He served on a mission in the Philippines for two years, 2020-22.
Grundvig: The 6.3, giant, Computer Science major, 7:54/13:34/28:48, came back from the Philippines out of shape, as you can imagine, from working and living in a tropical country for two years and it's almost a miracle that he got back in great shape. By the way, he came back from that mission fluent in Tagalog, the national language of the Philippines.
The way I see it (with regard to age advantage ) is a false narrative because they gain two years in age, but at the same time, they "lose" two years by doing a mission overseas, where most of the BYU runners when they go overseas do very little or no running.
The way it works for people on a mission is that they have to do everything with their partner and if their partner is not a runner then that 30 minutes allocated to exercise in the morning goes out the window. Yes you read it right, that's all they have in a 24-hour period 30 minutes per day for exercise. After that it's 16 hours per day spreading the word. Honorable people Mormons - big respect.
Was HS teammates with a former BYU runner, he showed me his Garmin logs once got back off his mission and he had been consistently hitting 50-60 mile weeks at the end of it.
He served on a mission in the Philippines for two years, 2020-22.
Grundvig: The 6.3, giant, Computer Science major, 7:54/13:34/28:48, came back from the Philippines out of shape, as you can imagine, from working and living in a tropical country for two years and it's almost a miracle that he got back in great shape. By the way, he came back from that mission fluent in Tagalog, the national language of the Philippines.
The way I see it (with regard to age advantage ) is a false narrative because they gain two years in age, but at the same time, they "lose" two years by doing a mission overseas, where most of the BYU runners when they go overseas do very little or no running.
The way it works for people on a mission is that they have to do everything with their partner and if their partner is not a runner then that 30 minutes allocated to exercise in the morning goes out the window. Yes you read it right, that's all they have in a 24-hour period 30 minutes per day for exercise. After that it's 16 hours per day spreading the word. Honorable people Mormons - big respect.
Was HS teammates with a former BYU runner, he showed me his Garmin logs once got back off his mission and he had been consistently hitting 50-60 mile weeks at the end of it.
That's too vague and I've never met or heard about a Mormon who was able to train consistently or at all effectively during a mission overseas because as I said they only have that 30 minute window in the morning and they have to do it with their partner and it's unlikely that their partner will be a runner and even if the partner was a runner how much quality can you do in a 30-minute time period?
When they get back from missions the Mormon runners are usually 20 to 50 pounds overweight and it takes them six months to a year to get back on average. Conner Mantz did a mission in Ghana and it took him half a year to get back to any kind of shape. Runners who were 420 milers in high school could not break six minutes when they got back for a mile.
All the evidence even if it's anecdotal is out there just check for yourself.
In summation - going on a mission for two years overseas is always without a doubt a setback in your athletic career and you need patience to get back and many never got back to their former level. Tayvon Kitchen elected to not go on a mission and that's an unusual step but he made that decision and if there are any disadvantage to that he will have to take them on.