So all is good with Penn State.
Kidder was just an innocent bystander in the 800 heat. A top quality NCAA guy just lets the race come to him. And then loses out. But it was only by .08! That matters!
The Penn State excuses get better year after year after year. And why wouldn't they? There's no shortage of material when it comes to the Penn State disasters.
I'm bitter about Penn State. I ran 4:12 and 1:53 in HS a few years ago and their coach wouldn't even email me back.
Still bitter wrote:
I'm bitter about Penn State. I ran 4:12 and 1:53 in HS a few years ago and their coach wouldn't even email me back.
I find that hard to believe if you sent that to Gondak. He is a very aggressive recruiter. Also assuming you didn't do that your senior season when they pretty much have their roster spaces used up.
Still bitter wrote:
I'm bitter about Penn State. I ran 4:12 and 1:53 in HS a few years ago and their coach wouldn't even email me back.
Typical Penn State douche-bag.
Btw I think it shoes that getting your athletes to a peak is quite difficult in the mid-distances. Very hard to master year in and year out.
Info/insight... thanks, that's a good run-down with a bit of perspective.
It Happens... very good point about the difficulty of getting mid-d athletes to peak at the right time.
But does anyone have anything on how they work through the two seasons? Training, strength vs. speed, where is most emphasis placed, etc.?
Thanks for anything anyone can provide.
I believe Penn State's middle distance guys do short long runs at a quick pace compared to lets say 2 hours at 6:20 avg pace.
I actually have been wanting to transfer to Penn State from the current school I'm at. Big school in a big conference down south. School is in the top quarter when it comes to track/XC conference championships. I don't want to give too much away but I only have two outdoor seasons, one indoor, and one cross. But I will say my PR's are sub 4:10 for the indoor mile and other equal times.
Info/insight wrote:
No one can deny that the Penn State guys did not have a great meet. If you have paid attention to Creese this year, after he ran on the DMR in Jan, he has been hurt and sick and only managed a 4:03 for the open mile this season when he had run 3:57 the year before and 3:58 as a frosh. It is probably why they entered their guys in the open 800 this weekend knowing the DMR was going to be a crapshoot. They were in the mix until Creese blew up with 500 to go.
Watkins made the final at Indoor NCAA's. Kidder missed it by .08 seconds I belive in a race where they ran 30+ seconds for the 2nd 200. In those type of races anyone can lose out - and the 2nd and 3rd seed in the whole meet Kidder and Rutto did. If Kidder makes the final - and again he missed by .08 - no one is saying any of this stuff. Oh, and Kidder doubled back and ran the fastest split of all DMR teams this weekend for the 800 leg.
Last year they were second in the DMR indoors and 2nd in the p800 indoors so that seems to be getting the job done in March. They were 2-3 in the 800 outdoors and 6th in the 1500. Kidder ran a PR of 1:46 at USA's - the last meet of the year. They advanced 5 guys in the 800 to the second round of the OUTDOOR NCAA meet last spring and 3 guys to the final round in Eugene. They also won the Penn Relays DMR and 4x8 last year and Loxsom went on to run his fastest 800's of the season in July overseas. That seems to to be getting the job done in April, May and June.
EXCUSES EXCUSES EXCUSES.
You are right - just a bunch of excuses.
Heck, since only 3 of the top 10 seeds at the NCAA Indoor Meet in the 800 made the final I guess all of those coaches who had an athlete ranked in the top 8 who didn't make the final suck.
Its called racing and when everyone has an entry time within basically a second of one another except for the top seed of Kemboi strange things happen. And wait - Kemboi had a 1.5 second lead on everyone in the field and he didn't win. His coach must suck to.
Its called CHOKING.
Stammering Stan wrote:
Its called CHOKING.
Ooooh, choking? Now that's kinky.