<<<DII XC predictions>>>

I think everybody in the rmac got a taste of nationals weather today or yesterday, snow and highs in the mid 30s. REAL XC WEATHER IS FINALLY HERE!!

How do you know how Western trains?

I know someone that is on the team and know for a fact that nothing has changed. It is all basically the same.

Overall, Western will either prove the National Polls wrong this weekend or they won't. Adams Mines and Western are all in the same race. always fun to have 3 top 6 teams in the same race.

So having kenyans is good? And having runners who can deal with the cold is good? So Anchorage must be a shoe in!

hello guys, lets get focussed for the x-country. Lets not worry about who will be in the top, whoever trained and put high mileage will be the one to own it.Alaska anchorage looks pretty good and wait to see when they prove it. Dont mind about the kenyans, they are athletes like you only that they treasure and take their training very seriously.Good luck

I think you are Kenyan and I think you are right everyone is the same it just depends who put in the miles. Good luck everyone.

It is clear that everyone is not the same. All people have different levels of talent African, European, or American.

It just so happens that Africans are only brought over here to run if they are already good (since foreign athletes are so expensive). This makes it appear as though all of them are good but this is simply not true.

Sure some Africans may have some type of genetic advantages but so does the guy that runs 14:30 off of 50 miles a week compared to the guy that runs 90 all the time and only runs 14:45.

The point is all people are not the same, all people are different but in a lot of cases its not race/ethnicity that makes the difference but rather just the individual differences in talent from person to person.

then why did all the kiwis leave?

Come on, you can't tell me that the Kenyan athletes haven't shown that they (by and large) possess more talent than those from other continents. How many Kenyans break 2:15 for the marathon each year as compared to the US runners (a country with a LOT more people)? There's no comparison, and some coaches have fallen for buying pre-developed Kenyans and bringing them over to the US to create Top-5 NCAA teams. Good on them! Do they work hard? Definitely! But as many have pointed out previously most of the DII level recruits from the US have a hard time "catching up" with someone from Kenya who's run 14:30 at altitude before even stepping foot on a US campus.

I personally think they should limit the # of foreign athletes per team (2?) in the NCAA. This way teams can't base their success off their overseas recruiting.

Not all the Kenyans who come to the US are pre-developed ringers who've run 14:30 at altitude - some coaches do a good making their Kenyans faster and should get credit for that as well.

My wife came to the US never having broken 20:00 for 5k, and 5 years later (1 medical redshirt) ran 16:19 and won 3 national championships - that's coaching, not recruiting. She went from breaking 20 as a freshman to breaking 18 as a sophomore to breaking 17 as a junior to running low 34's for 10k as a senior.

Same coach took my wife's sister, who had never run a single race before coming to the US and took her from running 21 minutes to 17 minutes and 4th in the steeple. Sure, they're Kenyans, and there's some natural talent there, but there's also a LOT of coaching going on too, and that shouldn't be dismissed.

Sure, there are incompetent coaches who manage to turn 14:30 Kenyans into 16:30 Kenyans (or who are stupid enough to recruit guys based on what they read in a few e-mails), but not all are like that, and they shouldn't be lumped together.

thank god

I understand and respect what you're written. I never said that these coaches are incompetent. I said that they are creating winning teams with foreign athletes that in many/most cases have already run Very fast.

I'm not sure that you're going to convince me that Kenyan athletes aren't more predisposed to success within the sport of distance running than people from other continents. the example of your wife is a good one for my argument. How many Americans with such little lifetime miles can run such competitive times over the 5k distance? How many American athletes has her coach developed as much in 4 years?

Does this mean that all Kenyans are amazing runners? Definitely not. there are a number of Kenyans in the NCAA system that are mediocre runners.

All I'm saying is that i'd like the tables to be balanced a bit more by limiting the # of foreign athletes a team can field each year.

I think that Mines is way over ranked and this weekend will prove once again that they are not top 5 material. They will get slaughtered

by adams yes, adams could slaughter anyone in d2, doesnt mean mines isnt top 5 material, adams is just that much better than the rest of d2

I stand by my post and say Mines is NOT top 5 material. I know they talk so much crap on here saying mines is a for sure shoe in for top 5. THose statements are what I would call "I wont believe it until I see it" statements. And even then I may still doubt it

mines hasnt talked any crap on here, although you certainly have and you make wsc look like total d-bags

123suckit wrote:

mines hasnt talked any crap on here, although you certainly have and you make wsc look like total d-bags

If mines isnt the ones talking, what other person in their right mind would say they are going to take top 5. And why would I be making WSC look bad. I dont run for them and would not run for them if I had the opportunity. NOT because I think their a good team. But for the fact that its to damn cold their. I prefer to run in 40- 60 degrees not 5-10 degrees. Power to WSC for being able to do that.

I really doubt Mines is talking smack on the board. Maybe people believe they will run well at Nationals because they have a strong team this year and they have been consistant at Nationals. Research it. Mines has made it to Nationals the last three years and all three teams placed top 7. They may not be the 5th best team in the Nation, but its about running well on Nationals Day.

Does anyone even think ACU or anyone else for that matter has a chance of beating Adams. It seems like everyone is jumping on the Adams band wagon.