First ever sit-and-kick NCAA XC: at 8k, 40 runners within 5 secs of the leader

I think Ches has to learn soon that this won't fly forever. He's a great finisher, there's no doubt, but he's not completely untouchable when it comes to kicks and eventually someone is going to realize "hey, this kid is never going to push the pace. I just need to hang and kick harder than he does" and his crown will fall.

I believe that during the West Regional, Cheserek was specifically told to try and keep the Oregon pack together to get a stronger team finish. Not really sure about PAC-12 since I didn't follow it at all.

That being said, in high school, he was notorious for taking his races out far too fast (he would open mile races with 1:53 800m splits or something equally ridiculous), so at some point, his new coaches probably hammered some new tactics into him.

With regards to how it ended up as a sit and kick, it was fairly windy so it's likely that nobody really wanted to become the draft-provider, especially so knowing that actual chances of victory were very slim.

For the poster above, there's already been someone who has legitimately outkicked Cheserek in a championship, and that's Lalang. Except he did it by running in tandem with Kithuka to produce a 13:20 50000m pace with a 4:09 final mile. When the pace is slower (i.e. NCAA 10000m), Cheserek can produce a 24 second final 200m (and this was when the pace was still fast enough that Kithuka and Ahmed were both dropped well before the end).

It's not as simple as "I'll just hang onto Cheserek and outkick at the end because he'll never push the pace", because he DOES push the pace. Cheserek isn't stupid. When he noticed that 40+ runners were still around with 1/5th of the race remaining, he simply sped up and dropped them all, which was by far the most intelligent thing to do.

For a plan like outkicking Cheserek to work, you need to be fresher than him at the end. And to be fresher than him at the end, you have to be good enough to run at his pace when he decides to push it. The only runner who has been able to do that since Cheserek arrived is Lalang, and he graduated.

The only guys that were going in thinking they had a shot of winning were on the top teams and didn't risk leading and possibly blowing up.

That race looked like a conference meet. Weird. Never seen an NCAA national meet like that.;

Didn't even make for an exciting last mile. Cheserek didn't even have to make a big move other than taking the lead, I have to admit I loved the Oregon runner battling for that second spot,

George Atlas wrote:

I have to admit I loved the Oregon runner battling for that second spot,

So did Cheserek. He looked back about 5 times trying to see how Jenkins was doing.

So, I'm an old fart. Back in my day, we had a specific XC workout. A hard 10 mile run that began with a 60 second quarter. Why? Because the start of college XC races was uniformly a brutal dash to embrace pain.

Kickers (that's me) we considered wimps.

Horst Girth wrote:Because the start of college XC races was uniformly a brutal dash to embrace pain.

I was on my college xc team, but the crazy fast start was never to 'embrace pain', but rather because the vast majority of courses started in an open field and soon afterwards narrowed to a single track in the woods or something, which made it difficult to pass. You had to run like crazy from the start to gain position before the bottleneck.

It's better for the viewer/Fan, watching one individual leading is no fun. Someday they will pickup the motorcross method

BigDaddyWooWoo wrote:

It's better for the viewer/Fan, watching one individual leading is no fun. Someday they will pickup the motorcross method

What method is that?

Where all the performers are filmed and not just leaders!

I love the letsrun post about how Kate averey almost broke Sally's record on the same day that Ches won in 30:19. This proves that it was a very good day to go out and run a fast race and that the conditions had nothing to do with the Men's slow race.

Sally's CR- 19:28, Kate ran 19:31.

Chelanga CR- 28:41, Ches ran 30:19. Unreal.

The real question that I have is this, if the weather was in record setting conditions, then how come no one else could run the last 2k in 5:40ish besides a few people? Most of that 2k is slightly downhill and it doesn't seem hard to imagine a lot of guys being able to close in an incredibly slow race like that in 4:33ish mile pace. What am I missing? Why werent there anywhere betweeen 5-15 runners right with ches until the last 200 or so?

It looks to me like the last 2000 is pretty flat overall. Definitely not downhill... more like undulating with no net change. That being said, it is weird. 5:40 is just not that fast off that slow of a pace. Furthermore, I don't understand why the lead pack wasn't bigger through 8k. 200 of the 255 ish guys should have been able to run that split. It isn't like they had started cutting it down at that point either... it was a pretty even 24:40. Makes me wonder if the course got really sloppy or if the wind picked up or something.

10/10 I think you have nailed it...there likely were changing conditions, such as wind picking up. Mid-race, there were 3 lesser runners who tried to go out and break the field. As I recall, they lasted about a mile and quickly were caught and engulfed into the field. The fact that Cheserek took off at 8 k should give a lot of credit to him because he could have just relaxed and stayed in the field until the final 400 meters. His kick would have devastated anyone else on this day. I also give Futsum and Jenkins some credit for actually dualing it out until Futsum for broken with about 100 meters to go. Beyond those three, the field showed little willingness to suffer.

they said the wind picked up after the women's race.

Observar ya wrote:

I think Ches has to learn soon that this won't fly forever. He's a great finisher, there's no doubt, but he's not completely untouchable when it comes to kicks and eventually someone is going to realize "hey, this kid is never going to push the pace. I just need to hang and kick harder than he does" and his crown will fall.

This was not really a "sit and kick" race. Tactical and slow, yes. But 2K is an extremely long "kick" and leaves plenty of time for someone like Cheserek to respond. It wasn't fast, but there was never any risk to Ches from anyone in this field. Someone new is going to have to come in to challenge him, it's not going to be someone from this group deciding to "go for it" Lindgren style.

I was at the race and the wine a race had worse wind and at one point even rain for a few minutes. There was a simple difference between the 2. The women were absolutely hammering and threw caution to the wind. The guys you could tell we're all looking around and waiting for the "move" Just like in championship races when it's slow when the move is made only few can respond because mostly the mental defeat. Athletes get tight and pushed out if their comfort zone. After 5 miles of 4:50's it's not easy in cross country to just shift to 4:30's and go with the leaders. It wasn't the conditions at all that slowed the race down. It was CU not pushing the pace and Cheserek chilling.

These same questions were raised in 2013 when not a single Kenyan was willing to push the pace early on Mo. Even though it looked like suicide and resulted in a losing battle most coaches aren't willing to let their athletes risk blowing up and finishing horribly for a chance to win and beat ches in a drag race.

For those of you that were at nationals last year know the conditions were wayyy more windy and muddy but they still went out in 14:35 and ches dominated that race going away. In some ways I honestly don't think there is any way to beat Ches if he is healthy by the current guys in the NCAA. It took a 3:33/13:01 guy to make it super fast to barely beat him last year. He is a year older and stronger now.

'He is a year older and stronger now.'

How old is he?