OFFICIAL Wisconsin Invite Thread

agreed.

No way

Luke or Lukas

beat a field consisting of

BYU Batty

PRI Cabral

STA Derrick

NAU Estrada

ARI Lalang

NCSt Hill

MIN Mead

WIS (Whoever their top guy ends up being)

any other top runners Im missing?

Luke and Lukas are/will be good but they are not favored from what I see.

Oregon will not run Luke. He is still coming back from an injury.

Their team should be:

1. Stinson

2. Verzbicas

3. Kwiatkowski

4. DeJarnette(if he can finish a race)

5. Shrader

6. Noelle

7. Elkaim

HASAY VERSUS REID? Are you kidding me?????!!!! I'm there!

There might be ten percent more teams than on this list. Challenging the 300 runners mark.

1 Wisconsin

2 Stanford

3 Indiana

4 Oregon

5 BYU

6 NAU (where's Ahmed Osman?)

Oregon is not that good.

adding Luke coming off of injury and FRESHMAN Lukas will not make oregon a top 10 team nationally.

you need a strong 3 man and solid 4/5 guys to compete top 10 nationally. Oregon does not have that this year they will have it next year and definitely in 2 years but not this year.

400 points or under is what you will need to place in the top 15 and get "at-large" points

is the course relatively flat?

Short answer, rolling but not hilly, but see the items below. It should run fast as it has been dry for longer than normal up here. However, they do expect rain this week; it will not make the course muddy, however, as it drains well and the grass holds up even through dry periods so it does not 'bake'.

This link has information on the race.

http://www.uwbadgers.com/sports/m-xc/adidas-Invitational-2011.html

There is an included link to course maps that have vertical profiles as a function of distance at the bottom.

http://www.uwbadgers.com/auto_pdf/p_hotos/s_chools/wis/sports/m-xc/auto_pdf/course-maps

In a video link Stinzi cites 37 and 41 for the men's and women's, respectively, with 19 of the top 30 for the men and 18 for the women.

Coach Lananna announced today that Oregon will run Luke and Lukas, Jordan and Anne this Friday, Oct. 14th. Also he shared that Mac Fleet will not run cross but is healthy and will do indoor and out this year.

Lalang will win easily, with another course record.

Some insights:

The field this year, at 40 teams, is enormous. Last year there were around 20 teams. This is really pushing the capacity of this course, maybe beyond the point of prudence. Look for teams who are aware of this huge bottleneck potential to run fast, early, to get in front of the slug-fest as the reality of a 40 team entry dawns on the runners, fighting their way through the densely packed middle part of the pack. Thoughts?

I don’t know why people are having this belief that Lukas will, well let’s just say sh*t on everyone in the NCAA. The kid is a freak of nature and will probably/eventually/undoubtedly win an NCAA title in the near future, but with guys like Derrick, Estrada, Korir, Batty, Fernandez (yes, he’s still good and has a load of talent left, get over it trolls), and many others, he won’t stand a chance against them. Just saying this because if he starts getting beat or starts running horribly, everyone knows that the whole Letsrun community will do what they do best: rip him apart.

Lalang will win... Seriously anyone who says he is something less than the 90% favorite to win is delusional. He is beyond anyone in this field.

Anyone have any idea whether Andy Bayer will run?

Looking over the pond wrote:

I don’t know why people are having this belief that Lukas will, well let’s just say sh*t on everyone in the NCAA. The kid is a freak of nature and will probably/eventually/undoubtedly win an NCAA title in the near future, but with guys like Derrick, Estrada, Korir, Batty, Fernandez (yes, he’s still good and has a load of talent left, get over it trolls), and many others, he won’t stand a chance against them. Just saying this because if he starts getting beat or starts running horribly, everyone knows that the whole Letsrun community will do what they do best: rip him apart.

LV is not your run-of-the-mill top freshman. The last time we saw someone with anything close to his HS XC credentials was Ritz. If I remember correctly Ritz did a pretty good job of keeping up his freshman year.

Kanye North wrote:

Anyone have any idea whether Andy Bayer will run?

No idea yet. If he does and they all run well they are a threat to take the win. At a minimum they would almost guarantee enough points for NCAAs.

Stinzi, in his press conference, commented that runners are going to have to work at figuring out where they really are because they might think that they are at about 40th but be twice that far back.

This is a good course for a large crowd: 1) the footing is usually and almost everywhere in good shape; 2) there a long draw from a wide starting point before the course narrows and it turns only a bit until almost 800meters and then hits a quick uphill and has quite a ways (just past 1 mile) before it has a full turn again; 3) there are a number of curves where it is possible to get a view of where you are in the pack, although spectators might be numerous enough if the mid-day timing does not cause too much of a problem for people.

Current forecast is for a chance of rain from tomorrow but most rain expected Wednesday afternoon. Not a lot in total in the current forecast. High in the mid- to upper-50s.

idk if the course is relatively flat.... but i have the understanding it is a very well manicured course.

Very unfortunate this race is on Friday. Alot of people are going to miss a very good race on a world class cross country course.