I watched Croghan win the Ohio boys CC state championship when he was a senior, and I remember thinking he didn't seem all that excited about it.
Considering his high school PRs were ONLY 4:12 and 9:20 on the track (decent of course, but these days tons of high school runners do better than that), it's amazing what he turned himself into.
When he ran 8:45 in 1989 I was pretty surprised. A year later he was down to 8:22 and placing second at the U.S. Championships to Diemer and the rest is history.
Close, he ran 8:25 in 1990 when he broke through at TAC nationals.
It was the next year at NCAA's that he ran 8:22 at NCAAs. He was a relentless front runner, and I remember thinking at the time that this guy was going to step big time in the steeple. Little did I know he was going to drop down to 8:10 within a month!
Marc Davis wrote:
I was a better runner because of guys like him in the sport. I still tell the story of when Croghan ran 3:39 one night, and made me realize I took for granted the times I sat on him.
MD
So, tell the story? Was that the same night you beat Skah in the two mile? Is there a video of that race? I'd love to see it. I agree with the other poster in this thread, beating Skah was a major accomplishment.
While Marsh was the extreme case, very few steepelchasers are high mileage runners. Why would they need to be, it's only a 3000m race, not a 30,000m race.
I ran in the same race as him in college at the All-Ohio cross country championships. I think it was 1989. I was "only" about three minutes behind him. I considered that pretty good.