Derrick vs Fernandez vs Puskedra vs Cabral vs Lowe

sjc wrote:

chris derrick ran 1352 on the illinois state course which is at least equal to if not better than craig virgin's 1349 which was .03 miles shorter. virgin was every bit the runner davis was if not better in his own right. its going to be a great race for sure but no one is running away with it by 20 seconds.

seriously.

Fair enough. I'm just trying to talk 'feelings' here. You have to see German run, in person... not necessarily the numbers...

However if you do talk numbers, Virgin is/was a great runner but would his path in hs take him to FLN the same way Davis' did?

drunk runner wrote:

sjc wrote:

chris derrick ran 1352 on the illinois state course which is at least equal to if not better than craig virgin's 1349 which was .03 miles shorter. virgin was every bit the runner davis was if not better in his own right. its going to be a great race for sure but no one is running away with it by 20 seconds.

seriously.

I agree. Not to mention that Virgin was a 2-TIME WORLD CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPION.

But was he FLN champ?

didn't virgin run in the National cc for elites in high school? I thought I seen that posted before and that he did well.

Fernandez will win in San Diego. People outside of california dont know how an amazing run that was yesterday in fresno. Theres only been a few who have broken 15 on the course, and German almost broke 14!!! He went through the 2mile mark in 9:12...and yes the hilliest mile is the 2nd one. So German for the win for sure.

who is this CA guy? Never heard of him before yesterday. Does he have a legit shot at 8:36 next spring?

You should have stuck with not giving spelling lessons. "Effect" is the correct spelling in this context.

jollyjogger wrote:

Theres only been a few who have broken 15 on the course, and German almost broke 14!!!

I thought his time of 14:22 yesterday was his fastest. When did he almost break 14?

german ftw wrote:

But was he FLN champ?

He graduated before FLN was started.

when was that? wrote:

jollyjogger wrote:

Theres only been a few who have broken 15 on the course, and German almost broke 14!!!

I thought his time of 14:22 yesterday was his fastest. When did he almost break 14?

Exactly, 14:24 is "not almost breaking 14". He will be a contender come FLN but giving him the title is dumb. As for Virgin, I don't think they had a high school national championship when he was running. Derrick is a stud and you should also know that anything can happen in a race, who would have thought Withrow could beat the big names of McDougal and Kiptoo a few years ago? Who would have thought Evan Jager wouldn't even make it out of Regionals last year?

Mike Fout!

im not sure how you can not even give colby lowe a shot at nationals. I was at the regional on saturday...and it was a sight to see. His kick looked completely effortless as he pulled away from Hill coming around the lake.

I would just like to say that 15:09 at Vanny is unbelievable since 15:50's there have made it to footlocker.

The people saying that others have it in the bag really haven't watched or payed attention to cross country much in their lives, have they?

german ftw wrote:

Fair enough. I'm just trying to talk 'feelings' here. You have to see German run, in person... not necessarily the numbers...

However if you do talk numbers, Virgin is/was a great runner but would his path in hs take him to FLN the same way Davis' did?

Have you ever seen the other runners run in person?

How do you know Fernandez will duplicate a similar race in another 2 weeks?

Not sure how long you've been following the sport, so I'll give you the most recent name I can think of for this type of situation...Evan Jager.

No disrespect meant at all for Evan, but he was touted as a potential FLN champion and did not make it out of regionals.

There's a chance he'll win, but it'll be even better once his ticket is insured.

Exactly, 14:24 is "not almost breaking 14". He will be a contender come FLN but giving him the title is dumb. As for Virgin, I don't think they had a high school national championship when he was running. Derrick is a stud and you should also know that anything can happen in a race, who would have thought Withrow could beat the big names of McDougal and Kiptoo a few years ago? Who would have thought Evan Jager wouldn't even make it out of Regionals last year?[/quote]

OK ok..he did not almost break 14...for some odd reason I had 14:12 in my mind (it was late when I posted) but none the less, 14:24 on woodwards course is mind boggling! I still say he wins FL by a good size margin.

Just in case some don't know this,

The previous 5k Woodward Park course record was previously 14:38, held by Marc Davis, and ran in 1986. So Fernandez beat Davis' 21 year old course record by 14 seconds. That's amazing. I don't know what other PR's Davis ran in high school, but his lifetime bests are 3:36, 8:14(steeple), and 13:24. I wonder what direction Fernandez sees himself going in as far as college choices.

Ritzenhein ran a 5k course record 14:29 in Florida at the then-and-there FLN course, which is flatter and faster, I believe, than the Woodward course. Then he went on to run 13:44 the following summer. I wonder if Fernandez has any desire to try and run a fast 5000m on the track in later spring/early summer of 2008.

german ftw wrote:

I agree. Not to mention that Virgin was a 2-TIME WORLD CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPION.

But was he FLN champ?

as others pointed out, virgin was running before therewas a kinney or footlocker national HS x-c race. Don't know if there was some other national HS race or not. or what Virgin (or if he even ran in ) world jr's, BUT....he ran a national HS record two mile of 8:40, so, clearly he was every bit as good (and probably better) than Marc Davis was in HS.

besides just breaking davis's record, german ran considerably faster than about 7 other kinney/footlocker national champions, and at least 2 more olympians. This would be incredible if another californian boy won footlocker for the 3rd year running

A lot can change in two weeks. For the athletes that chose to peak for FL regionals then two weeks won't matter (and will help if they chose to peak for FL nats) but for some of these kids that peaked for their state meet three weeks ago...

That said, based on Fernandez's performance yesterday, it's his race to lose right now.

If NTN didn't exist I'd say Derrick could maybe challenge but I think by the time December 8th rolls around he'll just plain have raced too hard, too often.