Stanford Results

you need to realize that stanford invitational breeds fast times on that golf course. the weather is perfect, they are running on fairways lined with fans and superb runners. It is a legitimate course.

What are the brutal workouts you're referring to? Can you be more specific?

And tell us, o wise one, how Stanford "choked" at the NCAAs last year? They tanked, no one can deny that, for a number of reasons -- but "choked?" There was barely a single under-achiever on that team, and none of those guys got to where they are by getting tight and blowing important races. You sound like some armchair expert. Why don't you try opening yourself another can of beer, take a long swig and keep your opinions to yourself? Oh, I forget, this is letsrun.com where people can say all kinds of things they know nothing about.

There are some nasty hills, too. Yes, times can be quick there, but it's not an easy course.

Yeah, because it really ruined Chris Derrick.

I'll admit I don't know much about the coaching situation at Stanford; maybe their workouts are way too hard early season, and maybe their guys were burned out by NCAA's. But Stanford taking 10th at nationals had much more to do with their guys choking/being headcases than training too hard. Yes, some guys can handle the tough training better than others, but when the star of the team performs exactly as well as anyone could have hoped, you might consider looking more at the athletes than the coaching.

I think being ranked 1st going into the national meet and finishing 10th is the DEFINITION of choking. so why don't you go admit to yourself that you're favorite team the stanford cardinal was not the best team and still won't be this year

starmiler wrote: There are some nasty hills, too. Yes, times can be quick there, but it's not an easy course.

highhorse wrote:

I think being ranked 1st going into the national meet and finishing 10th is the DEFINITION of choking. so why don't you go admit to yourself that you're favorite team the stanford cardinal was not the best team and still won't be this year

And what would the definition of "you're" be?

Okay! I stand corrected. :)

I'm not going to swear to it, but I think Derrick raced too much.

Oh no, I mean, it's certainly possible. I don't disagree that he may have worked too hard or raced too much. All my point was that when it came to race day, he put everything together. Maybe you could argue that he could have beaten McNeil, but I don't think so; I think McNeil and Chelanga were simply too good. You might also argue otherwise, but Elliot Heath also had a nice race and placed decently well. Could he have done better with smarter training? Possibly. We can't know. But from this, I say that Stanford's training program was likely not the sole cause of Stanford placing 10th. Some of their guys just flat out bombed, and because some of the guys performed at or close to how you might expect them to, it would seem that over training was not the main problem.

Highhorse, you're a blowhard who's barely worth responding to, but I'll do it anyway. Actually I'll respond with a question for you: Is athletic failure ALWAYS the result of "choking?" If you think that this is so -- that being the favorite and then imploding ALWAYS means you've "choked" -- then I guarantee you, you don't know what you're talking about.

The team didn't fold "under pressure." Especially in distance running there are all sorts of reasons why a team can tank. Frankly I just think that with the exception of Derrick their guys just ran out of gas from a very long, hard season. I think they'll rethink things this year.

You're right, Heath ran well, too. After that... yikes.

1.Of course they run brutal workouts. Thats what every quality college does.

2. Stanford looks darn deep. shout out to berberick an 800guy

3. DUDE SOLOMON HAILIE! shoot man, people gotta start giving this guy props, considering everybody said he wouldnt be anything cause he was supposedly 30 his sr in high school. Hard not to root for him now

I had to refresh my memory on this: Apparently Elliot Heath was up with the leaders at the halfway point, faded badly and came on a little at the end to finish 37th. I don't really know for a fact but that sounds to me like the race of someone who was burned down coming in. Jake Riley placed all the way back in 54th, even though he had skipped the Regional Race and had been 6th in the PAC-10s; he sure wasn't feelin' it at the NCAAs... Miles Unterreiner was fourth man in 117th (31:05.3) after finishing 11th in the conference meet, so he under-performed significantly; and Justin Marpole-Bird finished 216th (32:23.5) -- a middle distance guy who had a breakout cross-country season and completely blew up in this race, out of his head at the finish -- he was caught on tv looking like he couldn't have remembered his own name. "Choking?" At a top Division I distance program, I don't know that you can talking about "choking." "Choking" is what people do in skill games when they get tense, lose their hand to eye, etc. Or "choking" is what you do if you're a serious headcase, and none of these guys are that. So unless folks can produce some serious evidence...

Can you be more specific about "brutal" workouts? Yes, big-time programs run some hard workouts, who can deny that? That's how people improve. When Lanana was at Stanford there was a lot of criticism about him running guys into the ground. But I also know that there was some credence given to "train don't strain..." So I'd be interested in knowing what your idea of "brutality" is -- or more to the point, what the Stanford distance program actually has its people do. I ran there back in the late Pleistocene on some pretty good teams, but that doesn't count anymore, of course... Still I've read about guys getting by on 60-70 mpw in the program over the past decade -- and who've done pretty well with that...

The thing about that is that everybody is different, and thus differnet things work for different people. Look at CU. They have most guys 100mpw or better, and are famous/imfamous for the 'Run fast, or never run again'. But look at the results they post.... I mean Bosshard, Wacker,Van Halen, Thompson all MISSED footlocker, and they all scored on CU's #6 last year. I dont know if anybody is known more for intense inseason work than CU-Boulder, and we all know their track history. Im not sure about specifically what they do, but all the top programs are 2-3 workouts a week all season, no real taper till nationals. the workouts may differ, but really most of the difference is just mileage. and as with CU, high mileage can produce amazing results

Corrections:

1. Mileage is really the only differnces in INTENSITY(toughness of weeks) between most top universities IN SEASON.owever most are pretty darn flexible for different styles of runners

2. no pun intended on CU's track season

Everyone is talking about Stanford this and Stanford that and Stanford is so good (which they are, and deservedbly should be ranked #1), but what about Arkansas? They ran a hell of a race and actually put their 5th man in front of Stanfords 5th. Not too shabby. And their 6th was one place behind Stanfords 5th. I don't know who these Chinchar and Cantero guys are, but if one of them has a good race and can be with Haile, Ulrey, Fernandez, and Boyer when they are all going balls to the wall, Arkansas can be very dangerous this year.

Thoughts about them? Over trained too early?