Laurie Henes Interview says Katelyn wouldnt want to tell people she’s sick

Parker didn't go out too fast and crash in the last K. She finished in 3:10; actually held her pace quite well.

Doris closed on her cuz she had a lot left and finished really fast, not cuz Parker badly slowed.

Parker's performance was absolutely brilliant, and shouldn't be diminished, but yeah, the idea that KT had no shot at beating her is really stupid.

One data point: As brilliant as Parker's run was, Markezich was only 15 seconds back, and lots of others were 30-40 seconds off.

Maatoug, Ramsden, Reiss, Frentheway, Larkin were all ~35-40 seconds back of Parker, and Katelyn has generally been 30-40 seconds faster than all those girls --as she was at Nuttycombe.

If KT's healthy Saturday, it probably would've been very close --like those of us with a healthy brain thought it probably would be.

(Of course this does not apply to the demented idiots responsible for most posts on LR.)

sp2 wrote:

Thanks. You piqued my curiosity, so I took a closer look at the splits.

The big variance was all in the 1st K and 5th K.

They all went out real fast and did the 1st in ~ 2:55, so that's a wash.

And they all slowed a lot in the 5th K (which I think was the second time up the big hill, so understandable), but less for Parker, Lemngole, and Markezich. They were about 3:20, while everyone else faded to 3:25-3:30.

Basically, Parker held 3:10 pace really well through the race, except for the 1st K (downhill), which was fast for all, and the 5th, where they all slowed (uphill), but she slowed a lot less than the pack.

Then Doris, Markezich, and (amazingly) Tuohy clawed back a little on her in the last K, but nowhere near enough.

So from 1K to 3K, where she put 20 seconds on the whole field, it wasn't her pushing harder --she just held her avg pace really well, while everyone else slowed a lot.
Very interesting, since that's almost the whole difference in the race.

Basically, everyone else felt the need to pull it way back for those 2K, after the blazing opener, while she just held rock-steady at ~3:10.

Yeah, I really hope we get to see them both at BU. If they're both healthy and rested, I'd expect them both to push 15, and maybe even get under.

rbtrackfan wrote:

sp2 wrote:

Thanks. You piqued my curiosity, so I took a closer look at the splits.

The big variance was all in the 1st K and 5th K.

They all went out real fast and did the 1st in ~ 2:55, so that's a wash.

And they all slowed a lot in the 5th K (which I think was the second time up the big hill, so understandable), but less for Parker, Lemngole, and Markezich. They were about 3:20, while everyone else faded to 3:25-3:30.

Basically, Parker held 3:10 pace really well through the race, except for the 1st K (downhill), which was fast for all, and the 5th, where they all slowed (uphill), but she slowed a lot less than the pack.

Then Doris, Markezich, and (amazingly) Tuohy clawed back a little on her in the last K, but nowhere near enough.

So from 1K to 3K, where she put 20 seconds on the whole field, it wasn't her pushing harder --she just held her avg pace really well, while everyone else slowed a lot.
Very interesting, since that's almost the whole difference in the race.

Basically, everyone else felt the need to pull it way back for those 2K, after the blazing opener, while she just held rock-steady at ~3:10.

Yeah, I really hope we get to see them both at BU. If they're both healthy and rested, I'd expect them both to push 15, and maybe even get under.

1K to 3K (actually ~1.5 K) has the hills the first time and 3K (actually ~3.4 K) to 4K has them the second time in the reverse direction. 4K to 5K has no big hills I recall, just some gradual ups and downs.

sp2 wrote:

rbtrackfan wrote:

1K to 3K (actually ~1.5 K) has the hills the first time and 3K (actually ~3.4 K) to 4K has them the second time in the reverse direction. 4K to 5K has no big hills I recall, just some gradual ups and downs.

You pretty sure? I couldn't find an elevation profile, but it looked on the map like the 2nd and 5th were mostly uphill.

In any case, it's a bad misinterpretation to say she went out crazy fast and then faded badly. That's not even close to what happened.
It's XC Nattys: it's almost always gonna be a substantial positive-split, since everyone goes out like a rocket to try and get position, and then everyone's naturally gonna slow some in the 2nd half.

They all went out fast, and only she was able to hold pace quite well the rest of the way.

(And only 3 had enough left to gain anything on her in the last K, and only 1 of those got more than a couple seconds.)

rbtrackfan wrote:

sp2 wrote:

You pretty sure? I couldn't find an elevation profile, but it looked on the map like the 2nd and 5th were mostly uphill.

In any case, it's a bad misinterpretation to say she went out crazy fast and then faded badly. That's not even close to what happened.
It's XC Nattys: it's almost always gonna be a substantial positive-split, since everyone goes out like a rocket to try and get position, and then everyone's naturally gonna slow some in the 2nd half.

They all went out fast, and only she was able to hold pace quite well the rest of the way.

(And only 3 had enough left to gain anything on her in the last K, and only 1 of those got more than a couple seconds.)

1K to 1.5K and 3.5K to 4K are basically the same stretch run in opposite directions. 4K to 5K is kind of the reverse of the first 1K with a little more rolling ups and downs. The sharp ups and downs are in the other 500 m stretch.

sp2 wrote:

rbtrackfan wrote:

1K to 3K (actually ~1.5 K) has the hills the first time and 3K (actually ~3.4 K) to 4K has them the second time in the reverse direction. 4K to 5K has no big hills I recall, just some gradual ups and downs.

You pretty sure? I couldn't find an elevation profile, but it looked on the map like the 2nd and 5th were mostly uphill.

In any case, it's a bad misinterpretation to say she went out crazy fast and then faded badly. That's not even close to what happened.
It's XC Nattys: it's almost always gonna be a substantial positive-split, since everyone goes out like a rocket to try and get position, and then everyone's naturally gonna slow some in the 2nd half.

They all went out fast, and only she was able to hold pace quite well the rest of the way.

(And only 3 had enough left to gain anything on her in the last K, and only 1 of those got more than a couple seconds.)

Blank231. wrote:

sp2 wrote:

You pretty sure? I couldn't find an elevation profile, but it looked on the map like the 2nd and 5th were mostly uphill.

In any case, it's a bad misinterpretation to say she went out crazy fast and then faded badly. That's not even close to what happened.
It's XC Nattys: it's almost always gonna be a substantial positive-split, since everyone goes out like a rocket to try and get position, and then everyone's naturally gonna slow some in the 2nd half.

They all went out fast, and only she was able to hold pace quite well the rest of the way.

(And only 3 had enough left to gain anything on her in the last K, and only 1 of those got more than a couple seconds.)

That is why I looked at the 3k/ 3k, so you could get a good comparison between amongst the runners for first half / second half positive split. It is interesting to consider. Perhaps Lemnegole could have pushed herself even harder early on, for example.

PV had a slower final 2k than Markezich or Lemnegole:

PV - 6:31, DL - 6:22, OM - 6:26, KT - 6:33

sp2 wrote:

Yeah, but almost all of that was in the last K --and, again, it wasn't her *slowing*, it was that those two (and KT) were the only girls with enough left to really kick.

What would've been fascinating to see is how Tuohy would've played it if she was 100%.

Would she have let Parker put 20 freaking seconds on the field, and then hoped to hunt her all the way down in the last 2K? Or would she have felt she had to at least keep it closer, even if she had to leave the chase pack early on to do it?
My guess is she probably would've let her go initially, but then felt she had to start moving in the 3rd K --when she probably had people yelling that 'she's 12 seconds up.'
Which is to say that it would've looked a hell of a lot like last year's race.

I don't know if she would've gotten her, but I think it would've been really close, and might've been one of the great battles of all time.

Very sad we didn't quite get the chance to see that --though obviously it was a fantastic race anyway.