D1 Women’s XC Championship Simulation Countdown

Do the odds still favour FL if Olemomoi fails to regain the form she showed a year ago? Rolling into Madison last Nov, I think most would've expected her to finish no lower than 6th, Now, given the influx of new talent and improved fitness of returning upperclassmen, I'd place her ceiling at 5 (if she regains form) and floor at 25 (if she doesn't reverse course). Realistically, if Hilda finishes 12th--18th at Nats, do you still like FL's title chances?

I think the point OP is making is that there might be changing of the guard if foreign recruits can end up on one team and not be spread out. As soon as this happens, and it will be very soon, then the domestic talent pipeline will struggle. I would disagree that all the best domestic talent goes to NC State or BYU. Of the top 10 or so recruits one went to Stanford, one to Notre Dame, one to Florida, one to Florida State, one to BYU and one to NC State. This is pretty even distribution of elite recruits. Even if all of the elite talent goes to one school, it is going to be difficult to offset the inevitable consolidation of foreign talent on one or two teams. This day will come soon.

NC State has:

Rauber, Michalak, Engelhardt and Shea, all former top 3 US recruits, plus Napoleon was US hs steeple record holder.

Off top of my head since I don't know BYU as well, they have Hedengren and Hutchins, both former US #1's.

Sure other teams are getting a few good people, but there is a lot of concentration of the best US kids at NC St, Stanford (Dudek, Riggs, Kennedy all #1 and #2) and now recently BYU. Stanford has just not managed lately to get a healthy team to the start line.

For class of 2026, here are the top 10 Girls recruiting classes as of now by average 3200 m time, with #recruits in parenthesis.

NAU (1) 09:52.64
Stanford (2) 09:57.57
Florida (1) 10:12.89
Tennessee (1) 10:13.34
Wake Forest (2) 10:18.37
Colorado (4) 10:19.08
BYU (4) 10:19.38
Arkansas (3) 10:20.59
NC State (3) 10:21.63
Dartmouth (1) 10:22.08

Arkansas is getting Gabbie Bishop, Braelyn Combe, Marissa Ferebee, Ryin Miller all with very good 1500/mile times.

The Google document has the same listing by 800/1500/1600/3200 times for both Boys and Girls

I don't think applying some analysis is particularly controversial. ND's Lacctic ratings are up from last year and they won the ACC last year. Stanford's top runners are missing in action and haven't appeared yet. The Stanford team that ran in Gans Creek would have finished very low in the Gold race. There is no clear indication of who the top 7 for N.C. State will be and the gap between them and ND is not as significant as is currently stated here. Florida if they can sort out #5 will be very hard to beat. If one of these coaches who recruits foreign nationals gets one more recruit to transfer to one of their programs then they will be very hard to beat. Foreign recruiting has gotten to the point where soon a team with have all the pieces and we will have two tiers of teams: elite domestic ones and elite foreign ones. Just some thoughts beyond "I have run the simulation and N.C. State will win and BYU is also very good."

The 2025 class was much stronger

Try it again. I added a few former runners to the team to make the race more interesting.

Difference between shadows & covered?

I asked in another thread if anyone knew what was up with Shea. She hasn't raced since mid April. Anyone?

With the current coaches that they have I believe that Florida, New Mexico, and Oregon will not shy away from continuing to have a lot of foreigners on their teams, particularly African runners. Sean Cleary of WVU is Canadian and has always had some Canadians on his roster but I see him branching out more to get African runners. Clemson will expand their roster of African runners in the future.

Henes at NC State is not shy about taking a foreign runner but I don't recall an African based runner ever being on the NC State roster. I sometimes wonder if that will change if we continue to see a large influx of African runners in the NCAA at other programs.

For me:

shadows = up to 5 spots behind

covers = within 5 spots of (either ahead or behind)

Only in terms of the top 3 girls who graduated in 2025 who broke every record out there. 2026 may not have a dominant girl like 2025's Jane, Sadie and Rylee, but I think the Class of 2026 has more depth.

You are probably right on your thoughts. None of these International teams is happy with 3-4 runners. They want 5, and then 7,8 and 10 for depth and injuries. They have a low number, because their recruiting effort for full teams came up short.

The thread is about a lacctic simulation, however, which is why most of the posts were referring to this.

You should just take a shot at predicting team and top individuals for Nutty,ACC and nats. Not that easy and it's fun.

Based on my very rough merge of lacctic and the latest stride and flotrack rankings,

NC State 131

Oregon 132

BYU 163

Florida 181

New Mexico 233

My guess however is that both Florida’s and BYU’s 5’s will wind up scoring a lot better than these current rankings show and the top 4 is more of an even toss up than these numbers suggest.

Interesting that you think Hartman will be further behind Hedengren than Gapes & Napoleon will be compared to Hutchins & Chamberlain. Personally I think that Michalak will be NC State’s #3 and not Napoleon. If Templier runs she also could be higher in the depth chart than Napoleon.

This is pretty good. You expect Oregon to really show up.

What often happens at nats is weird stuff. Like Olemomoi regaining form and finishing 7th, but one of their other runners has an off day finishing 192nd.

Often the winning team has a projected #7 or #8 runner really step up to cover a poor performance in the usual top 5. Depth definitely helps.

To clarify, I meant to convey that I think Hartman, Gapes and Napoleon could all finish x spots behind the BYU runners indicated. For now, I don't foresee Hartman outpacing Hedengren, whereas I can imagine Gapes/Napoleon also finishing x spots ahead of BYU#2/BYU#3.

I haven't looked at Michalak & Templier too closely. I think Napoleon can perform as well on the grass as LHL did last year, but I'll save detailed discussion of her racing until Nuttycombe (or whenever she debuts this season).

Hedengren v Hartman.

Their pr at 5000 are 14:57 and 14.58.

Hedengren a college freshman, who has not raced yet. Hartman an experienced senior.

A bettor might choose Hartman. Assuming both run well, should be close anyway.