carnage in the last K of Women's Race

What, not one Furman runner ?!? Based on their result; one has to ask: shouldn't Furman be Very good at cross country ??

Interesting how many females had such significant drops in the final K. The largest final K drops for the men were

67

53

41

33

26

25

23

There were some big drops from the start to finish, like dropping 10-15 almost every K, but nothing significant in the final K. Part of that probably has to do with the women running a shorter race so the pack is larger and a 30 second slowdown will result in more females passing a slowing runner than men. Better pacing probably plays a role, too.

Hard to explain CSU. Last team in and in the top 20 until their number one runner loses 124 places and runs outside 5 mins for the last k. Yet they still finished 22. 9 spots better than expected.

I saw at least 4 girls actually fall down before the line. A bunch of them looked like they were running thee nd of a marathon in 90 degree heat.

yes, I would say there was a significant wall at 5k once they got to that hill the second time.

Zachgo for NC State had jumped 31 spots from the 3rd to 5th km, which was why NC States team number looked so good, but she must have gassed out there. I'm sure it was the same for many of them, they are trying to help the team and likely the coaches are encouraging them to move up...but this course looked harder than most and that hill at the end did many of them in.

it's too bad there wasn't a good camera angle at the base of the hill...it would have interesting to see them at that point.

Dudek Stanford, WTF....

Gillgan wrote:

Dudek Stanford, WTF....

you can get a glimpse of her at the finish and she was on fumes. And Donaghu (much earlier). Not sure what happened to those two.

Still Waiting wrote:

I saw at least 4 girls actually fall down before the line. A bunch of them looked like they were running thee nd of a marathon in 90 degree heat.

Yeah, a few of them looked almost as bad as that swiss woman at the end of the '84 OG marathon.

The warm weather got to some of them. Low 60’s can feel like 90 if you have been training in 30’s - 40’s. I hate to say it but there could be some small amount of drama in it too. When you haven’t run well and people are just flopping all around you, it could be tempting just to fall out too. There were a fair amount of male runners on the ground after the race so I think mostly the warm conditions for March was the issue today.

Yeah, it's too bad...had a great season going up til today....could have just been an off day...

Watching the end of this race there appears to be some runners having borderline medical emergencies. Absolutely destroyed at the end, carried away, flailing and collapsing multiple times before the finish line.

Just rewatched the video, it is disturbing. Could be the temps, could be the drama...could be nutrition? Or lack thereof. It is common in women's distance running and if you go too hard with too little calories (paired with the anxiety that many many people with EDs/disordered eating have) it can lead to literally blowing up

Is this a college thing? dont see it to that degree in HS,

do they have the ability to withstand extreme discomfort to the point of collapse?

Or did they just blow up on the last 1km?

6k carnage wrote:

Is this a college thing? dont see it to that degree in HS,

do they have the ability to withstand extreme discomfort to the point of collapse?

Or did they just blow up on the last 1km?

this happens constantly w high school girls in the area where i coach

maybe it's something else wrote:

Just rewatched the video, it is disturbing. Could be the temps, could be the drama...could be nutrition? Or lack thereof. It is common in women's distance running and if you go too hard with too little calories (paired with the anxiety that many many people with EDs/disordered eating have) it can lead to literally blowing up

Hard to believe a nutritional deficit is the culprit for what I saw.

I would guess that many D1 women have the ability to plan, "last 1k of this 6k I'm going to absolutely hammer it" whereas the guys are running their 2nd 10k of the year, and stay less aggressive (unless you're Mantz) at the end of their race. Women hear a 5k split, and if they like the time and how they feel, they can send it.

This course probably hit the women way harder than their other xc races and a few went to the twilight zone.

6k carnage wrote:

Is this a college thing? dont see it to that degree in HS,

do they have the ability to withstand extreme discomfort to the point of collapse?

Or did they just blow up on the last 1km?

I think a lot of these girls were just laying it out there for their team and had been going harder than they could handle before they hit the hill.

Probably the main reason you see some runners dropping so much on women's side is so few of the DNF when compared to men.

Course was tough and lots of dramatics at the end but very few dropped. I think three.

A lot of men dropped out. I stood near the 5k and was amazed at how many shirtless guys sauntered up the final hill of the first lap with their singlet in their fist.

There were some shakey legs for guys too. Don't know who he was, but NAUs sixth man (I believe) was their fifth with less than 400m but was giving up a lot of spots and was exhausted.

Honestly maybe you're right. I have no idea. Actually as a D1 runner myself I have gone "full send" at the end of a 6k after hearing a good 5k split and yeah, in one race in particular I did pass out after going too hard. Nutrition might be the culprit for some though, I have seen it take down so many in races. But poor pacing was probably the problem today

Sliding Scale wrote:

Probably the main reason you see some runners dropping so much on women's side is so few of the DNF when compared to men.

Course was tough and lots of dramatics at the end but very few dropped. I think three.

A lot of men dropped out. I stood near the 5k and was amazed at how many shirtless guys sauntered up the final hill of the first lap with their singlet in their fist.

There were some shakey legs for guys too. Don't know who he was, but NAUs sixth man (I believe) was their fifth with less than 400m but was giving up a lot of spots and was exhausted.

I saw at least 5 go down or start wavering all over the place approaching the finish line

BYU took over the lead at the 4K mark. So it's not like NC State really lost anything in the last two k's. They still won second by a pretty good margin

Also anyone know if any of the girls had muscular issues. There was a good high school Runner who would collapse at the end of high school races. I think she had MS. Or MD muscular dystrophy. Anyway just curious if a few of the runners might have had some condition where they had a difficult time after races in general