2026 BROOKS PR Invite Official Discussion Thread

What are the matchups people are most excited about?

Do we think the runners who ran at Festival of Miles will be impacted by the travel to St Louis, fast mile race, then travel to Seattle? Seems like last year the kids who did both largely ran slower at Brooks (Brooks last year was run quickly with a time trial type race and the winner going wire to wire)

I'll take a stab at this -

Girls 2 Mile - Bartlett has raced sparingly this outdoor season... Dudek is the face of Brooks' NIL program so will be great to see how she races. Fastest average time ever for a championship 2 mile race in America, but we know not all will be on their game. I'm saying 9:48 winning time.

Boys 2 Mile - first race that Mantecon is the clear favorite. Coming off HOKA performance, he will be motivated. Horton and Leonard will be fun to watch. Also fastest ever 2 Mile average ever. Winning time 8:41.

Girls 400m - Dumas is in this race... PR of 51.87. She's starting to come into form. Can she pull it off over specialists? Can't believe she's almost as fast as Keely Hodgkinson.

Boys 800m Junior - fun to watch Cashton Martinez run.. 1:55 as an 8th grader is no joke. Gummer Hammet will give him a run.

Girls 800m - could be the highlight of the meet if Combe has recovered from HOKA. Rematch from the controversial Arcadia 800m. Sheppard loves to run competitors out to lanes 2-3-4 in the final stretch. This could be a great one. 2:02 winning time.

Girls Mile Junior - the Angelina Alder show. What can she do? Stacked field, most sub-5:00 performers in a middle school in American history. I think it gets tactical 4:42 winning time, putting pressure on Girls Freshman and Championship Mile. Maybe Alders can win both as the Championship Mile lacking star power.

Boys Mile Junior - Luke Surface show. Expect a solo run after 1000m. 4:22 winning time.

Boys Freshman Mile - Lanese should be in the Championship Mile. The way he's been progressing and looking, not sure Ritz can give him a challenge. I see a great finish from Lanese, like a 2:00 last 800m close. 4:06 winning time.

Boys Mile - I hope they get great weather. Beroset, Culpepper, Hassan, all sniffed sub-4 at HOKA and want to get it here.. Burns will be in the mix, but who's going to be the most motivated, as all raced earlier in the week. Winning time 4:02.1

I would have said the same about Lanese vs Ritz. But Ritz ran a lot faster than he did a few days ago @ HOKA.

When did Ritz run a lot faster than Lanese? Lanese ran a 4:04.5 last week in a championship race. Ritz ran a 4:06.3 in a time trial.

My bad, mixed up Lanese and Nauman (who ran 4:11.4 at HOKA)

Girls 2 Mile - Bartlett has raced sparingly this outdoor season... Dudek is the face of Brooks' NIL program so will be great to see how she races. Fastest average time ever for a championship 2 mile race in America, but we know not all will be on their game. I'm saying 9:48 winning time.

I am predicting Bartlett with a hard fought win with a time of :9:38.75

Girls 2 mile - Bartlett always races "sparingly" because her private school is not part of the normal NJ meets. If Bartlett is healthy she and Mia Sirois should pull away from the field and finish 1-2 (in whichever order) by at least 5 seconds over the 3rd place girl. I'm going to guess that the winning time will be around 9:43.

Girls 400 - Dumas's 400 PR is actually 51.14, not 51.87. (Brooks PR doesn't always get everyone's PR correct.) Dumas has the same exact PR in the 400 as Keely Hodgkinson's PR of 51.14.

Girls 800 - Sheppard is a better racer than Combe, who races sloppy. Combe often has a too slow first 10 meters, doesn't always get her pace right, makes moves at the wrong time, and sometimes runs wide around the turns for no good reason. Combe gets away with it in most of her meets because she is usually in much better shape than the other girls in the race. But when Combe is competing against top runners like Sheppard or Lincoln, Combe's racing flaws hurt her.

I think that Sheppard will win in a much bigger margin than in their Arcadia race.

Girls Junior Mile - Angie Alder should run away with this one. I wouldn't be surprised if she runs sub 4:40.

Only a 7th grader, Alder's 4:40.98 mile PR is almost as fast as Ellery Lincoln's 9th grade PR of 4:40.75, and we all know how talented Ellery Lincoln is. In fact, Alder, who just turned 13 years old a few weeks ago, is fast enough to be in the World U20 Championships, but they won't let her enter because she isn't old enough.

For some reason Angie's teammate Susan Hedengren does not appear to be racing at Brooks PR this year.

Girls Mile - The top girls milers are not in this race. But out of the girls who are entered, I think that Kaitlyn Estep and Lilly Alder are the co-favorites.

Brooks is so excited about Jaelyn Williams' return to racing that they entered her twice in the mile. But I don't think that Jaelyn or her twin will be able to win their first race in 3 months.

I thought that Williams would enter the 2 mile to give her an idea of what shape she's in for that distance considering the fact that she's entered in both the 3k and the 5k at the USATF U20 championships. It's possible that Williams realizes that coming off of a long layoff she can't be competitive at this meet, so she figured she would rather lose the mile by 5 seconds than lose the 2 mile by 15 seconds.

This meat used to always have a free stream until flow track . That's terrible

Relax cheapo. The "meat" is being streamed for FREE!

Apparently Lanese has asked for four flat wave lights. Seems like a stretch but should make for an exciting race to watch

Sorry this meet to a stupid PR fake event

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

What's the weather update? I'm seeing 64 and Sunny? So a bit "chilly?" or we good?

Low fifties right now with minimal wind. Feels slightly chilly. Looks likely to hit the forecast of low to mid sixties with some sun and no wind. Good weather for distance races (unless maybe the sunny state kids?). Not ideal for sprints.

Surprisingly difficult run for Blair Bartlett, 4th place

Sirois for a Golden Ticket!😮

Very surprising result by Dailey FTW.

After all her talk about facing off against Braelyn Combe and beating her in the mile in a sub-4:30. Then her 4:42 on Thursday at HOKA FoM.

However, this race & her CA State 3200 win show where her best talents lie.

9:49 2-mile vs. future teammate Hanne Thomsen's 3rd place 10:00 at last year's meet. And Thomsen was a top-5 runner all season last fall for Stanford's 6th place xc team.

With Dailey, Bharadwaj, Williams, and a New Zealand recruit enrolling this fall, looking good on the Farm for the women's team.

many HS athletes can benefit from moving up in distance. Dailey's kick isn't anything special for milers, but the turnover difference between her and Sirois was night and day.

Dailey's only issue is that she doesn't like distances longer than 1 mile. But at the college level, the coach is going to put you in the distance where you can score the most points, regardless if it's your favorite distance or not.

I think that Sirois best distance is 5k not 2 mile. She should do very well this fall in xc.