CU's Training Has Changed A Lot

The sign of a good coach is one with the humility to constantly develop. Also one who’s willing to individualize. There’s far too few out there. Imo if there were the NCAA would be ten times more competitive.

I do think the doubling makes sense

I had read that Wetmore said he preferred doubles but wanted the kids to be able to work around the school schedule and other things, but I guess they’ve changed it up a bit

CU is still great, buy maybe the change has not been a good thing...

They are not what they were in RWB days, or as successful as they were in the '00s. They still place high, but they use to win, and racked up some very notable upsets back when.

Where Wetmore has been inflexible has been foreign talent. That really restricts what they can get in terms of recruiting.

Spencer Should Go Vegan wrote:

I would give examples, but don't want to give away too much.

Oh c'mon man. CU is not doing anything insanely innovative over any of the other blue chip programs.

They were pretty dominate from 2013-2015, winning 2 titles before getting upset by Syracuse in the 3rd year and finishing 2nd (still scored just 91 pts). Since then they've gone 6th, 8th, 4th, 3rd, 14th. That's pretty dang good but probably a step below what we expect from Colorado at this point.

They've really struggled with the back end of their lineup in those years, particularly in 2018 when they went 8, 9, 11, 43 and then their 5-7 were 147, 163, 222. They would have been right with NAU if they had one more guy in the top 60. Its not like their back end had an off day either, they just never had a 5th guy all year and that's been a pattern recently. I look at how dominant NAU has been on the recruiting trail recently and I wonder if they're squeezing Colorado out a bit. There's only so much elite talent to go around and I think NAU has elbowed in on Colorado's niche as the super-successful altitude school with the charismatic/mysterious coach.

I read RWTB years ago. Great read and insight into one of the top distance programs in the country.

Maybe they need to get back to basics to get to the top of the podium. They may have strayed too much from their original recipe.

You've got to be kidding. NAU recruits foreign nationals heavily and CU not at all. CU is a far better school than NAU and Boulder was just ranked the number 1 place to live in the entire country. If a kid has the grades, it's hard to imagine he/she would choose NAU over CU.

co-ed wrote:

CU is still great, buy maybe the change has not been a good thing...

They are not what they were in RWB days, or as successful as they were in the '00s. They still place high, but they use to win, and racked up some very notable upsets back when.

Where Wetmore has been inflexible has been foreign talent. That really restricts what they can get in terms of recruiting.

Having Americans running for USA taxpayer owned and funded academic institutions is EXACTLY what he should be doing and exactly what all schools in the USA should be doing. That is frankly the best thing about Wetmore. Never change!!

Bonkers wrote:

There's only so much elite talent to go around and I think NAU has elbowed in on Colorado's niche as the super-successful altitude school with the charismatic/mysterious coach.

Yup, NAU does wonders with 27 year old pros from other countries

Book Club Member wrote:

I read RWTB years ago. Great read and insight into one of the top distance programs in the country.

Maybe they need to get back to basics to get to the top of the podium. They may have strayed too much from their original recipe.

I think the NCAA as a whole is just plain better than when RWTB was written. Look at the track times recently.

I wonder if someone could create a hypothetical meet (maybe with track 5k times?) that race the current teams to the RWTB teams. I predict the current teams with meh finished would beat the RWTB teams.

For example, Adam Goucher ran 13:31 college PR in 1998, winning NCAAs. In 2021, that would have ranked 18th in the NCAA.

Wetmore is a good coach, time has passed the "basics" by and he adapted. The original recipe would be a solid but average team today.

cramister wrote:

I do think the doubling makes sense

I had read that Wetmore said he preferred doubles but wanted the kids to be able to work around the school schedule and other things, but I guess they’ve changed it up a bit

I wonder if changes in how classes are scheduled or held including remote or asynchronous classes allowed for doubles to become more practical. I doubt there were many (if any) online classes at CU when RWB was written.

POKE IT wrote:

co-ed wrote:

CU is still great, buy maybe the change has not been a good thing...

They are not what they were in RWB days, or as successful as they were in the '00s. They still place high, but they use to win, and racked up some very notable upsets back when.

Where Wetmore has been inflexible has been foreign talent. That really restricts what they can get in terms of recruiting.

Having Americans running for USA taxpayer owned and funded academic institutions is EXACTLY what he should be doing and exactly what all schools in the USA should be doing. That is frankly the best thing about Wetmore. Never change!!

Athletic departments do not get the majority of their funding from taxpayers. Tuition for a foreign student is insanely high so the university makes money when one is signed.

I think Flaggstaffs proximity to California helps. Lots of talent in that state to entice. It’s a doable drive back and forth from your home to school.

Also Flaggstaff in general has become the trendy place to altitude train over the last decade. The town of Flaggstaff itself is as 7k feet while Boulder is only at 5k. Being able to run on campus from that higher altitude is more ideal.

But not recruiting foreigners hurts CU. They’re missing on some big international talent that I’m sure would love run at CU.

Luv2Run wrote:

POKE IT wrote:

Having Americans running for USA taxpayer owned and funded academic institutions is EXACTLY what he should be doing and exactly what all schools in the USA should be doing. That is frankly the best thing about Wetmore. Never change!!

Athletic departments do not get the majority of their funding from taxpayers. Tuition for a foreign student is insanely high so the university makes money when one is signed.

Who owns the University of Colorado at Boulder?

Come on man?

In the 80's Washington State had two guys under 27:35 in the 10k, Bill McChesney ran the still school record at Oregon of 13:12. UTEP had some of the best guys in the world running for them. Stop comparing times, this past year without drug testing and with super shoes and set up time trials produced fast times, that's all, just times.

The teams back then were just as good, the NCAA had better comp, more top tier world guys than it does now.

You missed my point. I was not talking the 70s and 80s golden days of Henry Rono, Prefontaine, etc. The late 90s and early 2000s were weak.

But on paper looking at track times, the RWTB team isn't terribly impressive.

shootpost wrote:

chief niwot. wrote:

Come on man?

In the 80's Washington State had two guys under 27:35 in the 10k, Bill McChesney ran the still school record at Oregon of 13:12. UTEP had some of the best guys in the world running for them. Stop comparing times, this past year without drug testing and with super shoes and set up time trials produced fast times, that's all, just times.

The teams back then were just as good, the NCAA had better comp, more top tier world guys than it does now.

You missed my point. I was not talking the 70s and 80s golden days of Henry Rono, Prefontaine, etc. The late 90s and early 2000s were weak.

But on paper looking at track times, the RWTB team isn't terribly impressive.

Look at Colorados all time top 5k and 10k times. They are a much better team now than they were in 1998.

Times change, training changes, Colorado and the NCAA are better now than they were in 1998.

They have a grand total of 3 international guys on their roster, one of whom is a grad transfer. Their title team last year were all Americans, this isn't UTEP. There's like 6 guys from Wisconsin on the team, lol.

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Look at Colorados all time top 5k and 10k times. They are a much better team now than they were in 1998.

Times change, training changes, Colorado and the NCAA are better now than they were in 1998.

https://cubuffs.com/documents/2021/6/4//Men_s_Top_10.pdf?id=22975[/quote

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This is a good point. The few coaches that stuck to the Lydiard type training dominated the 90s. Wetmore was one of them. Especially in XC which is all about the aerobic system. Mostly everyone else though was doing the “quality over quantity” junk and stunk.

Then the 2000s came and most went back to the mileage and tempo focus. Overtime the rest of the NCAA caught back up.