RE: UML stealing D3 kids shine

WhosManIsThis wrote:

https://www.strava.com/activities/5981263889

Winner of varsity race has confirmed that course is 5 miles exactly

LOL note the lack of GPS on that Strava entry

Should be interesting to see how the Lowell guys do at Coast to Coast and/or Paul Short…

NAU super fan wrote:

Anyone see how UML put their top 7 guys in a JV D3 race? Seems like a bit of a mean move. Not sure what they're doing there. Why not have them in the Varsity race? At least then they'd have some competition and push people to be better.

https://www.tfrrs.org/results/xc/18319/2021_UMass_Dartmouth_Cross_Country_Invitational

There isn't JV in college. You're either racing or you're not.

Jamaica Pond Scum wrote:

WhosManIsThis wrote:

https://www.strava.com/activities/5981263889

Winner of varsity race has confirmed that course is 5 miles exactly

LOL note the lack of GPS on that Strava entry

People who enjoy RACING a race don't always wear a GPS watch, since the course is likely marked and times don't matter.

1600m506pr:-/ wrote:

Sliding Scale wrote:

Bit of a dick move;

They could have started a minute later than everyone else.

I think you missed the point of my post.

Why did they have to run there at all? What did they gain? If they were not going to race, they should have just done a workout at home.

Zero elevation gain. Two minute improvement over next closest time. A minute faster 5k pace then his second place race earlier this season. sounds right.

But everyone runs the same course so a win is a win.

Did you read the post?? 10-20 seconds faster duh…. Sarcasm

360NoScope wrote:

Should be interesting to see how the Lowell guys do at Coast to Coast and/or Paul Short…

I think Lowell will qualify for NCAAs ahead of Harvard. Lowell returned a stacked group.

Sliding Scale wrote:

Bit of a dick move; I have no problem letting the second squad compete in the varsity meet for the win. It looked liek a good competition for them (they won with depth and without a top three runner). Obviously this meet was below their top athletes. So why do it? I have never understood the workout through the meet mentality.

If you need to workout, then workout...just stay at home and tempo, do mile repeats or what ever on Friday (before the JV team departs) and then go easy on Saturday before a long run on Sunday. They would probably get a better workout in this way, and likely would have a better long run. Additionally, they would likely save some money on hotels, meals etc. (no idea where Lowell and Dartmouth are, maybe no hotels involved, but still).

I had the same thoughts initially, but I disagree now.

Sure, they could have just done a tempo themselves on their own fields, but there are a lot of elements that an organized, legitimate race has that you can't simulate on your own.

Race Atmosphere = The set time that you must prepare and be ready for (warmups, getting spiked up, pre-race strides, getting to the line, etc. all on a specific schedule that you aren’t setting yourself); Start at a starting line with a big mass of people; the anticipation of a gun start; that mad rush and jockeying of positioning after the gun; finding your teammates and syncing up with them while having to deal with opposing runners; etc.

They had a meet they could take an afternoon drive to and practice all of that. It was very low-key and had barely any expenses to the program.

I think this was a great opportunity to knock out those pre-race jitters before stepping into a more intense atmosphere like Coast to Coast or Paul Short later this month. Smart move.

As to why they had their upperclassmen race JV and not Varsity, well I think that's been explained already. It allowed their underclassmen to get some real race experience in the Varsity race, and kept their older/faster dudes from getting tangled up in an actual race with some D3 dude trying to push the pace.

As for the times, if you look at the ULowell dudes' Stravas (a good chunk did GPS it), they clearly acknowledge the short distance.

Pretty much everyone else in the field (on Strava at least), including the winner of the "Varsity" race seem to be under the delusion that they just ran a breakthrough 8K... gunna be a rough remainder of the season for those fellas...

Practice Racing wrote:

As for the times, if you look at the ULowell dudes' Stravas (a good chunk did GPS it), they clearly acknowledge the short distance.

Pretty much everyone else in the field (on Strava at least), including the winner of the "Varsity" race seem to be under the delusion that they just ran a breakthrough 8K... gunna be a rough remainder of the season for those fellas...

There should be a penalty for teams/coaches that don't accurately indicate the length of their course. It's obvious this course is significantly short of 8k but it's listed as a 5 mile race. 5 miles is almost 50 meters longer than 8k.

It is surprising how UMD sticks to this 5 mile distance claim for their invite but when the course is run for their conference championship they call it 8k. I'm pretty sure the course doesn't change between the two races. Clearly the race is short of 8k so it's bizarre they've stubbornly advertised it as 5 miles all these years when it's obviously not.

Their math majors determined that 4.77 miles can be rounded up.