I'm from MN too, but I think it's crazy to pick against FM for the team title on the women's side!!!
Really cheering for at least one of the MN girls to crack the top 10 - which I think is possible but not a certainty. A top 3 finish would be sick!!!
Predictions?
How bout an inch of rain and low 40's
Saturday morning.
Hasty wins by a mudslide, Troutner in second proving desert rats CAN run in the mud, and a young speedster named Cole Sprout for third.
Portland sucks in November!
....meanwhile, it's supposed to be dry and around 70 for a high in San Diego
Why not just run on a track?
Based on the predicted rainy weather (90% chance) for the NXN races, and knowing that some long segments of the course are run THREE TIMES PER RACE, I predict that the teams with the greatest number of former swimmers on the roster will prevail.
Too bad a teenage Alan Webb isn't in this race, because he was a competitive high school swimmer. He would have, ugh, lapped the competion.
At least the swamp won't be frozen over, as it will be in the 40s on race day! And the UPPER 40s!
The boys and girls will lose a few shoes in the muck, especially when the boys make that right-angle turn for the third, fourth, and fifth times that one stretch has been trampled by the full field that day.
When the golfers get their course back, there will be new hazard rules to learn, like how to play your golf ball after it lands in one of those shoes that were sucked off of the feet of runners.
OK, let the mudslinging BEGIN, NXN lovers. Mudslinging...and there will be lots of mud to sling, and a few kids wearing slings after wiping out on that miserably beat up and, in places, treacherous, course.
Yep, it's cross country, pure and simple, and everyone has to face the same conditions, but Foot Locker at Balboa Park is cross country, pure and simple, and everyone has to face the same conditions there, too.
Can we get something straight here? This thread is not about picking favorites that are locks to win barring a meteor strike that hasn't been seen since the Jurassic Park animals went night-night. Meaning, you're not aloud to pick the FM girls or Tuohy. OK? If those are your picks you might as well throw in your prediction that you think you're going to wake up tomorrow morning.
Now listen. I mean really listen. Shut that voice up in your head. Because St. Francis of Mountain View is the team with the greatest likelihood of upset. I for one want to see it for no other reason than to see a repeat performance of Chase Equall's reaction to winning last year. Someone winning that thought they could, but also thought it was just a dream until it actually happened. It's the perfect setup. Well, almost perfect. It would have helped if they'd been to this race a few times. One could easily argue that St. Francis put on a better show than Great Oak when factoring in the temperature differential of 63F for GO v. 72F for STF.
That 9 degrees is worth something. Jack Daniels says it's worth 13 seconds over 5K. If that's true, STF beats GO by approximately 10 points in their state merge. They have a little bit of deer-in-the-headlights going on right now, but if you see the stigmata on their hands or wrists around mile 2 it's game over, gentleman. May they do Francesco proud.
I think I'm gonna double down while I'm talking like Lavar. St Francis takes it. Great Oak is on the podium, either 2nd or 3rd, and Roosevelt is fifth. I think Lalo may cry if this happens. I would.
As stated previously, one does not pick Goliath in such a thread. The trick is who can pick David from the crowd? Ironically, actually I don't even know what ironic means anymore because of that damned song by Alanis Morissette song. In case I'm right on the meaning I'll just go with it: Ironically, David is in Goliath's body and vice-versa. My pick is Haley Herberg. You know her, right? The Katie Rainsberger looking girl? Yeah, who'd of guessed someone that looks like Rainsberger could also run fast. Weird. Herberg ran 16:59.9 at Woodward Park last weekend. Of the 9 or 10 girls that have broken 17:00 at Woodard Park, something like half of them went on to be national champions. On top of that, the times at the state meet were measurably slower this year than past years.
Her time is what it is, 17:00 if you like to round up because you don't trust automatic timing can record precisely to the 1/100th of a second, but the point is her performance last weekend was about 15 seconds slower than what Brie Oakley ran here last year to win. Certainly not enough to beat the favorite, but that's my pick of who is waiting in the shadows for Tuohy to appear human.
Herberg may have some extra motivation after being slighted by NXN when they brought all the fastest individual runners up from each region to have a one-on-one question and answer session with Shalane Flanagan for the girls and Evan Jager for the boys. Except they didn't invite the fastest individual runners from California onto the stage. They made her and Justin Hazel stay in the crowd. Considering they selected the individuals strictly by time with nothing like temperature factoring in (what would Kristin Fahy and Gillian Wagner have run in the D1 race that was 59F instead of 73F for D3?) one would wonder what Nike was thinking leaving the top California representatives out. Would they have left Claudia Lane out too?
Boys individual pick: James Mwaura all the way, are you guys even serious? Dude didn't even have his mouth open when he was finishing up his regional win.
Y'all know kilrea didn't qualify right?
Watcher of stuff wrote:
Y'all know kilrea didn't qualify right?
Ignore this i'm stupid and was thinking of fendel
OhioBuff wrote:
12) Drew Bosley
Thank you for recognizing, Drew. He is quite good and i think this post season will be his coming out party on the national stage. I think he can nab as high as 6th. He was running a little tired at footlocker me and managed to pull it off. Now that the hay is in the barn I think he can turn up big there too.
DrewBoz wrote:
OhioBuff wrote:
12) Drew Bosley
Thank you for recognizing, Drew. He is quite good and i think this post season will be his coming out party on the national stage. I think he can nab as high as 6th. He was running a little tired at footlocker me and managed to pull it off. Now that the hay is in the barn I think he can turn up big there too.
In my deeper predictions I have him getting top 10 easily. I think his FL performance was far from ideal, seeing as he literally collapsed after the line. I don't think anyone should be worried, since Olin Hacker (also WI) got 10th at FL Midwest before 2nd at both national meets.
Alright, hot take time!
Wayzata sweeps the team battle. Hasty gets outkicked by Dustin Horter. I really like the Herberg pick, even after her huge CIF performance she still seems to be under the radar somehow
I know i'm biased, but don't count out Danny Kilrea or Dylan Jacobs. Kilrea was a late decision to run FL Midwest, and handily won. He was using it as a tune up race and wasn't pushed (I was there watching). Jacobs ran sub 14 at detweiller and after a few bad races from sickness everyone is forgetting about him?? He's qualified for both National meets and don't be surprised to see him in the front. He came alive last year a nationals. Not saying either will beat Hasty, but they both could be top 5 or top 3. Mwuara and Horter being chief competition.
Y'all are sleeping on the Wisconsin boys. I predict at least 2 wisco boys in the top 10-15.
And which 2 boys might do that?
wisco xc fan wrote:
Y'all are sleeping on the Wisconsin boys. I predict at least 2 wisco boys in the top 10-15.
sorceress wrote:
And which 2 boys might do that?
wisco xc fan wrote:
Y'all are sleeping on the Wisconsin boys. I predict at least 2 wisco boys in the top 10-15.
I wouldn't be surprised. Drew Bosley for sure and Matthew Meinke and Wesley Schieke are both legit. Especially considering Schieke made a move way too early at NXR and died, if he runs more evenly I could see it
wisco xc fan wrote:
Y'all are sleeping on the Wisconsin boys. I predict at least 2 wisco boys in the top 10-15.
Are we sleeping on the Wisconsin boys or is it that we are not as impressed, especially considering we're not from there?
2 in the top 10-15 ain't much to write home about...
Boys Teams:
1. Great Oak
2. Loudoun Valley
3. Wayzata
Girls Teams:
1. Fayetteville-Manlius
2. Naperville North
3. Great Oak
mntrackgeek wrote:
Alright, hot take time!
Wayzata sweeps the team battle. Hasty gets outkicked by Dustin Horter. I really like the Herberg pick, even after her huge CIF performance she still seems to be under the radar somehow
Hasty may not win, but he’s not getting outkicked. It would have to be some other way.
We've turned this into the official live discussion thread.
If you haven't read our race previews, here they are:
and our editorial on how to fix NXN/Foot Locker:
http://www.letsrun.com/news/2017/11/nxnfoot-locker-broken-heres-fix/
Williamson County wrote:
mntrackgeek wrote:
Alright, hot take time!
Wayzata sweeps the team battle. Hasty gets outkicked by Dustin Horter. I really like the Herberg pick, even after her huge CIF performance she still seems to be under the radar somehow
Hasty may not win, but he’s not getting outkicked. It would have to be some other way.
if someone runs his kick out and then outruns him over the last 200 because he's to tired to respond he will have been outkicked, and that's imo the most likely scenario of him losing unless someone just gets away early and holds on.
Samuel DeChamplain wrote:
Williamson County wrote:
Hasty may not win, but he’s not getting outkicked. It would have to be some other way.
if someone runs his kick out and then outruns him over the last 200 because he's to tired to respond he will have been outkicked, and that's imo the most likely scenario of him losing unless someone just gets away early and holds on.
Yes exactly, and I don't see anyone breaking off early, it's fairly close.