Only ivy leaguers could be this'smart' - aka dumb - guy wins 3k at ivy champs by seven seconds from slow heat in 817

Ivy Fan wrote:

Plus, just to add, I think it's the only meet with an actual Olympian competing.

Also, to Ray ... I would give the coaches the benefit of the doubt. Has every athlete you've coached listened to you 100% of the time? lol

Well you got me there!

But, an entire heat of runners apparently didn't listen to their respective coaches!

The mile this year was pretty quick if you ask me. 4 guys under meet record

What I don't get is how anybody who is a good college runner can go out in 4:50 in a Heps 3k?

I know they are trying to conserve energy and that modern indoor meets have a Mile, 3k, 5k, relays and a bunch of 500/600/800/1000m-type options.

But still, the toughest triple is 3k/5k/relay and I believe a lot of guys do that, but that is still too slow. I guess if the slow heat didn't have the chance to score, no opening 1600 would be too slow. But the slow heat does score.

The last time I went out in 4:50 for 3k was as a sophomore in HS. Went out in 4:54 and ran 9:54 for 3200.

Fast, Faster, Fastest wrote:

Instead of having a "fast" and a "slow" heat, why not have two heats based on seed times. That is, 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15

etc. in one heat and 2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16 in another heat. It's what the NCAA does (or something similar) at the outdoor pre-nats in the 5k.

That system works if you're just looking for honest times, like at Pre-Nats. But if they did that, there wouldn't be the chance for the best runners to race each other. It might "correct" this Ivy 3K issue, but what happened is uncommon and not important enough to justify changing the heats.

Ask the big 10 guys who go out in 2:30 for the first 800 of a mile or 1500

rojo wrote:

PS. This answers all the questions you all have about ivy leaguers having so many typos on the front page. Apparently we aren't good with numbers or letters.

Actually, those of us who actually earned our way into the Ivy League are pretty good with numbers and letters. Don't make excuses for your terrible writing.

[quote]Ivy Fan wrote:

Plus, just to add, I think it's the only meet with an actual Olympian competing.

/quote]

The MPSF had Steve Solomon win the 400 (8th in London).

erik wrote:

And as others have noted, the fast heats always come later, and so you know exactly how fast you need to run to win. You don't do it in the fast heat, you blundered, period.

Well, you are wrong. It isn't a blunder if Bill Burke, who is 20 seconds faster than anyone in the "fast" heat, runs the "slow" heat and nobody in the "fast" heat can beat his time. You can know what time it takes all you want, but you still ain't gonna get the job done if you ain't got the wheels.

Harvard via Penn wrote:

rojo wrote:

PS. This answers all the questions you all have about ivy leaguers having so many typos on the front page. Apparently we aren't good with numbers or letters.

Actually, those of us who actually earned our way into the Ivy League are pretty good with numbers and letters. Don't make excuses for your terrible writing.

Trustafari brojos ain't need no stinkin grammar nor rithmatic. Ain't not need no stinkin job niether cause usns pappy gots him nar thirty years o that there guvment gravy train, thank you very much you idjits dum nuf to pay yo taxes. Regards to dubya, wealls luv ya.

Riler Masters should be kicking himself right now for not getting in a slow heat. It was his best chance to be win a US Championship!

Yes, Bill Burke did the same - that was indoor HEPS in 1991 - his 14:11 solo is still the Barton Hall (Cornell) record - the 'slow' heat was 1st - the seeded heat did go 14:2?, they may known they couldn't run that fast and knew they were running for 2nd.

Hey Guise!

This happens all the time in heats. How many times have we all seen this scenario is qualifying...

Say you have 3 heats of 1500 qualifying, with the first three places from each heat advancing, along with the next three fastest times.

Three Q spots often makes the athletes focus on place rather than time, so the first two heats are often slow.

So you get to heat three and the athletes know that if they just wind it up a bit, they could advance six from the heat.

But what happens? More often than not, the final heat is slower, and only three go through.

Why? Racing is hard.

Of course, if we were all like Pre, we wouldn't have this problem.

But then again, if we were all like Pre, we'd all be dead at age 24.

Ray wrote:

Ivy Fan wrote:

Plus, just to add, I think it's the only meet with an actual Olympian competing.

Also, to Ray ... I would give the coaches the benefit of the doubt. Has every athlete you've coached listened to you 100% of the time? lol

Well you got me there!

But, an entire heat of runners apparently didn't listen to their respective coaches!

I'm with Ray on this one. Poor coaching all around. And nice summary by Erik - I've worked numerous conference meets where the philosophy is to provide for as much student athlete participation as possible within reason.

The one time I've seen something like this happen was a slightly different scenario. This conference contested the 1000m at the conference meet, but the meet rules allowed you to enter athletes with NT so teams didn't have to find a meet that ran the 1000 during the regular season just to get a qualifying mark for conference. They also didn't run a prelim for this event...

So of course one crafty coach purposely didn't have any of his fast middle distance guys run the 1000 at meets they were at during the season so they would be entered with NT and therefore they were put into the slow heat.

There were 3 of them and they worked together to run fast and they had the benefit of no traffic in their heat because the other competitors were so much slower...and yep, you guessed it - they ended up placing 1-2-3 after the fast heat failed to get after it because they were wrapped up in competing against each other and not focused on the time as much.

And of course that conference meet guideline was changed at the following summer coaches meeting...

Ok. I've got a post-race interview with Tait (When I interviewd him I thought his name was Tai).http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKaUSufnkBo&feature=c4-overview&list=UU4B2YgFex2nERrQDuuCR0ZwSorry for the delay but my flight out of Boston was cancelled, I decided to drive to try to beat the storm as I figured I'd never get out on Monday and got back to the house at 4 am.A few things to add.1) The Columbia guys in the fast heat had no incentive to push the pace. Why would they? There teammate was going to win. I heard they knew what was going on.2) In reality, there were four studs in the fast heat who might have pushed the paceAwad of Penn - the winner of the section. Only a sophomore. I can see why if I'm his coach, i might just tell him - go race the guys don't worry about time.Bendsen of Princeton - ran horribly.Geoghegan of Dartmouth - 751.Blday of Dartmouth It really was therefore up to the Dartmouth boys.But it's a classic prisoner's dilemma scenario. NO one wants to push it. The 805-810 guys are likely afraid to push as they are hoping to score but in reality, they also maybe should do it as otherwise 5th or sixth isn't scoring at all.

91 HEPS wrote:

Yes, Bill Burke did the same - that was indoor HEPS in 1991 - his 14:11 solo is still the Barton Hall (Cornell) record - the 'slow' heat was 1st - the seeded heat did go 14:2?, they may known they couldn't run that fast and knew they were running for 2nd.

People comparing it to 1991 Bill Burke don't know what they are talking about. Burke was way better than everyone else. He ran faster than anyone else was capable for running. HEre everyone in heat 2 was capable of running faster than 817.

It would be like Bill Burke ran 1411 but everyone in the fast heat had already run under 14:05 that year.

Slow heat is won by Columbia's Tait Rutherford in a PB of 817. What do the guys in the stacked fast heat - which included two sub 8 guys an 801 guy and 804 guy - do?

They go out in 450 for first 1600. Game over. Around 1k in I was like, 'wait a minute they probably can't close any faster than just under 410 on this track' and when I saw 405 for 1400 I knew it was over.

http://lancertiming.com/results/winter14/IVYHEPS/140301F022.htm

I've got a post race interview with Rutherford here.

:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKaUSufnkBo&feature=c4-overview&list=UU4B2YgFex2nERrQDuuCR0Zw

Photos as well.

Rojo.

PS. This answers all the questions you all have about ivy leaguers having so many typos on the front page. Apparently we aren't good with numbers or letters.

rojo wrote:

But it's a classic prisoner's dilemma scenario. NO one wants to push it. The 805-810 guys are likely afraid to push as they are hoping to score but in reality, they also maybe should do it as otherwise 5th or sixth isn't scoring at all.

This is why it potentially was a coaching fail. Of course we don't know if the coaches gave the direction and the athletes wouldn't or couldn't do it....so I'll leave a bit of room for potential athlete fault.

I understand not wanting to be the guy that pushes it right away, but at some point early on when the pace was so slow someone needed to go for it because not going for it guaranteed failure. Did the coaches talk through this scenario with the guys?

You're absolutely right. The only guy in the entire field who had already raced that day should have pushed the pace.

sloppy sloop wrote:

You're absolutely right. The only guy in the entire field who had already raced that day should have pushed the pace.

I can only assume that you are replying to my post from the first page, but since you don't seem to have the requisite skills to know how to respond to a message board I can't be certain.

BUT, if that's the case, I'll go Looney Toons on you and refer to you as a maroon or an idjit, whichever you prefer.

Yes he "raced" earlier, but with a sub-4 to his credit that's a relative term. And knowing that the first heat was won in 8:17, it baffles me that the pace was slower than threshold pace for every single one of the guys in the heat. Push the pace? Are you out of your mind?!?! 4:30 would have been manageable for these guys, and it would have at least put them in a position to win .... you may well have just produced the noob post of the day.

rojo wrote:

Ok. I've got a post-race interview with Tait (When I interviewd him I thought his name was Tai).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKaUSufnkBo&feature=c4-overview&list=UU4B2YgFex2nERrQDuuCR0Zw

Sorry for the delay but my flight out of Boston was cancelled, I decided to drive to try to beat the storm as I figured I'd never get out on Monday and got back to the house at 4 am.

A few things to add.

People comparing it to 1991 Bill Burke don't know what they are talking about. Burke was way better than everyone else. He ran faster than anyone else was capable for running. HEre everyone in heat 2 was capable of running faster than 817.

It would be like Bill Burke ran 1411 but everyone in the fast heat had already run under 14:05 that year.

Wrong again, buzzard breath rojo. There were 14:05 guys in the seeded heat at 91 Heps. Jim Gibson for one. Burke was better, probably, but not way better. In a straight up race, he probably would have won anyway. The question here is, was Burke's heat run first or second?

Also, it doesn't take any more time to type "their" than it does to type "there". It just takes more brains.