WinnytheBish wrote:
Imimpresssed wrote:
Probably none of them, because they were not training for 10k, and certainly not training to run two of them in 8 days or whatever it is between regionals and nationals.
Ritz was running 80+ miles per week yes he could handle a 10k. He ran 14:10 on grass.
Agreed. When you’re logging 60-80+ mpw for a couple+ years and doing workouts to excel at 5k, it’s not like you’ll be totally floundering in a 10k race (or even two, 8 days apart). Several of the guys named in this thread could certainly have achieved the feat in question.
Lindgren, absolutely, since he won the 10,000 at the Olympic Trials the summer after his high school SR year. He’d run 13:44 for 5k already that year when the American Record was 13:38 (Bob Schul). Try naming 10 guys who would have beaten him.
More recently, I think Ritz is a virtual lock. He absolutely crushed Webb and Hall at FL, he soloed a 14:10 5k XC Michigan state meet record (Grant Fisher ran 14:52 by comparison), and most impressively won that JR World XC bronze over 8k, well behind one Kenenisa Bekele, but ahead of Nicholas Kemboi who’d run 26:30 2 years later.
We should give some consideration to guys who won NCAA XC as true freshmen (Bob Kennedy, Edward Cheserek, others?), since it naturally follows they could have been good for top-10 a year previously. I think both BK and King Ches did get huge boosts from increased collegiate training, though.
Just as an aside, isn’t it still crazy that German Fernandez, Chris Derrick and Luke Puskedra were all beaten by Michael Fout back in ‘07? That to me is as good as proof that those three, HS/college frosh studs though they were, were not yet capable of top-10 NCAAs as HS SRs.