Natalie Cook 16:03!

The magic of Runninglane.

Crushed the field at EastBay, crushed the field at Garmin. She's peaked incredibly well this season.

It's a shame Flower Mound's #2 was out of the meet. FM could have finished 3rd or so.

Magic of Stillwater. She needs no magic. She is the real deal. You doubters should be ashamed.

I’m just questioning where there was so much doubt? Maybe before Senior year when fighting injuries.

Anyone know about her training this year? Still on low mileage and lots of alternate training? Still "advised" by her dad and coached by Dave Smith? With so many teams holding out their best runners, seems pretty gutsy to be going all-out this early in the season. Great confidence builder!

In J Gault's preview I think they said she was up to 25 mpw.....but did not do a 10K tempo as that would have been her longest run in maybe forever.

I'm just guessing, but I would imagine Andrew Cook has 100% let go of any advising and trusting Dave Smith. It is probably nice for Andrew to just be a 100% "dad" again.

Watching Natalie race in High School, it didn't matter the field, she was always going for it upfront. She wasn't scared of the talent at Garmin and not scared of any College girls now.

H'm. Did not come close to breaking 17 at Footlocker or whatever they call it nowadays. RL is very fast.

Anyway a good college start. Then again she is the age of a typical college sophomore and the third place finisher is a senior who was 13th in the WAC XC championship last year and did not qualify for national. (Sorry). I'm honest enough to confess I have a certain innate distrust of late blooming athletes in this sport. A flaw I guess. If she continues winning then she becomes a bona fide contender. Good luck to her.

really? 17:15 at Footlocker still won with room to spare after 2 race weekends in a row. Didn't lose a race all year except Woodbridge, which was early season. ran a 15:25 in the Spring.

she's not a late bloomer as she's been fast all through High School, but the potential might be healthy enough to 60 mpw in College. until then she'll still win plenty of races and top 10-20 at nationals on 25 mpw.

OK. Yet she was not even competitive in her section her junior year. Just a fact.

All that said, she seems off to a good start. The top high school runners have had a tough go of it the last few years.

Peaked too soon

from what I know she really faced serious injuries, Senior year she was relatively healthy, but did everything she did on 25 mpw. simply amazing and off to a great college start.

maybe, but as a coach there are some who just like to race hard and win all the time. it isn’t like she was doing 80 mpw all summer and tapered for this race.

Remind me of all the college sophomores who had this time and this place at this event last year? Actually dont bother. I believe weve had this conversation in another thread a year ago when she was "clearly too old" for her times to be taken seriously. Why are you incapable of resisting undermining other athletes at the expense of your favorite? lose this "age" nonsense already. shes a college runner now. and she had a great meet out of the gate and shes clearly going to be something to contend with. high school was not all smoke and mirrors on 25 mpw. surely we can all agree on that? why not celebrate that rather than trying to throw shade on it? enjoy it for as long as it lasts.

also why in the world bring this thread back from the dead? what she did today has nothing to do with high school. seems like she deserves a new thread based on this. "Natalie MF Cook 20:17! Not a high school flash in the pan!"

Deja vu.

When exactly was she injured? Milesplit profile does not show any major gaps, tons of races, travel across counrty, junior olympics.... ect.

tx.milesplit.com

Natalie Cook - Stats

Link:tx.milesplit.com/athletes/7219938-nata...

What does it matter?

It doesn’t take an 80 IQ to see 1 race 2020 Outdoor and 2020 Cross Country times that she was injured.