Any coach who would say, "Everyone can run an average race and we can win easily" is setting his team up to struggle.
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I think he meant average in the sense of average for him, as in they don't need to all have the best runs of their lives to win. Fernandez just needs to run as he's expected to, Lowe needs to run as expected, etc. But agreed, poor wording on his part.
I measured it and it came out to be 6.16, so thats pretty close. I measured it by the tangents too so I think its close to a full 10k. I believe the finished was moved back a couple of years ago to make it more accurate. The mud really wasn't that bad at all, there was only about 50 meters of it in each loop.
I'll believe you, but I find it dubious that people routinely run around 29 minutes on the course. Daniel Kirwa ran 28:53 there last year. If that is an accurate result, then surely he could run around 28-flat on the track. Racing over grass and hills is definitely worth 9 seconds per mile. The three OSU guys would have possibly broken 29, had it been dry and had they run all-out instead of intentionally finishing together. The last time I ran it was 2006 when it was definitely short (winning time of 28:22, 13 guys under 29:00), but perhaps it's been lengthened substantially since.
Its still sad OSU has to use a 6th year senior to get it done.
What is he in college still for? he is not even in school, go run pro, leave the collegiates alone!
he's still eligible, so drop it. it's no different than aging mormons, africans or rupp coming back from being a pro. some might argue it's even better than those things.
are you sure he isn't in school? let the ncaa clearinghouse know...otherwise he could very well be finishing another major or doing graduate work.
and no it isn't sad...injuries are a part of the game and this is a reasonably fair way to deal with them.