Parker Valby and hIlls? Has she ever run a hilly xc course in her life? How did she do?

We've literally heard it a hundred times already that Tuohy put as much on Chelangat in the last 1k of a 5k as Valby put on Chelangat in a 6k. But Valby just put twice as much, 18 seconds on Chelangat, in a 6k. Tuohy could have been sandbagging all season. We all saw that dominant close in the NCAA 5000m last year. But Valby has run the greatest pre-NCAA xc season we have seen on the women's side and I think that she is going to crush the field. Low temperatures don't matter. When you have been training in the Florida heat and humidity all season and you get to run in cool or even cold weather, you feel like you can run for hours without getting tired. When I go up to run New York, the lack of heat and humidity more than makes up for the hills. I think she's going to romp tomorrow.

Saturday actually. Better just to jog the course tomorrow than to hammer.

Way to crack the code.

She has never ever ran a hill in her entire life.

Dude. Bama was pack running at regionals and not going fast. Even the announcers called that out during the broadcast.

But if you watched the race Valby took off early and no one saw any reason to react to her. Because in a regional a week before nationals there was not any. And Valby has no effect on the team race. The Alabama runners all came in together. It was like Howell not being chased down by Roe and Cook at their regional. Valby's mo is to attack 1k in. Other runners are waiting for the final 1-2 k.

If Valby suddenly so strong she can now run and hide from the rest of the field, then she will win. If not, she wont.

Tuohy is battle tested long story short!

You don't need to run hills to run fast on hills. It's all quad and glute strength/endurance. I've seen casual runners who mainly do tons of stairs, squat variations and weighted bridges drop into trail runs for fun and keep up with people that can run 5k's several minutes faster than them.

Compare the times Tuohy put on the FSU runners (Van den Berg and Churchill) at ACCs versus what Valby did at Regionals. Tuohy's beat them by about 20-25 seconds more than Valby.

I believe that there are some studies on hill adaptation that indicate adaptation in runners can occur with even just a single hill session a couple weeks before a race. It would not be hard for someone that is billed as potentially winning the NCAAs to drive up to GA for a couple weekends and get some hill training in. There are also other options such as parking decks, stadiums, or just the stairwells in some apartment complex. The bigger challenge might just be the unfamiliarty of what sort of pace to run for the hills up and down. Not a 1:1 correlation but i recall Zach Miller winning JFK after doing the vast majority of his training on a cruise ship.

If people actually believe Solinksky is a good coach then of course she is being prepped to run on hills.

Plenty of good runners from midwest, TX and other flat areas.

People from "flat" areas don't know what hills are.
As a related example- there was a group in Atlanta.

They had heat index tables- basically you input your, say, 5K time and the temp and humidity and they calculated what it would be if it were perfect conditions.

I asked if they had anything for cold weather (I had just run a 5K in NY State with a temp of 13* and windchill below 0).

His response was- cold weather makes you faster.

Clearly this guy from Atlanta had never experienced sub 0 windchills.

Florida hills (says my transplanted friend) are flat segments in NY.
Having said all that- I think Parker will handle the hills well because she is a very good runner and Kaitlyn will win.

Gainesville Rail Trail - pretty darn hilly.

PV will B AOK

Now Valby's been destroying course records and running unheard of xc times, while Tuohy's been merely running well and winning. Chelangat extended herself more against Valby than any other opponent at that point in the season. But if you really want to compare them to their competition in a rigorous way, to the extent that you can in a sport where some won't even put it all on the line once until nationals, look at the LACCTIC rankings. That has Valby #1 by a long ways, 21 seconds up for 5k in 15:01 over the 15:22 it grants both Chelangat in 2nd and Tuohy in 3rd. Valby's range prediction is from 14:53 to 15:11, which doesn't even overlap with that of Chelangat and Tuohy (both 15:14-15:32). NC State's ranked #1, at 15:41 avg, with Alabama and New Mexico 2nd and 3rd in 15:47 and then OK State in 4th in 15:50 avg.

Hill adaptation, at least to some degree, occurs very rapidly. My best example was from four days in Salt Lake City at a conference after living in NYC, which has significant hills in Central Park. So, I was used to running what passes for hills in NYC, including the 400m hill on the upper part of the West side of the park. On day one from downtown Salt Lake City, I ran 40 minutes up toward the nearest mountain and then back down. I came nowhere near the top. Day two, I got much farther. By day four, I got to the top of the nearby section of the mountain. Back in NYC, the Central Park hills felt like nothing. So, there was very rapid hill acclimation.

Last time lacctic misjudged McCabe's placement by 31 places. It isn't a nimble rating.

Tuohy broke Weini Kelati's 5k course record at Piane by 12 seconds.

Yes, we can all see that Touhy has just been running well and winning, you are right. Literally no one thinks she has gone to the well.

I do. That is how she injured herself last week. Dig deep and injuries happen. She will be luck t finish tomorrow.

There is another thread saying all the same things. In the past it was the Covid and Trump threads but now we're discussing what's really important.