HEPS Cross Country 2012

BRF wrote:

As an athlete and coach, I found that dual (and tri) meets did a lot to foster individual development and team cohesion--they were educational, in other words. I know times change, but I'm sorry to see those meets (mostly) go.

I am too. It would be awesome if the only meets they did pre-conference were dual/tri meets (or even quad meets, but that could be stretching it). I think it also helps with alumni and fans in terms of bonding with their teams or getting to know them.

FYI: found something in the Harvard paper on why only one Harvard guy finished the 8K on Saturday.

"On the men’s side, Harvard used the invitational as a way to give its harriers a chance to get some race experience under their belts before the season heats up.

Saretsky indicated that the majority of the men’s team ran only the first five kilometers of the eight-kilometer race, but were tightly packed and led by sophomore Lukas Gemar and freshman Billy Gaudreau.

“[The men’s team] did a really good job of working together over the first two miles and then pushing the last mile,” Saretsky said. “Overall, I was pleased with what they were able to get done, and I think it’s going to set them up for a strong season.”

Junior Erik Kraus was the only member of the Crimson to run the entire eight-kilometer race. Kraus finished in 57th place with a time of 27:54.2."

link:

C/M Runner wrote:

Saretsky indicated that the majority of the men’s team ran only the first five kilometers of the eight-kilometer race, but were tightly packed and led by sophomore Lukas Gemar and freshman Billy Gaudreau.

Thanks for the link. That is an interesting approach that I have never heard of. I wonder why he wouldn't have had them run the first 5k fast, and then just cool down over the last 3 if he wanted them to just use it as a workout.

In the video link posted yesterday, the coach indicated a new "adjustment" approach for his freshmen this year with low expectations and, between the lines, hopefully low injury rates. But no mention is made in the article of last year's upper class starters Leakos, Ruegg (injured all year) and Korolev - all sub 9 high school recruits and part of last years's early season top 5. I am wondering why they would not have been the ones leading this training pack instead of a freshmen. Oh well - guess we will find out soon enough.

veritas wrote:

C/M Runner wrote:

Saretsky indicated that the majority of the men’s team ran only the first five kilometers of the eight-kilometer race, but were tightly packed and led by sophomore Lukas Gemar and freshman Billy Gaudreau.

Thanks for the link. That is an interesting approach that I have never heard of. I wonder why he wouldn't have had them run the first 5k fast, and then just cool down over the last 3 if he wanted them to just use it as a workout.

I don't know, but there is a notation in the results on the sizes of the teams. The Harvard and Brown men were listed as <5

kibitzer wrote:

Nerts. I'm going to miss the 1,000 and especially 500--those are great races.

But not *that* great, now that I think about it more. Now the old 600y--*that* was a great distance. Greatest rigor-mortis race ever.

And the recruiting *has* to be affected--could even show up in cross (to finally bring this back to being an xc thread).

In the men's indoor meet at present, you've got the 800, 1000 (and the two can't be doubled), and mile, plus the 4x8 and DMR. That's a lot of mid-distance slots. I can't see teams going after as many MD guys, once the change is made, and there could be substantially fewer of them "filling out" teams' cross-country rosters. (Granting that a fair number of 800/1000 types don't do cross anyway.)

What I *don't* know is whether ECAC/IC4A would retain the full roster of events. Given that those meets are now rarely seen as the steppingstone to the NCAAs that they used to be, BITD, I would hope that IC4A/ECAC would retain their traditional spread of events, which really reward full teams (all-events programs) and make for great team battles.

BRF wrote:

Interesting season-preview video for H at

http://www.gocrimson.com/sports/xc/index

.

No announcement of t&f recruits yet by Harvard, as near as I can tell.

This is a note to everyone on here who is obsessing over this thread - meaning mainly ivy coaches.

Please realize you are the only people that care about this stuff. Go take a walk outside and realize there is more to life than ivy league sports.

That harvard video is one that is embedded on youtube.

Guess how many views it has?

52.

former ivy guy wrote:

BRF wrote:

Interesting season-preview video for H at

http://www.gocrimson.com/sports/xc/index

.

No announcement of t&f recruits yet by Harvard, as near as I can tell.

This is a note to everyone on here who is obsessing over this thread - meaning mainly ivy coaches.

Please realize you are the only people that care about this stuff. Go take a walk outside and realize there is more to life than ivy league sports.

That harvard video is one that is embedded on youtube.

Guess how many views it has?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh4NplsuSIk&list=UUEJceKWs3qO-VgQnaVZ-MRw&index=6&feature=plcp

52.

Point taken. Fortunately, now that you know what this thread is about, you don't have to spend any more of your time clicking on it and visiting it.

Cheers--

Ok, back to the topic...

I'm surprised by the few negative comments about the dropping of some of the middle distance events at indoor Heps, with some people stating they think it is a step in the wrong direction. Check it out:

http://hepstrack.com/blog/2012/09/09/a-day-of-change/#respond

I can understand people liking the way it was as it made the Ivy League more unique... but I'm sorry, I think this is good change for the League, as I do not see anything wrong in conforming to the rest of the country on this. Track and field is not just middle distance, and sure, perhaps the League is strong in middle distance history, but we also have a strong history in the jumps (national champions in the high and triple jumps in the last 20 years, as well as numerous all Americans in all four jumping events). I think this restructuring will help out the League as it allows the coaches to focus on developing whole teams and look more into developing the other facets to be strong on the national level too.

Although, I wish they did keep the 4x800. I thought it was a cool event, and I'm a former hurdler.

Practically speaking: the elimination of those events should make team wins, esp. indoors, more of a possibility for some of the smaller squads. I'm thinking that a Dartmouth squad, say, could be much more of a contender. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

I was also going to give you a hard time on the "conforming to the rest of the country" thing, but--with the exception of the Big Ten's 600m race--the few DI conferences I checked did indeed only have Nationals events.

I'm one who hopes that the IC4A keeps the full roster of indoor events. Lots of schools attend, and it's nice that there are many opportunities for scoring.

And yeah, I'm also sorry about the 4x8. At least they're (apparently) keeping it for the outdoor meet--great race.

There is a poll going on right now at hepsnation.com (HepsTrack facebook page) about the recent Heps changes. A lot of people have responded so far.

Princeton XC men are now ranked 15th nationally (started at 21st). Columbia men (28th) and Princeton women (28th) are also ranked, while Dartmouth women and Cornell women are both receiving votes. This is according to USTFCCCA.

Yeah, my vote on the t&f changes was "we'll see."

Having been a coach for 20+ years, and second-guessed by many, many people who didn't know all the details about a given situation...I've decided that the current Ivy coaches probably have more info than I do, and that they didn't take this step without a lot of thought. It may well make for a tighter, more exciting meet (and team battle); we'll see!

I do wonder how much--if at all--the deletion of indoor events will affect the squad-size limitations at Heps. Did the coaches vote to change those?

_________________________

Thanks for the poll summary. The vagaries of the polls are such that the Cornell women, after their dominating win last weekend, have dropped out of the top 30(!); the Princeton women are still in, but took a huge hit after being handled by unranked Penn State.

After beating Syracuse, Dartmouth's women (rightly) have received votes in the poll. They're an interesting team and certainly should be contending for the podium at Heps. Their 2-5 spread was not great (looking at their 1-5 spread is meaningless), but certainly good enough; and though, judging from the linked photos at hepstrack.com, one or two of their runners may not be long-term contributors, they're certainly contributors *now*. This is just another team to be reckoned with in a very high-quality conference.

__________________________

Noted in passing: S. Passadyn was the 12th (out of 15) finisher for Harvard at last week's meet.

Hmmm... good question about the size limitations... I think if there was a change to that, it would have been released to the public as well.

I agree on Dartmouth now being a contender within the conference, but we will see on how the rest of the season shapes up for all of the teams as we still have a little over a month until Heps.

Very nice coverage of the H-Y dual meet at hepstrack.com:

http://hepstrack.com/blog/2012/09/14/beautiful-in-new-haven/#more-20659

Interesting that Brianna matched her time from last week--to the second?

Cornell will be at the URochester Invitational--a huge meet, with more than two dozen colleges participating and (apparently) little or no limit on squad sizes. Rochester will be hosting its DIII Regional meet on the same course, so many schools from its Atlantic Region will be attending to get a race of the course.

I'm not sure whether any other DI teams will attend, but the men's and women's races will each have five nationally-ranked DIII teams--the Atlantic Region is a hotbed for DIII cross-country squads--so there should be plenty of competition for most of the Big Red harriers, though their women *might* be able to cruise just a bit, if they run all their top people.

I used to coach in the Rochester area, and I can say that that course can be a real mud bowl if it catches much rain, so times won't necessarily mean much--not that they mean much in cross, anyway!

Cornell men and women, who needed a local race this week (with Paul Short two weeks away), ended up at the URochester Inv against mostly D3 competition. The region has many of the US's top D3 teams and most or all attended, looking for the chance to race on the course that will host their NCAA qualifying race; I would have thought that situation would provide some competition for the Big Red.

Instead, CU romped on both sides. The Big Red men (

http://www.leonetiming.com/2012/XC/UofRMen.htm

) had the top eight collegiate finishers, even though their top six apparently cruised as a pack most of the way (5.2-second spread, 1-6). Interesting that Brett Kelly, their MVP and all-Ivy runner last year, was the sixth man today--that doesn't really mean much by itself, but the fact that Cornell has five other men to run with him this year is encouraging. I'm most impressed by half-miler Nick Wade, today's #2 on the team (and in the meet) with a time just over 25min.

The Cornell women (

http://www.leonetiming.com/2012/XC/UofRWomen.htm

) went the men one better and took the first nine places, and 19 of the first 28 slots. From the finish times, instead of a pack effort it looks like it was more of a two-by-two race for them--coincidentally, the strategy that worked so successfully for them at last fall's Heps.

These teams, the men particularly, seem to be performing at a higher level than last year. Paul Short should be a good test.

"The Cornell women...went the men one better and took the first nine places, and 19 of the first 28 slots. From the finish times, instead of a pack effort it looks like it was more of a two-by-two race for them...."

Okay, IGNORE THIS ^^^^

A look at the race splits (

http://leonetiming.com/

) makes it clearer that the Cornell men and women were just cruising in packs through most of their races. Their front four women were in a tight group through 4k.

HepsTrack.com (which I think I'll call HTC from now on) has an interesting squib about Van Cortlandt Park and the Ivies' decision to stay away from VCP, even though the fences are down now.

When I visited Vanny this summer it certainly seemed (to my layman's eyes) like the fences would stay up for another year or two, so I'm pleased that "real" races can be run up there again.

OTOH I had heard that several Ivy coaches were increasingly unhappy with the traditional Friday dates for the Heps, so they may be in no hurry to return to VCP (if Friday is all that Vanny has available Heps races).

I've seen the reports about yesterday's H-Y and today's Cornell races. Anyone else in action?

kibitzer wrote:

I've seen the reports about yesterday's H-Y and today's Cornell races. Anyone else in action?

Columbia's off this week. Women compete next week (in Toledo), men the following week (Paul Short); they've both got the Mets on 10/5 (but often run second-strings there), then Wisco a week later. Nothing else scheduled before Heps (10/27).

No, I stand corrected: Columbia had five women (not their front line) at Iona's meet at VCP today:

Penn apparently *did* have their top squad (nice to see L. Kovach back in action) at the same meet, taking second to the Army team that Cornell walloped last week.

Brown men (not women) were at the same meet and won it:

Penn finished sixth, also behind Army, and there were some Columbia guys there too.

Dartmouth not scheduled for anything until Paul Short. Ditto Princeton. I think that accounts for everybody.

Penn M&W, Brown Men, and both Columbia B-squads competed at VCP yesterday. Brown men got the W and Penn women took second.

Men:

http://www.icgaels.com/fls/14900/stats/mcrosscountry/2012XC/12-09-15-MOC-Men.htm

Women:

http://www.icgaels.com/fls/14900/stats/mcrosscountry/2012XC/12-09-15-MOC-Women.htm