Dartmouth runner Randall wins NCAA 10k...

wow, that's sick. he's only a junior too? that bodes well for their coming xc season. i'm assuming he also runs outdoors?

biggie smallz wrote:

wow, that's sick. he's only a junior too? that bodes well for their coming xc season. i'm assuming he also runs outdoors?

So he's better than Ben True at skiing?

Can someone link to the results?

Will this be the nail in the coffin that causes True to start running full-time for good or does he still have a shot at the Olympics in skiing?

From what I understand Ben thinks he takes running very seriously but that is hard to do when you are running like 6 months a year and running not very many miles. The guy is a truly one of a kind incredible talent (think Rupp without Salazar) and I'd love to see him run full time. I don't think he realizes how good he is at running or to run seriously you need to do it full time because when he runs I'm sure he takes it seriously. But I too thought I took running seriously when I was in high school and couldn't do much more. Meanwhile I was running like 40 miles a week.

But he may enjoy just doing both sports and that is fine with me but I think he is limiting himself as a runner.

Don't they also have another runner who skis? Middleton maybe? How did he do?

Ben True is currently on the US junior national ski team. He raced in the under 23 world championships in Italy and had some decent results. He keeps a blog of his training on a site called fasterskier.com It's pretty interesting. Earlier this year he overtrained and took about 10 days completely off.

He definitely has a shot at the olympics in cross country skiing. It's kind of a long shot at this point but in 3-4 years he could be among the best in the country. I would say that it is easier to qualify for the olympics in skiing that running because there are so much fewer elite competitors. Training at an elite level in nordic skiing is much more time consuming than elite level running.

He has written that he would like to continue to do both sports. I would say that he has more potential ultimately in nordic skiing.

An interesting side note about male nordic skiers is that they tend to run their fastest PR's when they are younger. As you get older and train more, you put on more muscle mass and tend to not tailor your running to be able to run fast on the flats.

Here's a link to the results. The classic technique race is on friday. Glenn Randall had an amazing day. He beat guys that are on other countries national teams.

http://www.eisaskiing.org/BART/Results08/ncaa08.htm

Results from the NCAA Skiing Championships:

http://www.eisaskiing.org/BART/Results08/ncaa08.htm

Today was the skate technique races, 5k for women and 10k for men. Friday is the classic technique races, 15k for women and 20k for men. Based on the times, I'm thinking this was either a very tough course (long?) or the snow conditions were very slow.

Wejo, no disrespect meant by what I'm about to write, but what you wrote about Ben True is what I'd expect from some of the more negative elements of this message board, not you. Ben is taking the year off from Dartmouth to train for skiing full time out west, so he did not compete in today's race. At least he's been out of school all year so far, I have no idea if he's starting up at Dartmouth in the spring and will be running Outdoor Track. From what I have heard he will be back at Dartmouth next year to run XC and ski on the Nordic team. Dartmouth's ski team is loaded, they won NCAA's last year and are one of the favorites this year. Off that, Ben has an NCAA title on his resume. Regardless of what you feel his potential is as a runner, being part of a team that wins an NCAA title has got to be one of the best feelings for an athlete of his age.

To answer your third question, the jury is still out on his chances to make the next Winter Olympics. He certainly had little chance to make the US team for this year's Summer Olympics. With the next Winter Olympics just 2 years away in 2010 I'm sure that looked like a more realistic path to follow, if that's his goal (I have no idea).

Only time will tell if being a multi-sport athlete will hinder True's long-term running (or skiing) results. There are certainly examples of running/skiing combo athletes achieving world class success in one or both sports (Ingrid Kristiansen immediately comes to mind), so maybe it's not out of the question that True will develop to the top level in both sports.

Back to the topic at hand...Kudo's to Glenn Randall for a great race out in Montana today! The western and the NMU skiers have dominated the podiums in recent years, so very nice to see an eastern racer get a title.

Answers;

True is set to return to Hanover to start training, the earliest he has ever started running for spring track in his Dartmouth career.

Randall will run the 10k this spring, he should probably be a low 30 min guy this year.

Randall is probably just as good at that discipline of skiing as True is...the course was very hilly and at altitude, hence the slow times.

http://dartmouthsports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=11600&ATCLID=1405509

pretty funny quote from Randall: "It's a really tough course with long, grinding uphills. I happen to like long, grinding uphills."

First off, I don't think anything wejo said was that negative ben running for 4 months from march til june he has run 3:40 in the 1500 and probably if he had more strength work and base he could run 13:40's. From what I understand he was not out west all year training for skiing. I heard he came back to Dartmouth because the air quality with all the fires out west was pretty bad. I understand to take a semester off and train and want to be apart of an ncaa team championship. Wejos point was he is not even the best on his team. Let alone the country. He thinks that he is much more talented in running and on a national scale than in skiing. It's hard to really be at the top of your level in two sports. It's amazing how much better one would get training in one sport year round whether you think so or not and getting a great base to work with for either skiing or running. Want to make the olympics? Id say pick one and go full force, not both

Interesting stat, Glenn Randall ran for Palisade High School in Colorado and placed 9th in FL MW a few years ago, just 1 spot shy of the finals.

Last year at NCAA's True beat Randall by 48 seconds in the 10k free race and by 1:55 in the 20k classic race.

In 2006 True beat Randall by 1:25 in the 10k classic race and Randall beat True by 4:02 in the 20k free race.

In the first 3 races noted above, True was the top skier out of the 3 who competed for Dartmouth. He was also their top skier for the team in both races at NCAA's as a freshman in 2005.

Just saying, IMO Wejo is uninformed on this one. Anybody Dartmouth sends to NCAA's is a great skier. It's like comparing McDougal to Rupp and saying McDougal is better because he beat Rupp at NCAA's last fall. On any given day one can beat the other. Out of all the EISA schools, I think Dartmouth was the only school who qualified more Nordic skiers for NCAA's than they could send. Having coached against those guys for 7 years now, they really are a great example of "on any given day".

?? wrote:

From what I understand he was not out west all year training for skiing. I heard he came back to Dartmouth because the air quality with all the fires out west was pretty bad.

Ben was only back on the east coast for less than two months, (because of the fires) and part of that time was spent at the Olympic training center at Lake Placid, none of it at Dartmouth. He was back out west by early November.

A lot of his training out west last summer was strength work (long sessions of biking, swimming, roller skiing) so it probably didn't really hurt his running.

As far as the 'pick one' vibe goes- that's what he did this year. After spending three years doing both, he pretty much 'picked one'- skiing, and focused solely on it from June '07 to March '08, to see how that big of a block of time would work out. Now he will focus on track through July/August, then finish out his career at Dartmouth. At that point you will probably see him pick one sport and focus on it entirely for multiple years.

D2coach is right in stating it's like comparing Rupp and McDougal- or a better allegory would be Lincoln and Cragg at Arkansas a few years back- they have different strengths in different events. Should Lincoln have stopped running the 5k because Cragg beat him? Of course not. Hence, True has no reason to stop skiing just because Randall can beat him. If he decides running is a better fit, than that is a reason to stop skiing. In time he will make that decision.

Thanks for the explanations.

Perhaps I didn't make it clear in my post, if he enjoys doing both sports and that makes him happiest that is fine with me. I wasn't trying to be too negative. My main point was that I just don't think he has come anywhere near his potential in running and I'm not sure he realizes this. I heard stories of him skiing all winter, running a week and then running a 3:46, yet thinking he is maxed out in what he can achieve in running.

I think a good comparison is Galen Rupp. Rupp basically has taken the exact opposite approach from True. 110% running. As professional at running as someone can be while in high school and college. Yet I don't see much differences between him and True in terms of talent except for the fact that True has shown himself to have better leg speed than Galen. I think the potential is there for him to run like Galen and that opens up a lot of doors financially that don't seem to exist in skiing (but I know nothing about skiing as indicated by my questions in this thread). But Galen is seen by a lot of people on here as the future of American running and based on their high school times and the limited training of True, I don't see a significant advantage in talent for either one of them.