Looking at the results, NP's top 4 would all be ahead of PP's top runner. PP's top runner lost to a kid from U.Chicago with a 14:24 track PR in the 5k. NP's group is running 14:25-14:40 on an XC course which is much slower than a track.
If you push back each of PP's athletes back 4 places, that puts their team score at 100.
PP's fifth runner lost to a guy from Franciscan that has run 3:52 and 14:55. There's a 50% chance that NP's fifth runner (4:15, 8:56) beats PP's fifth.
Engineer of Plates wrote:
It is a conspiracy.
A short course is far from a conspiracy, actually more common than one would think!
Are we just starting the whole conversation over?
The 80th finisher in the race has a 14:22 track 5k. The 81st finisher has a 3:49 1500. Pretending you know nothing else about the race and I told you these guys went 1-2, what would you say about the NP guys competing with them? Guessing most would say that NP could put 2 ahead of them and then 3-4 behind them and then their 5th would be 45 seconds behind their 4th. Now plug those predictions in around the 80th and 81st guys and see how certain you are.
Engineer of Plates wrote:
Are we just starting the whole conversation over?
The 80th finisher in the race has a 14:22 track 5k. The 81st finisher has a 3:49 1500. Pretending you know nothing else about the race and I told you these guys went 1-2, what would you say about the NP guys competing with them? Guessing most would say that NP could put 2 ahead of them and then 3-4 behind them and then their 5th would be 45 seconds behind their 4th. Now plug those predictions in around the 80th and 81st guys and see how certain you are.
Why would you only look at two data points? Certainly there are plenty of runners with much slower PRs on the track that placed way better than your two guys in that race.
Most posters said their 5th would be outdise of the top 80. So 80th is a good starting point. There are many guys who finished outside of the top 100 who have better track PRs than their 5th also. But the fanboys assume that 17 year olds will fare better on a national stage in the middle of the pack on a longer distance, than what mature 22 year olds will. Makes sense.
First off- The NP runners are amazing. I think that has been said about 100 times in this post, and to all the NP parents and runners who are commenting, I think you can rest assured that the team is the greatest HS XC team in history, and they can beat most D2 and D3 teams, and probably all but the top 50 or 60 D1 programs. You should be proud of that, and stop trying to feed your egos by thinking they need more validation. They would not win D3 nats. End of story.
Now- As I was at D3 Nats, I can answer some questions.
1. The course is 100% an 8k. Its an international championship run course that holds multiple races per year, and there are tons of youtube videos of Live in Lou XC classic. The course is measured and certified, and you can check any of the runner's Strava accounts if you don't believe me. Please check out an earlier race this year where Olin Hacker from Wisconsin ran a 23:18 on the course and came in second. Just for reference, Alex Phillip ran a 23:27 to win D3. And Hacker came in 30th at the D1 champs as well. The winner was Isaac Harding from Grand Valley who happened to win D2 nationals.
2. The course is relatively flat with a few 30-40' rolling hills on the second half. Its not extreme, but its not an insanely fast course either. Those hills take a bit out of the legs as they come around 6k-7k and it is all on regular grass (no golf course and zero pavement) and its not even. There is no doubt its an ankle buster. I walked it after the race and it was a bit soggy. There was some standing water in places, but they tried to fill it in with bark chips where they could. I wouldn't say the course was wet, but the ground had some "give" to it. It did not run as fast as it could have.
3. It was 42 degrees at race time. Not super cold, but not 100% ideal either. It was also MUCH colder and windier during warm ups which wasn't ideal at all. The wind was about 10 mph at race time. And the course is a lot of loops so no matter where you were, you would feel it. I don't care what you saw in the videos. I was there and it was about 10 mph.
4. The times were fast and many runners had PR's, but that really had nothing to do with the course and more to do with Covid and most of these competitors being a year older and having a year to train. 6 in the top 20 were 5th year seniors who normally wouldn't have been racing, and many didn't attend school last year and basically trained full time and came back much stronger. The times for D3 are MUCH better this year than years past. I'm not saying they are going to beat D1 teams, but don't discount D3 either. Several of these runners are now 23-24 years old and they would have been legit D1 runners this year. The difference is that D3 doesn't not have the top low sticks of D1 nor do they have anywhere near the depth. Pomona wouldn't stand a chance at D1 nationals, just as NP wouldn't at D3.
5. Stop comparing track times for College kids. NP ran a ton of track over the last 18 months. Most college kids did not. A PR from 2 years ago for a kid in college is nowhere near indicative of what he can run today.
6. The top true freshman at nationals was Grahm Tuohy-Gaydos. He was a legitimate HS runner with 3 sub 15:00 5k runs all in Colorado during his senior season. His 5k HS PR was a 14:48 and he beat several top D2 runners who happened to be in that race. And he did that at 6000' elevation. I'm not going to speculate on what he could have done on a flat fast course at sea level, but it would have been faster. As I recall, NP's 4th has a PR of 14:43 or only 5 seconds faster. I'd say he is pretty comparable to Tuohy. And Tuohy came in 19th in the nationals race. He was a 2 time Milesplit National Runner of the Week last year, a running lane All American, and probably the only one who you can accurately compare splits as he is relatively close in age to NP. The fact is, that he couldn't beat a lot of the D3 guys, and neither would NP. I'm not saying that Tuohy is better than Leo, Lex, Collin, or even Aaron, but he wasn't that much slower than them in the 5k, and Alex Phillip beat him by 40 seconds in this race.
Again, NP runners are in a class beyond anything we have ever seen in HS running. They are amazing. And they would have had a great showing at D3 nationals and could have placed very high. But they would not have beaten Pomona this year. Let's move on.
Hacker has times of 4:01/7:52/13:42.
Finding this amusing wrote:
First off- The NP runners are amazing. I think that has been said about 100 times in this post, and to all the NP parents and runners who are commenting, I think you can rest assured that the team is the greatest HS XC team in history, and they can beat most D2 and D3 teams, and probably all but the top 50 or 60 D1 programs. You should be proud of that, and stop trying to feed your egos by thinking they need more validation. They would not win D3 nats. End of story.
Now- As I was at D3 Nats, I can answer some questions.
1. The course is 100% an 8k. Its an international championship run course that holds multiple races per year, and there are tons of youtube videos of Live in Lou XC classic. The course is measured and certified, and you can check any of the runner's Strava accounts if you don't believe me. Please check out an earlier race this year where Olin Hacker from Wisconsin ran a 23:18 on the course and came in second. Just for reference, Alex Phillip ran a 23:27 to win D3. And Hacker came in 30th at the D1 champs as well. The winner was Isaac Harding from Grand Valley who happened to win D2 nationals.
2. The course is relatively flat with a few 30-40' rolling hills on the second half. Its not extreme, but its not an insanely fast course either. Those hills take a bit out of the legs as they come around 6k-7k and it is all on regular grass (no golf course and zero pavement) and its not even. There is no doubt its an ankle buster. I walked it after the race and it was a bit soggy. There was some standing water in places, but they tried to fill it in with bark chips where they could. I wouldn't say the course was wet, but the ground had some "give" to it. It did not run as fast as it could have.
3. It was 42 degrees at race time. Not super cold, but not 100% ideal either. It was also MUCH colder and windier during warm ups which wasn't ideal at all. The wind was about 10 mph at race time. And the course is a lot of loops so no matter where you were, you would feel it. I don't care what you saw in the videos. I was there and it was about 10 mph.
4. The times were fast and many runners had PR's, but that really had nothing to do with the course and more to do with Covid and most of these competitors being a year older and having a year to train. 6 in the top 20 were 5th year seniors who normally wouldn't have been racing, and many didn't attend school last year and basically trained full time and came back much stronger. The times for D3 are MUCH better this year than years past. I'm not saying they are going to beat D1 teams, but don't discount D3 either. Several of these runners are now 23-24 years old and they would have been legit D1 runners this year. The difference is that D3 doesn't not have the top low sticks of D1 nor do they have anywhere near the depth. Pomona wouldn't stand a chance at D1 nationals, just as NP wouldn't at D3.
5. Stop comparing track times for College kids. NP ran a ton of track over the last 18 months. Most college kids did not. A PR from 2 years ago for a kid in college is nowhere near indicative of what he can run today.
6. The top true freshman at nationals was Grahm Tuohy-Gaydos. He was a legitimate HS runner with 3 sub 15:00 5k runs all in Colorado during his senior season. His 5k HS PR was a 14:48 and he beat several top D2 runners who happened to be in that race. And he did that at 6000' elevation. I'm not going to speculate on what he could have done on a flat fast course at sea level, but it would have been faster. As I recall, NP's 4th has a PR of 14:43 or only 5 seconds faster. I'd say he is pretty comparable to Tuohy. And Tuohy came in 19th in the nationals race. He was a 2 time Milesplit National Runner of the Week last year, a running lane All American, and probably the only one who you can accurately compare splits as he is relatively close in age to NP. The fact is, that he couldn't beat a lot of the D3 guys, and neither would NP. I'm not saying that Tuohy is better than Leo, Lex, Collin, or even Aaron, but he wasn't that much slower than them in the 5k, and Alex Phillip beat him by 40 seconds in this race.
Again, NP runners are in a class beyond anything we have ever seen in HS running. They are amazing. And they would have had a great showing at D3 nationals and could have placed very high. But they would not have beaten Pomona this year. Let's move on.
Great insight. I'm sure some of the numbskulls will still say they would go 1-2-3-4-35, but they are to be ignored.
1. The course is 100% an 8k. Its an international championship run course that holds multiple races per year, and there are tons of youtube videos of Live in Lou XC classic. The course is measured and certified, and you can check any of the runner's Strava accounts if you don't believe me.
You have plenty of information right here that makes me call BS!
Show me the Money wrote:
d3scrub wrote:
Are you dense? I said hillier than Woodbridge. Check any strava from the race and it will show you that there was around 150 ft of election gain. Compared to the <20 ft on perfect grass. Check historical weather data to see that it was in the 40s with 15 mph winds on race day. As for the mud, it was definitely there. Some of the turns by the BMX park and over by the mile/3k split, among other locations. You probably don’t know what I’m talking about though, because all of your information is the visuals you got from a crappy youtube livestream that had an aerial view half the time.
Why no mud on anyone including their shoes? Do you really feel temps in the 40s have a negative impact in one's racing time? Lots of trees that must have knocked the wind down since it is hardly noticeable in much of the video.
So if as bad as you make the Louisville course and conditions out to be - why so many fast times? How much short was the course?
How many times do I have to say this? The conditions weren’t bad, they were just worse than Woodbridge. I raced there, there was mud on my shoes. And do you really expect to be able to notice 15 mph winds from a crappy race video?
Don’t compare one athlete and determine the speed of the course based off of one athlete. Otherwise let’s look at Henry pick who finished 3rd place in D3 and also ran in CA for HS and had a Woodward park PR of 15:33. That’s over twenty seconds slower than NPs 5th man. You really think someone improves that much in three years? I’m not buying it. His time is over 1 minute slower than the NP boys
The Louisville course is well known. It sometimes runs fast and sometimes runs slow. The course ran fast this year. The majority of athletes (probably 90%) in the field ran lifetime bests despite all the hardships you brought in.
Show me the Money wrote:
1. The course is 100% an 8k. Its an international championship run course that holds multiple races per year, and there are tons of youtube videos of Live in Lou XC classic. The course is measured and certified, and you can check any of the runner's Strava accounts if you don't believe me.
You have plenty of information right here that makes me call BS!
Really? Which part? Here is the course website.
https://loucrosscountryclassic.com/And there are links to the “map my run” which clearly shows the distance. I also follow several D1, D2, and D3 runners on strava so no BS there either. As for the course this is from the website:
The meet is contested at E.P “Tom” Sawyer State Park in Louisville, Ky., which is the site of the 2012, 2015, and 2017 NCAA DI National Championships; 2010 and 2014 NCAA DII National Championships, 2016 and 2019 NCAA DIII National Championships, five NAIA National Championships, two Big East Conference Championships, and six NCAA DI Southeast Regional Championships. The site also will host the Nov. 20, 2021, NCAA DIII National Championships.
So please tell me what I said that was BS?
As you said, sometimes courses run fast. And using someones time from 3 years ago is a stupid comparison. If you want to go that route, then let’s look at how much the young’s or Sahlman improved over the last three years. College kids can make huge gains in that time as well. My comparison was to the first place true freshman who is closest in age. I only use him as a reference. The second place frosh was Drew Donahue who ran at 9:02 true 2 mile and he placed 43 so that is another point. Compare them to the kids closest to their age. Not 3 year old times.
Carmody of Notre Dame had a HS PR of 15:20 and has run 13:40 in college. There are hundreds of runners in college who have dropped 2 minutes off of their HS 5k.
Karissa Schweizer ran 17:51 in HS and now has a PR of 14:26. That's over 3 minutes.
15:20 for xc and 13:40 in track. Depending on the course this could be less than a minute of improvement.
Also Anyone at BTC is sus. I wouldn’t use those burrito lovers as an example for what’s possible.
Engineer of Plates wrote:
Are we just starting the whole conversation over?
The 80th finisher in the race has a 14:22 track 5k. The 81st finisher has a 3:49 1500. Pretending you know nothing else about the race and I told you these guys went 1-2, what would you say about the NP guys competing with them? Guessing most would say that NP could put 2 ahead of them and then 3-4 behind them and then their 5th would be 45 seconds behind their 4th. Now plug those predictions in around the 80th and 81st guys and see how certain you are.
You are looking at 2 guys that had bad races. I just listed 2 that are SLOWER that were in the top 15 and top 25.
But they aren't slower because they beat them. That's what racing is for so that guys like you don't keep making stupid claims.
The Good D3 guys will run track times much faster than what you expect. Most D3 guys have had very little track over the past 2 years.
He was a 9:20 track guy. So he probably was 15:15 on the track for 5k. There are hundreds of examples like this. Where do you think 75 guys at 8:07 or faster came from when only a handful ran that fast in high school?
Wake me up when one D3 guy breaks 8:00 for 3k. In the meantime NP will have four boys run that fast this winter/spring.
NP goes 1-2-3-4 in D3 and it’s not close.