US HS studs doing notning in ncaa cross

Like the other poster, I would like to see some examples.

I responded to your point. It’s not possible to squeeze out all upside as a Junior. So long as physical maturation continues. their upside will continue to increase and for sure, they’ll want to run as fast as possible their senior year. Your take is contrary to human nature.

1) While redshirting freshmen may be less common now, I still feel like it's fairly widespread. I know quite a few who were either asked to redshirt, chose to do so, or were straight up told that they were being redshirted. Correlation does not mean causation, but I don't know if many would disagree with the overall claim that plenty of schools redshirt freshman during XC.

2) The training for HS and college is not similar—or rather, if it is similar, that's the problem! As I said in the original comment, yes: many previous HS talents did train extremely hard, pushed mileage, etc. and then successfully made the jump over. That said, if you were to take a broad sample of the top-ranked athletes over the last 30 years, most of their training is not highly structured, periodized, or workout-driven, which is what traditionally differentiates between the two. I would also disagree on the claim 'everybody has always wanted to run as fast as possible'. While that is true, the focus is not necessarily the same. The likes of Ritz, Goucher, etc. were certainly focused on running fast, but the emphasis was still on Footlocker at the end of season, and the time run was not the sole determinant factor in whether you got a scholarship.

3) When I talk about the 'racing components of XC', I'm primarily distinguishing between competition where the primary aim is to win and where the aim is to run a fast time—championship-style racing vs. record chasing. I'm not saying that chasing times is bad, but especially in XC (at least where I grew up) the focus is increasingly on the times you run, even if it's not necessarily feasible or fair to compare them. Nearly everywhere else in the world, cross country distances are not standardized—you could be racing anywhere between 5k-12k, and courses are often condition-dependent. The focus in these races is not to run fast, but entirely on racing to win against the competition around you.

Recupero. Princeton Parras

I ran in the Big East in cross country in the early 1980s. Things very similar today as they were then. In my team only about half the guys I started with freshman year were not on the team by junior year. Many of the guys who were better high school runners (doing twice the mileage) than me quit because they could not handle barely making the varsity and often got dropped in workouts. It was tough on their egos not being a focal point of the team. I'm sure this happens to many of today's top recruits who were very successful in hs but are now fighting for a varsity spot as freshman in cc. Foreign competition was similar in the 1980s, I finished 25th in the conference cc meet with a 24 flat 8k and was the 10th American.

How much does “peaking junior year” affect this conversation when we’re talking about college performance. It’s not like kids are running 100+ miles the winter of their junior year so that they can run the best times they’ll ever run in their lives at 16 years old.

(Also I’m still waiting on any examples of hitting triple digit mileage nowadays, which someone claimed in this thread)

Marcelo ran a 4:01 mile as a freshman and was 15th at Heps this year. Franco dropped his mile pr by 6 seconds since graduating and broke 9 in the steeple. May never be world beaters and definitely didn’t have good senior years compared to their junior seasons, but have solidly improved in college

Tyrone Gorze would be the example you're looking for of a 100 mpw high schooler.

This is painting with over-broad strokes. In HS, Goucher ran 40 mpw. Ritz was closer to 100. How were they similar again? In spite of this Ritz probably had a better career, even though both were injury plagued. You can find examples of guys like Clayton Young or Jakob in Europe who trained very seriously in HS and had great careers, and there are plenty of HS kids who were undercooked in HS and had great careers. Talent and commitment will win out in the end, and as you go up in levels of competition, not everyone makes it. That’s how life is.

yeah the next time any hs admits this will be the first - get real guy, this is all done on the down low - but make no mistake, more of the top teams are doing this than not…

and to your challenge about naming examples of kids who plateaued after junior year HS track, I’m not going to call out names - although some have already provided several examples. But there are a ton. More rare are the kids who explode senior year track from their junior year times - hard pressed to find more than a few anecdotal examples of that the last two years

The U.S. does have plenty of high school talent at the 1 and 2 mile but this doesn't necessarily translate well to the 10 K on the track or in Cross Country. The other thing is sub 4:05 and sub 8:45 isn't what it used to be given super shoes. Look at Joe Falcon from 35-40 years ago. He didn't quite achieve those times in High School but surely would have if he had super shoes. As someone that ran against him and Chris Zinn (NCAA Champ and #7 finish respectively while at Arkansas) in High School, I recall his fastest 1600 m was 4:06 and 3200 m was 8:52. But Joe was an outlier winning NCAA Championships in 1500, 3000 and 10,000 ( on track and in Cross Country). When people used to ask about my High School running achievements I never brought up medaling at KU relays, Arkansas Relays or the Missouri State meet. My crowning achievement was hold off Falcon's wicked kick down the closing stretch of a 1600 to win on some crappy track in Nevada, Missouri.

Interesting. Did Kitchen and Tostenson do the same or was Gorze upping his mileage on his own

Hansen suffered from heatstroke at ACCs and wasn’t allowed to run for the 18 days between then and Nationals. He’s stated in interviews that his coach put him on the line at Nats with no expectations and with the goal of just doing what he could and scoring whatever points he could. Given those circumstances, 100th was a pretty great performance.

Eli Krahn who broke the 1600m freshman national record with 4:09 went to Princeton and graduated college with PR of 4:07..............Barely raced in college.

Colin Baker from SC ran 8:54, went to Harvard and actually had a solid 1st year then quit the team.

There are tons of Ivy league guys that were studs in HS that end up quitting in college or just really underperforming.

Rather an ego thing, the runners you described just reach a point where they realize they’re never going to be as good as they want to be, and that there are guys on the team that are better than them and will never best. It’s a cost/benefit decision for each runner and whatever they decide, is neither good nor bad.

Jackob ran 3:56 as a high school soph. Look at him now. You dont reach a ceiling because you do elite training in high school,you reach a ceiling when you stop being consistent. Consistent in your training

While there may be an ego component, it is probably more of a bench-sitter problem. The transition from HS to college is huge in many ways from the huge distance jump for the men to just the changes in school commitments and learning how to live independently. It isn't incredibly common for a college freshmen to come on to the team and make a travelling/scoring impact. Even guys who were top NXN runners get left behind for the vast majority of college meets and start wondering why they are even doing it when it is distracting them from what they really need to achieve for long term life success, a degree. This is especially true if they aren't even getting a full scholarship. What they really need is maybe to send their underclassmen to more lower level meets and/or club meets to keep them competitive. Scholarships are going to be even worse now with the law suits where revenue sports are going to hoard the athletic funding. You need something to motivate the runners that might be right below or will always be under the Olympic/professional future line or the effort they need to put in just simply won't be worth the benefits.

Yep. Broken down unable to even make a final.

These are terrible examples of people who failed to improve due to over training or prioritizing training in order to gain access to an Ivy. Eli only ran about 30 mpw as a high schooler and Colin quit track for personal/family reasons. There ARE kids who do this, but these two are not good examples.