Newbury Park, 14:29, 14:33, 14:34, 14:43, 15:15, 15:18 at Woodward Park

Harambe wrote:

oldoldrunner wrote:

I believe all you naysayers need to heed the advice of the post above.

I am normally extremely skeptical of the "California 5K" but these dudes looks more than legit.

Im always suprised by this take. Do you think meet directors here just forget to measure the course or something? Or they measure it but they want california runners to look really good so they make it slightly short? Even when they know about 50 coaches are about to wheel it out themselves to check? Where is the motive? Do they just not care that much about the distance, even when its one of the few important parts of a cross country race?

I ran in california, most of the races were 3.05, 2.96, or 2.94, and guess what! They were labelled as such! No reason to think the ones labelled 3.11 or 5k aren't that distance.

These are some of the biggest meets in the country, the meet director's reputation is at stake if anything goes wrong, I'm pretty sure they get the distance correct.

The meet directors at not at fault, it's more remembering kids in HS bragging about their '5K' times from CA -- in the grand scheme the MD's, coaches, and everyone else knows the correct distance.

CA also seems to have an unusually large number of 'almost 5K but not quite' courses so it's fun to tease them about.

For whatever reason the overwhelming majority of the meets are raced at the 3mi distance rather than 5k. Woodward the site of the just completed Clovis invitational and the site of the State meet is a 5k. The other "iconic" CA course is Mt. Sac which is typically laid out as a 2.93 mi distance.

If it makes you feel any better I had 12 kids that GPSd their race and all were over 3.1 miles at Clovis on Saturday.

coachy wrote:

If it makes you feel any better I had 12 kids that GPSd their race and all were over 3.1 miles at Clovis on Saturday.

It won't help. People need to second guess kids who have run 8:43, 8:43, 8:55, and 4:08 (who would've broke 9 as well).

maybe not wrote:

my two pennies wrote:

Not the guy who posted that, but I've run 3:49 for 1500, right where they are. The next year, I was running as much as 90 mpw, I was 22 years old, and all of my training was focused on the 3k and 5k, and I was slower than these kids over 3k (at least slower than the 8:43 guy), despite being equal or better than them at 1500.

It is correct to say they are slow speed wise. I doubt either of them could have cracked 1:54 for 800 last spring (I ran 1:52 and split 1:51 when I ran 3:49), and if they do go under 4:00, we will also be looking at them going under 7:50.

Colin ran 1:53.20 in May.

The conversation was specifically about the Youngs, but if anything that proves my point. A 3:46/8:07 guy with good speed should be 1:50-1:51. Clearly they are more 5k types than middle distance, which is totally fine, but it means they're unlikely to break 4:00 for the mile this year. I expect the Youngs to run 4:02-4:05, maybe Sahlman will have a shot at sub-4:00. Maybe as seniors they will do it but we haven't really seen how much of an improvement curve these guys have at NBP yet.

my two pennies wrote:

The conversation was specifically about the Youngs, but if anything that proves my point. A 3:46/8:07 guy with good speed should be 1:50-1:51. Clearly they are more 5k types than middle distance, which is totally fine, but it means they're unlikely to break 4:00 for the mile this year. I expect the Youngs to run 4:02-4:05, maybe Sahlman will have a shot at sub-4:00. Maybe as seniors they will do it but we haven't really seen how much of an improvement curve these guys have at NBP yet.

Well, what we can see is that:

Colin Sahlman was running 15:42 in XC last November. Now he’s running 14:29 (one second off Nico’s meet record)

Leo Young was running 15:31 last November. Earlier this XC season he broke one of his brother’s course record.

Lex Young was running 15:25. He is now pretty much on par with Colin and Leo.

Aaron Sahlman was running 16:06. He is now running 14:43. Only a few seconds behind the other three…

I would say that they are progressing pretty well.

Woodward is THE reference course in California (even more so than Mt. Sac). The state meet is held there every year and the Footlocker West regionals were held there for many years. Everyone good in California and many national-level contenders have run there over the years -- and as far as I know there have been no major alterations to the course (unlike Mt. Sac).

These performances are legitimately astounding. I would not be surprised at all if NP put 4 in the top 10 at Footlocker Nationals, assuming it happens and they choose to compete.

You are behind. They are going to RunningLane not Footlocker

either way, they probably have 4 of the top 10-15 runners in the country on the same team. Ridiculous.

popeye doyle wrote:

either way, they probably have 4 of the top 10-15 runners in the country on the same team. Ridiculous.

Their sixth man ran 8:56 at Arcadia this pass spring and he is starting to get back his fitness after his illness . In six weeks he maybe up there with NBP’s top four.

I’ve been saying it for months now that they may approach UTEP’S score of 17 at the 1981 NCAA meet at NXN. Now I’ll have change NXN to the meet in Alabama.

coachy wrote:

You are behind. They are going to RunningLane not Footlocker

Honestly very disappointed in this decision. Everyone knows they're the best team. RunningLane is simply never going to be a true national championship if they're not paying for athletes and teams to come there. I know my former high school would qualify for NXN this year and will not be going. They will not be the only ones. The best thing NP could do would be to try to send 4+ individuals to Foot Locker, where they will not be scoring 15 points, and will actually have to contend with runners that might be better than all of them (like Hough and Sherry). RunningLane is just going to be more boring domination. I want to see these boys in a real race, against other really fast runners, and see how they hold up. I'd be much more impressed with 4 in the top 10 of Foot Locker than literally anything they could do at RunningLane.

Footlocker is about to pull the plug anyway. It's going to be all Running Lane. And no one wanted to race a cross country race with 40 athletes. That's lame.

So maybe the NCAA meet should just be all comers to? Olympics even?

runningggg wrote:

College Bound wrote:

Footlocker is about to pull the plug anyway. It's going to be all Running Lane. And no one wanted to race a cross country race with 40 athletes. That's lame.

So maybe the NCAA meet should just be all comers to? Olympics even?

Running lane has all the top teams and most top individuals. It will be great to see this race come together. It's awesome someone stepped up and took the ball on this one.

"Never going to be a true national championship...." Do you realize that 15 of the top 16 boys teams as currently ranked by MileSplit are attending? Are you suggesting someone not on this list of teams would be favored to win the team championship?

Regarding the very top individuals, I think we all want to see them run against NP's top 4. I would not rule it out. It is possible to race both FL and Runninglane so we could see someone do both. And if FL does end up cancelling, then I would expect most of the top individuals to go to Runninglane.

It's not possible to do both if you are from CA.

Another level wrote:

It's not possible to do both if you are from CA.

Not just CA, FL West Regional is scheduled on 12/4, same date as Runninglane, right?

FastTuohy wrote:

Another level wrote:

It's not possible to do both if you are from CA.

Not just CA, FL West Regional is scheduled on 12/4, same date as Runninglane, right?

That's what I meant. Yes you are correct not just CA, but West regional. With everyone that RunningLane has committed I am not sure there will be much top talent left for FL or the NXR meets.