DII Nationals at Spokane

The guy from Eastern New Mexico who was 2nd in their region has run in the 29:30's or 29:40's. You can't just go off of last year's national results. Laban was in the 40's in XC, but he was top 5 in track. Rop was in the 20's in XC last year, but may win this year. You need at least 3 per region to make it serious.

What ever happened to that crazy Irish guy who goes to Western? Surely they would win with him on the team.

Western fan wrote:

What ever happened to that crazy Irish guy who goes to Western? Surely they would win with him on the team.

David Flynn could not pass his classes is why he isn't running, fact.

Here are my men's predictions, anyone care to jump in?

Adams State Central

Western State Central

Grand Valley State Midwest

Cal State-Chico West

Colorado Mines Central

Augustana (S.D.) Central

Alaska-Anchorage West

Edinboro Atlantic

Eastern New Mexico South Central

Southern Indiana Midwest

East Central South Central

Queens (N.C.) Southeast

Colorado-Colorado Springs Central

Lock Haven Atlantic

Massachusetts-Lowell East

Metro State Central

Ashland Midwest

Stonehill East

Western Oregon West

Western Washington West

Shippensburg Atlantic

Mount Olive Southeast

Alabama-Huntsville South

Tampa South

Keep in mind that this is a time consuming process as it is, so I try to make it as simple as possible, I look at how an entire region did at nationals last year and determine how deep I should go in that region. Obviously, this is prone to errors.

SOUTH CENTRAL - It does appear that Sialo is better than last years XC nats results give him credit for which might make that region a little stronger than I perceived. The same appears to be true about both Moberly and Volkert as well, which further added to the issue in that region. I will add a few guys from that region to the list. One thing I will say is that 90% of the time the last All-American is within a minute of the winner. So if you are a minute back in your region, and you think you're AA, you better hope the national champ is coming out of your region. So to the ENMU guy who guaranteed 3 AAs, keep in mind that even if Sialo wins, which is a stretch, your second and third guys were 70 and 80 seconds behind him. With similar depth to last year neither make the top 50.

WEST - The same thinking applies to the West region, assume Chelimo wins nationals, you've only got 8 guys in the region within a minute of him. But to make people happy I will add a few there as well. And I've been told that Tyler Cannon needs to be added despite an awful race at regionals.

SOUTHEAST - The top 2 guys in this region were 64th and 129th at nationals last year. Granted the 5th guy in the region was 60th last year. Still, I have a hard time seeing one AA from the southeast, let alone many or any top 10 guys. But if people really want to pick some Queens guys in the top 10, I'm not gonna stop them, so I'll add some more.

Contest should be up later today.

Is Flynn still attending Western state? Shame to see the steeple U team fall apart.

I added the people I said I would add and submitted it to wejo. I'm guessing it will be up later today.

I also added Justin Netcher to the options so you can vote for yourself to be in the top 10, too.

D2 Rocks wrote:

Is Flynn still attending Western state? Shame to see the steeple U team fall apart.

David Flynn is back in his native Ireland, he failed a few classes.

Anyone know if D2 Nationals is going to be streamed online? I checked Flotrack and couldn't find any info on it there.

Forecast should make for very interesting racing conditions by Sat. a.m. Has to favor teams from Colorado, Upper Midwest, Northeast that are used to such conditions!!

Today: Snow showers, mainly after 1pm. High near 33. Calm wind becoming east around 5 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. Total daytime snow accumulation of 1 to 2 inches possible.

Tonight: Rain and snow, becoming all rain after 7pm. Snow level 2800 feet rising to 5600 feet after midnight. Low around 33. South wind between 5 and 14 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches possible.

Thursday: A chance of rain and snow showers, mainly before 10am. Snow level 2100 feet. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 43. Southwest wind around 17 mph, with gusts as high as 28 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible.

Thursday Night: A 50 percent chance of snow showers. Cloudy, with a low around 26. South wind between 7 and 13 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph. New snow accumulation of around an inch possible.

Friday: Snow likely. Cloudy, with a high near 32. Northeast wind around 11 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New snow accumulation of 2 to 4 inches possible.

Friday Night: Snow likely. Cloudy, with a low around 21. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 2 inches possible.

Saturday: A 40 percent chance of snow showers. Cloudy, with a high near 28. New snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible.

The contest is all set to go at this link:

http://www.letsrun.com/2011/ncaa-contest-1130.php

I'm guessing there will be a link on the front page soon, but you can probably just use that for now.

What time does the fan mob/riot start?...and where

I'll post detailed picks sometime before the race. In the meantime I will throw out some generic predictions to get this thread going again.

1) There will be well over 100 points between the 4th and 5th place team. The RMAC Schools and Grand Valley are on another plane this year from Chico, AA, USI etc. I won't get detailed with the numbers but take a look at the times from Pre-Nats for Mines and the West Region schools. Mines would have had 7 guys under 31:10 at the west region, and they look like the fourth best team on paper going into nationals. I don't see any chance that a team gets a trophy that didn't get one last year.

2) Mines will surprise people. They do look like the fourth best team on paper, there is no doubt about that. However, they are deeper than EVERYONE! For the first time ever, we aren't saying, we need so and so to be in our top 5. We have 6 guys who can all fill in between 2-5. 7 AAs isn't out of the question, however it is unlikely. Having a good 6-7 doesn't help in ideal weather, but on snow and mud, someone is going to blow up on every team. Mines is a team that will be just fine when someone blows up, because 2-7 are within a few seconds of each other. Also, I believe that Mines improves more going from 5000 ft to sea level than ASC and WSC. As a team we have always felt that we run like crap at conference, which is usally at altitude and better at regionals and nats, at sea level. I think this is because Adams and Western come down 3000 feet for RMAC and whoop our ass. Then when we get our own oxygen boost we close the gap a bit. Since regionals was at altitude, Mines hasn't raced WSC and ASC at sea level yet. Also consider the fact that Mack and Russell were our 6, 7 at every altitude race but our 3, 4 at sea level. If I had to rank teams based on performance to date and assuming perfect conditions, I rank them 4th. But I think they will get 2nd on Saturday.

3) An American will win the individual title! Look back over history... HOT = African, SNOW = American. Slippery Rock, Bauhs & Braun crush Africans. Louisville, Crouch gets the W and Viega is a surprise top 3. And my pick for the stunner is Sean Gildea. It'll be a battle between him and Pennel.

You think too much...Mines. Western will win as will Pennel.

Boulderunner wrote:

1) There will be well over 100 points between the 4th and 5th place team.

total crap

Boulderunner wrote:

I won't get detailed with the numbers but take a look at the times from Pre-Nats for Mines and the West Region schools. Mines would have had 7 guys under 31:10 at the west region,

Hold on there buddy,

if you want to compare pre-nats and regionals times then one could reasonably compare the times of someone who ran at both races right?

Kyle Van Santen is your man, as it turns out he ACTUALLY ran 31:10 at regionals, and guess how many Mines guys were in front of him at pre-nats? 3...

Not only that but the next Mines guy after that was 20 sec. back (over 8k mind you)...so I'm a little perplexed as to how you concluded based on the results from these two meets that Mines would have 7 (!) guys under 31:10?

If you want to further extrapolate, within that 20 sec period (31:10-31:30) 4 Chico St. and 4 Alaska Anchorage runners had crossed the line. Chico's #5 was only an additional 5 sec (25 sec. total) past that.

So, with that said I respectfully disagree that the gap between the top 4 and "the rest" is as big as you make it out to be. Looking forward to a dogfight.

What happened to Adams 336 guy?

hey where is the place to be in spokane? what about saturday night?

pu0923 wrote:

hey where is the place to be in spokane? what about saturday night?

Meet at O'Doherty's Irish Grille at 8:30pm-9:00pm on Saturday night. Will move to other bars afterwards.

Go to Marquees or The Vault!!!

Midwaste,

Glad to have you chime in as the resident letsrun Chico supporter.

Why use only one runner who ran both races?

Being the enginerd that I am... A quick text comparison yields 44 runners who ran both races. The average times of those 44 guys at Pre-Nats and regionals suggests that the average runner ran their pre-nats pace plus 9 total seconds (i.e. 24:00 at Pre-nats = 30:09 at regionals.) That gives times for the Mines guys of... 30:13, 30:48, 30:49, 31:15, 31:30. So you are right in that sense. However, 2 of Mines top 5 did not run Pre-Nats and Derek has come on a LOT since Pre-Nats (8 seconds ahead of Epperson at Regionals.) I firmly believe that Chico's #2 and Mines #6 will finish very close at Nationals, but that Chico will still get 5th place. That's going to be a big gap!

Don't take it as disrespect to Chico, I've got tons of respect and was really stoked in Evansville when our guys finally broke through and beat you guys. Heck, I have to respect you guys cuz I was a redshirt, on a certain rival team, during an infamous T-Shirt prank at either West Regionals or CCAAs back in the day. Whoa, I'm old!