Official D3 Cross Country 2013 Thread

I think they should have taken two less teams from the south and distributed those spots elsewhere.

FWIW, there's no "North East" region

Schwocky wrote:

Wow, that was an incredible race. Olaf led by 40 or more at one point and started kinda falling apart. Saw several NCC, Olaf and Wash U guys swapping positions the last 100m.

That is simply not true.

Olaf did have a strong lead at the halfway mark with 79 points over Central (121), North Central (128), Middlebury (170), and Wash U (173). However, Olaf only gave up 7 points in the end, winning the championship. That cannot be described as falling apart. Wash U only improved by 6 points, while North Central did improve by 42. If anyone fell apart, it was Central, losing 112 points to drop from 2nd to 6th.

Only one St. Olaf runner lost significant ground, #5 man Calvin Lehn, who was reportedly seen sitting out conference wearing a boot. Reporting is so shitty for D3, can anyone say what happened to him? Did he run through an injury at Regions and Nationals in order to help the team? At 6k he was 33rd, and dropped to 65th. Jake Brown slipped only slightly from 6th to 8th and Wintheiser moved up from 4th to 3rd. Brian Saksa stormed from 26th to 17th and Jake Campbell moved up from 33rd to 31st. #6 guy Phillip Meyer moved up from 88th to 75th. North Central's #6 guy was Aron Sebhat in 160th.

So despite Lehn not being on top of his game, the team had a brilliant performance. In retrospect, their most perfect performance was probably Jim Drews, where they obliterated #2 ranked at the time UW-La Crosse by 55 points on their home turf, with a tight 35 second spread. Lehn was #3 guy that day, just 27 seconds behind Wintheiser (and Saksa just 6 seconds behind). Despite that, it was only good enough to rank them third, as no one was quite ready to believe (including myself) they would be able to defeat North Central.

Next year St. Olaf only loses one of their top 5 has only Saksa and #7 guy Dillon Davis graduate, while both North Central and Wash U lose 4 of their top 5, and WI-La Crosse loses 3.

Fantastic meet to watch. One of the most exciting D3 meets in history. St. Olaf ran a hell of a race. Even UW-L and WUSTL ran championship races - both of their point totals would have won last year. NCC should hold their heads high knowing they ran. All of the top-4 teams were dueling and I am glad I was able to see it.

First freshman 78th!

The race yesterday was one of the most exciting one's I've seen in a while, both the battle upfront and the epic team battle. I'd have to say the biggest tank job in the field was Ackmuaham, he completely blew up!

You know who doesn't care about the point game? Weston Butler doesn't give a fck. BTW, Weston would have definitely won because the course was just like his girls, wet and sloppy.

I actually thought the course was in pretty good shape considering what D1's looked like. Times were reasonable. The wind made it colder, but probably helped dry out the course.

Who won the beer mile?

For the women:

New England: 2,3,5,13,22; average 9

last team: Brandeis (5th)

West: 12,14; average 13

last team: C-M-S (1st)

Great Lakes: 7,8,9,30; average 13.5

last team: Ohio Wesleyan (4th)

Atlantic: 6,10,14,23,25,31; average 16.2

last team: TCNJ (3rd)

Mid East: 1,13,17,24,29; average 16.8

last team: Elizabethtown 29 (5th)

Mid West: 4,19,21,28; average 18

last team: Wisconsin-Stevens Pt (4th)

Central: 11,18,26,27; average 20.5

last team: Luther (4th)

South: 20,32; average 26

last team: Emory (2nd)

So, the only region to get six teams had half of its entries finish behind the last team from New England and the West. As usual, New England was the strongest region among the women, but got little love from the selectors.

Did you score the meet yourself at 4k? If so, do you mind doing it at the other splits? Does anyone have access to sorted results at each split mark?

This is late posting but what happened to Tia Harris of Wisconsin River Falls?

She ended up finishing 194th .. Looking at her splits she was up with the girls in the 50-60s range thru 2.9 miles (17:18) and then got passed by over 140 girls the next .6 miles ?! Poor girl! It wasn't hot enough to do the pass out type stagger or can that just happen?

What do you mean the Northeast looked "surprisingly bad"???? they choke nearly ever year... how is this a surprise now... they can time trial, but when it comes to racing for a place or really racing when it matters, its constant choking

I hardly read this thread, but good job for keeping it going the face of what we have to deal with in Letsrun, where anything slower than 13:30 for 5K is sub elite, slower than 15:00 is hobby jogger, lower than 1450 on SATs is set for remedial education, and only DI Ivies and and elites actually count.

Joe Mama wrote:

What do you mean the Northeast looked "surprisingly bad"???? they choke nearly ever year... how is this a surprise now... they can time trial, but when it comes to racing for a place or really racing when it matters, its constant choking

Yep. Case in point: Michael Leduc. Joe mama, do you only post about the new england region btw? genuinely curious.

Anyone have links to photos from nationals?

Here are some from a link on Hanover track twitter account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hanovercollege/sets/72157638057312296/

joe joe mama wrote:

Joe Mama wrote:

What do you mean the Northeast looked "surprisingly bad"???? they choke nearly ever year... how is this a surprise now... they can time trial, but when it comes to racing for a place or really racing when it matters, its constant choking

Yep. Case in point: Michael Leduc. Joe mama, do you only post about the new england region btw? genuinely curious.

Heyoooo

It's pretty rare to lose more than a few spots or gain more than a few spots from 6k on since the racing is pretty much done at this point. Based on how much ground he lost, I would say he was never able to get his legs back under him since the injury, but his effort was commendable to go for it and be amongst the all-americans for most of the race and ultimately hang in there the last 2k to get the job done for the team.

It also made for a more thrilling team finish, but St. Olaf looks to be next year's pre-season number 1 with 4 returning scorers including a solid sixth man.

"It is rare to lose more than a few spots or gain more than a few spots from 6k"?!

Look at UW-La Crosse for example; take a look at their 7k split times and scroll down and see how many people they passed.