central michigan

C.M.U. finished 20th in 1998 (and were ranked as high as 14th after upsetting many teams at Pre-nats that year). They won the conference in 1999 and have had a couple re-building years, including last year, in which 3 of their top 5 red-shirted (and they lost their top guy during the season last year to MONO).

I think they have a bunch of ineligible over aged foreigners on EPO. Yeah...thats it. They have to be doing drugs.

They would have been good last year but they sat out 4 guys. They should be even better next year.

Back in my day CMU had a guy named Jeff Drenth. Same age, and not much better than I as a freshman (I was at BGSU). By the time he graduated he had a Nike contract and a bright future, but sadly, well, I'm sure 98 Teammate knows the rest of the story.

Yes, CMU has been around despite the fact you've never heard of them.

i find it kinda funny that now that cmu has run great at two big meets in a row and shocked alot of "big name" schools that people start accusing it as "shady". whenever a stanford or michigan or arkansas team does great nobody says anything...but then a group of kids recruited from high schools in michigan shows their talent and people question it. FYI...jake flynn and tristen pearlberg were pretty good in high school...flynn ran 4:14 and was a footlocker finalist and pearlberg ran 9:18 for 3200...so they are quite capable of their showing at pre-nats.

furthermore, craig fuller has a bit of history of developing athletes who were semi-good in high school and turning them into good athletes on the national scale. all american trasformations for CMU from MI high schools include: barry deese (XC all-american '94) from a 9:30 two miler, richie brinker (9:50 in hs) to XC two time all american and 1x 10k all american and current 28:35 guy, ryan watson (9:20 hs) to XC all american '98, and jeff delong (1:53 hs) to 2x all american at 800m and current 1:46.2 half miler.

before you go accusing CMU of being "shady" for being good with a team of kids from michigan, lets remember some other runners who werent quite yet superstars from michigan high schools...brian hyde (4:12 hs) to 3:35 1500m, paul mcmullen (4:19, 1:55 hs) to 3:33 and 1:45, ryan shay (class D high school 9:25) to NCAA 10k champ and 28:30, jordan desilets (4:15 hs) to 8:31 steeple as a soph, need i go on? not all success in life is determined by high school superstardom! so lets all just race and leave accusations out of it! go chips!

I am officially jumping on the Central Michigan bandwagon. Does anyone know what kind of training they do? Mileage and intensity? I am curious. Thanks in advance.