Sahlman bombs at Nuttycombe

Horrific take. He is a true freshman adjusting to college life, training, longer race distance, etc. If he ran 15 seconds faster he would have finished 40 places higher. Not a very big jump for a freshman to make during the course of his first college cross country season, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him in the top 30 at nationals.

Also, let’s not forget that Colin was heavily focused on 800m racing until mid-June. Who was the last 1:48 high school guy you know who got to college and immediately mixed it up with the top guys in cross? Alan Webb maybe, but I’m not sure there are any others.

60th in an 8k to 30th at 10k in the most competitive distance race in the country? What are you basing this on? If he was top 5 today announcing top 30 at Nats would be more in line. Sahlman bombed, take it on the chin and move on. They hid him as long as they could, he has to perform.

If Sahlman wasn't ready then letsruns favorite genius coach Mike Smith wouldn't have raced him. NAU is in trouble this year.

Some SoCal high school runners don't transition well from road and hard packed "cross country" races to actual races on grass and soft dirt. IMHO, California does its young athletes a big disservice by holding most events on super manicured courses built exclusively for fast times. Some will rise to the occasion and learn how to race on real terrain while others can only perform on tracks/roads. I grew up in the heartland racing on grass and we got excited about golf course races because they would be easier and faster. When I went to college in California, I was shocked to find that XC was basically a road race with a few short patches of grass, dirt, or bark chips thrown in. The vaunted Mt. SAC course is just a hilly dirt road race. When we had a rare all grass race, I would always place higher because I knew how to pace myself on it. This is why I don't get all amped up over the NP boys when they get to college. They have amazing talent but they will need a year or two to figure out real XC.

Yeah not seeing it.

The two guys right in front of him were 41, and 61st at nationals. Nationals is a bit deeper but not by much. We are talking about a race with like a 100 guys all running between 23 and 24 mins

Really though it all comes down to improvement. Was this a rust buster and he will be 30s faster in a month? How much did they taper for this? NAU fans have to hope Kusche and Quax bombing is a result of slightly over doing the training rather than them being 24 min runners...

The good part of XC is that we will see in a couple of weeks..I expect the top 3 for Stanford,byu ,and nau to be some what close but 10s differences in your 4th and 5th guys can be 20point swings...

This. We will know more in the coming weeks as the data comes in. One data point isn't enough to show trajectory.

bruh Sahlman ran 1:48.07 in June. That's faster than Ritz's lifetime PR. 60th isn't an embarrassment, it's just not a spectacular performance like Nico had in his first race. I remember on the Coffee Club Pod a while back, George mentioned that it was a shock hearing how well Nico was acclimating to altitude. Chill out, and just let him progress.

Bombed? I though it was a solid debut. Give him a couple more meets to learn how to race at this level and you will see him shine. He’s a future NCAA champion. Mark my words.

Also, it's not fair to make a Ritz comparison because the NCAA wasn't nearly as competitive in the early 2000s. Just compare NCAA 5000 lists from 2004 to 2022, super shoes notwithstanding. 60th in a race with that much talent is solid. And it's mid-Oct. Let's see where he is, next month (and more importantly, in 3 more years).

He compared them. Ritz is better.

He bombed. If you are suggesting that he will do much better next time, that even more means he bombed.

He did better than LV in his first College XC.

LV ran 24:35 and finished 62nd at the Adidas invitational for his opener

College running is not easy.

He didn’t bomb, he did just fine for his college XC debut. He was 1.6 seconds behind Tom Brady, a 7:55/13:48/28:46 guy in his 4th year of collegiate running. Seems about right for Sahlman. He also beat Brendan Fraser by 2 seconds. These two guys have had great success in their respective occupations.

I could see why someone would find his result a little disappointing, but that’s judging it against those rarities who jump immediately from HS star to college star, not the most realistic expectation. He beat Riley Hough by 9 seconds. He was 11 seconds behind former FL champ Josh Methner, now in his 3rd year of college. He did just fine.

Finally, as others have alluded to, his best distance at this point is probably 1500/mile. Eventually I think he’ll have elite range from 1500-5k, but he’s not a 5k/10k type like Ritz, Derrick or Young. Put him in a 1500 or 3k on the track against these college guys and I trust he fares much better.

Yesterday's race was on October 14th, NCAA Cross Country Meet is November 19th, That is a lot of time to improve from where he is now, He probably partied too much in the off season that happens a lot in College, He will be ready on November 19th which is WHEN IT COUNTS

in 25 days he runs 10 seconds per mile

quicker for 10k? Time is not important in XC, he finished 60th, he got hammered

I’m sure OP was just riling people up, but I agree Colin didn’t bomb. It was simply a rust-buster. He’ll surely finish higher at NCAAs.

But it does exemplify the difference between Colin and Ritz in CC, totally legitimizing last year’s threads about how much better Ritz’s 14:10 at MHSAA is vs the “everybody PRs by 20-40 seconds” RL times. Riley Hough (who ran “14:10” at RL) finishing just a little behind Colin yesterday further cements this theory.

Ritz’s freshman year, he finished 4th (29:11, which is 23:20 8K pace) at NCAAs on a challenging Furman course, running even splits the whole way, mowing down almost everyone in the last couple miles. He was closing like mad on Alistair Cragg (multiple-time NCAA track champion, future 7:38i NCAA record and 13:03 guy as a pro), finishing just a second behind.

After sitting out his entire sophomore year due to injury, Ritz returns to CC midway through fall 2003 and ends up winning NCAA, outkicking Ryan Hall over the last 400m. Then in track he debuts at 10,000m in 27:38. Ritz goes pro some time that summer. So in 2 NCAA CC championships, he was 4th and 1st.

Nothing against Simon Bairu, but it’s highly likely Ritz would have won the next two years as well had he stayed at CU and was injury-free.

Looks like he was beaten by Tom Brady and Brendan Fraser, celebrities who are both well into their 40s and have virtually no experience with distance running. Sad.

Wonder how many guys ahead of him have run sub faster than his 1:48.07 800 PR