conclusions are ignorant and myopic.
And yeah...sorry for the typos.
If the same things happen to the same individuals or teams on a regular basis, what does that mean?
If athletes or teams regularly have bad days on the days that count, what does this mean?
At some level, I think that you think that great performances are accidents. I know that you don't actually believe this. I am really trying to get your point.
If you are saying that runners have "bad days," meaning that they just have unexplained poor performances, then I have to disagree. We might not recognize the reasons, but all "bad days" have explanations.
I tend to agree with one of my running heroes, Bob Kempainen, that there is no need for mental preparation. If the training is good, the mental preparation will be present. It is all about training. All bad days, even sprained ankles and flu bugs, are a representation of faulty preparation.
Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to imply that I could coach a DI athlete. I simply believe that there are plenty of folks out that who can do better than many of the active coaches.
((Previous poster---Chris Rombough had an awesome end of the season. Clearly what Plascencia was doing worked for him. It just didn't work for the other 6 guys.)
Nice time for girls wrote:
If athletes or teams regularly have bad days on the days that count, what does this mean?
Aside from his loss to Korir and his most recent run at NCAAs, name one bad day Josh Mcdougal has had in his collegiate cross country career. I'm sure he, his teammates and his coaches do not consider all the wins andcourse records throughout the season or taking 13th as a true frosh and 4th as a true soph a "bad day" at all.
Swab wrote:
My hunch is overtraining. His end of the season fade suggests that. Jordan, literally following in his brother's training tracks, was likely a victim of the same thing. They'd have been better off at a conventional D1 program. Sorry God.
Do you know anyone that runs for or has ran for a major program in the past? It doesn't seem like you do because Josh would likely be training even harder if he wasn't at Liberty. There are a ton of kids duking it out every day in practice at places like wisconsin and colorado and getting injured and burnt out. Saying he is overtraining because he doesn't have Chris Solinsky and Stuart Eagon pushing him in practice every day doesn't make much sense.
After reading all of the mostly idiotic opinions, no one has mentioned that he was probably done in by a simple cold. This is the time of season when colds and flu are going around. A cold, while not very serious, can still zap enough energy to cause a runner to have a bad race. While we all know Solinsky was sick and we see what it did to his performance, the chances are this could have been a cause for McDougal.
You have to consider this before going and making drastic changes that could be detrimental for the future.
The previous ideas that have been knocked back and forth have been entertaining to say the least. From my perspective, it was a poor race (insert reason here), but to clear up some misconceptions about the institution. Sure Liberty is relatively new without a substantial running tradition established (it has only been around since 1971, there have been a few talented runners that have come through the ranks, Josh Cox-7th 2004 Marathon Trials, Steven Githuka--Peter Githuka's little bro & some decent Canadian National talent, over the years.) But a program has to start somewhere, i.e. Arkansas were not always the track power they are expected to be each year, Wisconsin, Colorado, et al. Liberty is a growing institution that, with the fortune of having the McDougals and the addition of Jimmerson, are laying a foundation upon which to build; now whether that comes to fruition or not remains to be seen.
Also, true JF has some very polarizing political views, but it is a non-sequitur to draw the inference that the students, including the McDougals are blindly in lockstep with those political views--rather it's the common thing of a faith in God. To pigeon-hole 10k people as JF clones is a faulty conclusion at best; that's akin to choosing any school USA and finding out what the views are of the a) founder, if still alive or b) current President and institutional policy setter and automatically determining/assuming that all of the students who attend that school hold to the same views.
The McDougals seem like such great people, and they are tremendous athletes. I'd really like to see them get the coaching and support they deserve.