MIAC 2025 XC

Mac tops Oles and Ihrke looks strong!

Ihrke looked great and Wiltse showed he’s ready to take the next step. Their freshman really add some nice depth. Definitely a team to watch this year despite losing some all-time greats last year. The future shines bright on Mac.

For Bethel, Hootir looked strong, but Lelinga didn’t race. This young squad will only get better this season, but aren’t ready to too Mac.

The Oles were absolutely hammering the last part of the race. They seemed to be counting how many people they passed in the last mile. Kinda obnoxious, but what we’ve grown to expect from their coach. Their Stravas seem to indicate they were told to really focus on running on packs and closing hard. Some tempoed, others seemed to have been closer to race pace. They were doing another workout during the women’s race. They seem poised to put at least three guys ahead of Ihrke if racing normally and maybe more.

Calvin looks like he missed Lars.

Mac women look like the team to challenge for third. I’ll assume the Ole women were also working out to some degree, but Mac has clearly moved into the next tier.

Big John gets his first MIAC XC Athlete of the Week award for his monumental victory over the late-charging Turlington! Can't wait to see how his new fitness and uberconfidence translates to the 8000m distance.

The first real meets of the season are this weekend.

Carleton is on a training trip in South Dakota and will race a 6K versus local DII's.

St. John's is running a dual meet versus Stout on their home course.

Concordia is making the big trip to MSU-Moorehead along with Hamline

And the Gusties and Saint Mary's are also running four miles in South Dakota, only they'll be on the fastest course in the Midwest at Augustana.

Macalester will rest after their momentous victory over St. Olaf last week. And the Oles will be playing with their alumni.

Every MIAC team except the Ole men appears to be running the MIAC Preview at Hamline next week. Rumors abound that Coach Chunko is trying to prove his team doesn't need to see a course to run well because the St. John's coach hurt his feelings suggesting they enjoy a huge home course advantage racing at home. We will see how that works out for them.

Sad to see that Coach Chunko is using his social media buddies on D3 Glory Days to promote Oles. No matter that the athlete featured was Phil's athlete and he has no claim to his success. The man will do anything to stay relevant on the gram.

Heard two interesting things in regards to Chunko.
He has a new conduct clause in his contract that if he or his team do anything the new AD doesn’t find to represent St. Olaf well is grounds for immediate dismissal. That is very broad and not good for someone with his past issues. So no more fighting spectators or shouting matches with other coaches or any of the numerous borderline inappropriate Ole traditions.
Two, due to poor spending habits on extravagant meals, branded hats, a ridiculous amount of signage, trips to Boston with two athletes, the strength coach now must approve all purchases above $25.
I don’t work at the college level, but to me, it sounds like they are trying to find reasons to can Chunko. If they don’t live up to their inflated ranking, that might be reason enough. But these other clauses in his contract definitely give the new AD a lot of leeway to fire with cause.

Loling at Gusties trying to match Mo for mileage, almost hitting triple digits and still being 30+ miles behind. Really hoping the Matthai's will race him at Olaf. The man is fit and he can put the MIAC name back on top of the WIAC

Some exciting MIAC performances tonight!

At Concordia, we learned the real future of the MIAC may be the brother of the Future. Tyler Goss ran a blazing 17:25 6K. That equates to 14:30ish for 5K. He has clearly made big jumps. He and Brauer are now squarely in the MIAc runneruo conversation along with Turlington, Nicholas, and Ihrke.

Hamline also competed without Libraaten.

Brauer is back with a vengeance, running 19:38 for four miles. The :48 gap to Pouiliot has to tighten and they need a fifth, but this is a promising start for the Gusties.

The Johnnies edged Stout with Stencel winning by nearly 20 seconds. St. Peter was notably absent.

Carleton appeared to find a meet without live results.

And the Future appears to be redshirting the Fall, but almost was within a few seconds of his PR.

That’s an incredible time for Goss. Was it really a 6K?

For the second straight year Gabe ASD the second runner for the Carls at their home opener. Travis Brown followed his strong Spring with the top stick tonight. Indy is also back after a big summer of training. If Roy is healthy and near Gabe the Carls have a 30 second spread. Don’t count them out, they will be dangerous this year.

Ole get trounced by their alumni. They put four in front of their two and six in front of their 3rd runner. The trend of Oles getting monumentally faster after leaving Northfield continues. It only Coffey and Munoz a few months away from Chunko’s training to get fast enough to be top five runners for the Oles. Will Kelly, who must be 27 now restored glory to the Oles by breaking a high schooler’s facility record. Look for that on social media since Chunko had nothing else to post after this abysmal performance.

Oles have nice depth, but they aren’t a top 20 team. After last night Carleton must think they have a great shot at being the Oles with a healthy Roy.

I don't think the results of this race say anything about the Oles or their training, just that their runners can continue to kick butt post-collegately as they should

Ok Power. Get off Letsrun and run. Just like you tell your team.

Will be nice to revisit this in November.

In looking at some Strava posts, it looks like the race was more like 5.6K than 6K.

Gusties looked great last night, but I suspect that race was also short. All this tells us that the Oles won't run away with conference. And that Stride Report and their women's coach is ranking them based off having Skemp and Hartney back.

The lead cart took a wrong turn. It happens. Hamline did it a few years ago at the MIAC preview. Brodie, will you make sure that doesn’t happen again?

This prediction is looking more accurate by the day. La Crosse will tempo and beat them at their home meet. St. Thomas, Hope, Stevens Point, Whitewater, U of M JV will likely beat them and the La Crosse JV will have a shot to beat them at BluGold.

Who is Chunko? A coach at st olaf?

Yes, the Ole coach is a rather portly fellow who doesn’t look like has ever run a step. Hence his nickname from his athletes and other MIAC coaches/athletes which he has good naturedly adopted.

I will never understand how a meet host can let that happen. All entry money should be refunded.