Top 10 D3 Marathon times

Sebastian Junger - Wesleyan - 2:21

Sesamoiditis wrote:

NCAA Division 3 was created in 1973. Bill Rodgers graduated from Wesleyan in 1970 and Amby Burfoot in 1968. I don't think they should count for this list.

Further, Burfoot competed in the University Division of the NCAA Cross Country Championships finishing 5th in 1966 and 6th in 1967.

Brandon Mull (Wheaton) – 2:17:17

Fred Joslyn (Suny Cortland) - 2:18:49

Wasn't UMass Lowell D3 when bobby hodge was there? 2:11 and change I believe

Danny Grimes & Mark Conover Humboldt state was d3 then 2;13ish

Jim Howard St Lawrence 2:15ish

did Danny Henderson or Dale Kramer ever run a marathon/

A few more additions:

Chad Johnson (UWSP) - 2:15:03

Dan Sutton (UW Lax) - 2:17:55

Ryan Meissen (UW Whitewater) - 2:18:04

Jason Mayeroff (Center College) - 2:18:27

Jason Ryf (UWSP) - 2:19:37

Probably going to be hard to find results on guys from the 80s but I imagine there were some D3 guys running fast marathons back then and I would love to see more times from that era. FWIW, I agree that someone who ran at a current D3 school before D3 existed probably should not count for a list of D3 marathoners.

Matt Hooley who ran at Carleton College ran 2:18:48 at the Eugene Marathon in ‘09

Josh Moen (Wartburg) is surprisingly not near the top of the D3 list. Looks like he only managed a 2:23, despite running in 28:xx for the 10,000 pretty consistently for a few years after college. Also 62 in the half marathon, but I guess he could just never put together a strong marathon.

Todd Reeser- University of Rochester. 2:15:11 in Chicago, 2003. Received quite a bit of coverage on LR back in the early days I'm told. Was somewhat of a blue collar running hero.

sizzletime wrote:

Todd Reeser- University of Rochester. 2:15:11 in Chicago, 2003. Received quite a bit of coverage on LR back in the early days I'm told. Was somewhat of a blue collar running hero.

I am loving the D3 throwback thread - brings me back to my early 90s D3 days.

Reeser was running at Rochester at the same time Collins was at RIT and I was t Albany - he came in at the tail end of our tenures. Reeser was a very good runner, although I am not sure any Rochester guys really fall into the blue collar category. Those early 90s Rochester teams were deep with lots of talent.

At one point, D3 Cross Country regionals for that northeast division had Reeser, Collins, Todd Orvis (a 4:10 high school miler who ended up at Albany after leaving UF), as well as a sub 14:20 guy and a sub 9:00 steepler. The only region that was deeper was the Midwest, with the Wisconsin schools and North Central.

Matt Rand (Tufts University) 2:21:00

Joan Benoit 2:21

Dan Moynihan Tufts

Boston 1974

2:19:13 12th place

(he finished 1 place in front of Ghost of Igloi)

Dan Held (UWEC) ran 2:13:50 at Boston in 1994

He was NAIA until I believe his last year or two of college. Pretty monster post-collegiate career.

I remember the first time I saw Ryf at a race. It was the 2001 Quad Cities Marathon, and I remember thinking, “Who’s this badass with the dreads and the tattoos hanging with the Kenyans?” (This was before everyone and their mother had tattoos.) Always seemed like a cool dude...

Jim Miller (Lawrence) 2:18:18

Ran against Miller and Axinn in college. They both qualified for OTs as undergrads. Miller was 21 and I think Axinn was just 20 when they ran.

Ran for CNY in the 10000 m with Collins at the Empire State Games. He was 18 or 19 and I was 33 at the time, probably the youngest and oldest in the field.

D3 old timer wrote:

did Danny Henderson or Dale Kramer ever run a marathon/

During Christmas break in 1978 (Danny's sophomore year), Danny went home and ran and won the Atlanta Marathon in 2:25:38 (9 minutes ahead of second place) in 30 degree weather and driving rain. That did it for marathons for Danny.

Another d3 National XC champ (the year after Danny won) Jeff Milliman of North Central decided to run the Lake County Heart Fund Marathon in Illinois (April 1981) as a training run with teammate Dan Skarda. Skarda stopped running at the 13 mile mark where Milliman took the lead. Milliman crossed the line first in 2:22:59, but since he never entered the race, he was not declared the winner. The race officials spent the last half of the marathon actually pondering whether to recognize Jeff as the winner. At one point they weren't going to let him enter the finish area, at another point they were going to declare him the winner, finally they let him enter the finish area, but he was disqualified. The official winner finished 30 seconds later. One reason given for disqualifying him a (besides the obvious that he was not registered) was that there were about 200 unregistered runners in the race and just over 1000 official entrants. The organizers felt if they let him finish officially, then they would have to do the same for the others. Those were different times, I guess. I don't know if Jeff ever officially ran another marathon (actually reading over an article on the race, it says that it was the first marathon Jeff had run in two years. He also decided to run the race with Skarda over a dish of ice cream the night before the race as a training run.

D3 old timer wrote:

Wasn't UMass Lowell D3 when bobby hodge was there? 2:11 and change I believe

Danny Grimes & Mark Conover Humboldt state was d3 then 2;13ish

Jim Howard St Lawrence 2:15ish

did Danny Henderson or Dale Kramer ever run a marathon/

Humboldt switched to DII from DIII while Grimes and Conover were there. But they both ran at DIII nationals in 1979. Grimes 2:13:37 and Conover 2:12:26. Chuck Smead also ran at Humbolt in the early 70s, about the time they split the divisions. So he might have run when DII and DIII were combined into "small college" division. He ran 2:13:47.

Henderson's best is listed as 2:25, but ran 13:20s 5K.

Kramer didn't run marathons and pretty much retired after an outstanding college career.

Mike Palmquist (St Olaf) 2:18:42

Steve Reynolds (Carleton) 2:20

Does anyone remember if Jeff Milliman (North Central) ran marathons?

Nice list. Brian Sell started out at a D3 and then transferred to D1. Does that count?