Footlocker South aka The Drew Hunter Show!

VaCoach wrote:

Fam was definitely there yesterday........Drew is VERY good and the best HS runner in the country, and I think it would be close given that Famiglietti is 38 now. Dont forget, he has a PR of 13:11, a full 1:10 faster than Drew ran.

Fam could not run an 8:45 2-mile right now this weekend. Hunter is in that kind of shape right now. Hunter will win Nationals. He has all the tools. For those of you who say he doesn't look like a superstar (a 7:30-13:00-27:10 type) you are probably right.

We have had 8:45-types as juniors before. He ran 8:12 or something for 3k as a sophomore (sub-9:00 for 2-miles). Normally sophomores improve 20-30 seconds for junior year, and then 10-20 seconds for senior year. Hunter is not going to improve like that. For the greatest sophomores in history (McChesney, Virgin, Hulst, Chapa, Ritz, Scharsu, etc.), some improved a lot and some were fairly close to their potential as sophomores and juniors.

Hunter will probably not be like Virgin (who improved to 27:29 {8:47 per 3200m} despite being one of the best of all time as a soph and junior and senior) or Ritz (who ran 8:41m as a junior (65.13 a lap) and lengthened that to 65.68 a lap for 10k {27:22})

It doesn't mean that he is not the favorite, or not great, or still got a lot to be excited about.

I'm confused by the posters claiming Hunter isn't smooth or needs to work on his form. He already does that, relentlessly and tirelessly, and his form has improved immensely since he was a sophomore. It's not the prettiest thing in the world, but it gets the job done, and with more work, it may approximate something we're more used to seeing at an elite level. His foot strikes in the correct manner, and his cadence is at the correct frequency, so it may just be how his body is built.

Next, Hunter has improved his fitness by an almost absurd amount year to year. 8:53 was his sophomore time, which is already ridiculous, and that was an insane improvement from his sophomore cross country fitness. And from there, he improved to be better than senior year xc Sean McGorty as a junior, then improved to be better than senior year Grant Fisher in a few key races, including an 8:42 with a 4:14 final mile, and a 54 last 400. And from there, he's improved even more, to the point that he appears to be at almost Ritz level xc ability. He won his region by 33 seconds. He led by 20 seconds after a mile. And he crossed the finish line disappointed. That's scary.

Lastly, we know his training is sensible. It's a little more mileage than maybe is normal, but it's all aerobic, and he's not pounding himself into the ground with hard intervals, or grinding out 100 mile weeks. He's going to go to college with plenty of room to increase his training, his improving fitness never seeming to stagnate. Every high school phenom gets unrealistic expectations, and Hunter is no different, except in one respect: he's better than the other high school phenoms from the past few years, at least in cross country.

He might get injured, as many do but I find it hard to believe that people can think that because he "has bad form" and hasn't improved much(??), he has a low ceiling. This kid has improved markedly when you see how he closed out a 3:59 miler and 2 time FL xc champ last year, judged one of the best ever (and a fine performance as a freshman at NCAA) in the 2M and 1500m. He is going to be an incredible runner. That 2M alone suggested that he could run mid 8:30s with pacers and we will see those times this year. He is worlds better in xc than he was before, and he finished 4th at FL last year.

Best damn coach in the land wrote:

Besides being happy that the guy crushed it and looks great, I really love how pissy it will make hordes of letsrunners knowing he is coached by tinman.

Hunter's dad was 5 whole minutes faster for the 5k then that clown.

…so would anyone be crazy enough to bet the field over Hunter @ Nationals in 2 weeks? ANYONE? It looks like the race in Balboa Park could be over at the mile mark, just like yesterday's was.

One of my college teammates has said in the past that he's heard from a reliable source that the original course was short. So the current course might actually be 5,000 meters and not longer.

Drew Hunter also ran a 14:20 5k on an all grass course earlier this year. The course is apparently pancake flat but I would say that McAlpine is still faster even with that hill in the middle than the grass course. Either way I would say that Hunter could be in 13:50 shape. That would mean coming 3200m in 8:50.

I think drew is also in 8:30s shape considering he ran a 4:02 mile, his 2mile against Grant Fischer was a little more tactical. 4:02 indicates he can clearly run faster.

I wouldn't be surprised if Hunter goes 3:57 or faster this year, he's done pretty well at making progress his whole career. His sophomore year he had a 4:10 mile and improved a 4:02, which is a huge jump to make. His parents have been great about coaching him and I can't see him getting injured or plateauing.

I question Hunter's decision to even go to Oregon rather than turning pro. He could turn into just another Cheserek considering how much talent he's shown. With the amount of talent posses he has the chance to become the next Alan Webb or Pre. It'll definitely going to be easier for him to lower his times if he doesn't go to college because he'll be able to race however he wants.

Too Bad wrote:

[quote]

Hunter will probably not be like Virgin (who improved to 27:29 {8:47 per 3200m} despite being one of the best of all time as a soph and junior and senior) or Ritz (who ran 8:41m as a junior (65.13 a lap) and lengthened that to 65.68 a lap for 10k {27:22})

.

Of course he will be like neither of them. Neither Ritz nor Virgin could close an 8:42 with a 54. The closest prep we've seen to Hunter is actually FIsher, and he isn't doing too badly competing 10K cross, much less the shorter stuff come track time.

Jolly Rodger wrote:

Too Bad wrote:

[quote]

Hunter will probably not be like Virgin (who improved to 27:29 {8:47 per 3200m} despite being one of the best of all time as a soph and junior and senior) or Ritz (who ran 8:41m as a junior (65.13 a lap) and lengthened that to 65.68 a lap for 10k {27:22})

.

Of course he will be like neither of them. Neither Ritz nor Virgin could close an 8:42 with a 54. The closest prep we've seen to Hunter is actually FIsher, and he isn't doing too badly competing 10K cross, much less the shorter stuff come track time.

Some facts...

Cross country, 2014- Fisher eased away from Hunter at Footlocker last year over the final 800m. He was a man amongst boys, and it showed. 10 seconds on 2nd place, making it look easy. Hunter was 4th.

Track, 2015- Fisher ran himself into the ground chasing sub-4:00 since indoor Nats, running college races, running a 4:00 time trial at state, traveling across the country for races, etc. He ran 6-8 races that were of 4:05 quality or faster. He was fried come New Balance, and especially USA Juniors. He had nothing left at that point. Hunter ran nothing hard until the Dream Mile. You could see who was hungry and fresh and who had been racing all winter and spring.

Ritz- Ran 14:29 to WIN Footlocker as a junior over a LOADED field of seniors. This is while looking like a 12 year old boy, mind you. Then ran 8:41.1 3200m as a junior, winning by close to 30 seconds in that race. That's with a 1600 best of around 4:06 that year. Ritz didn't lose a high school race from the 2M National Champs his sophomore year through the rest of his career. His senior year in cross was incredible- his 14:10 at the MI state meet, his 14:35 on the Kenosha course. He went through 2M in 9:02 at the state meet (and finished with a faster mile than Hunter did Saturday). His 14:35 was a full 20 seconds faster than his junior year Kenosha record (and hasn't been threatened since), so he was significantly better than his 14:29 junior year nationals shape. He destroyed Webb by 20 seconds, running 14:35, at nationals after walking through the first mile in 4:50. So let's keep things in perspective.

Drew is far more mature physically, and thus has much more speed at this point in their careers. Ritz did end up going 12:56 later in his career, so who knows how things will ultimately pan out.

All this said, Hunter is head and shoulders above the competition this fall, and will win easily, with or without Tomagno in the race. And just to prove I'm not underestimating him, I'm looking forward to him breaking 4:00 and maybe 8:35 in the spring.

Those of you downplaying Hunter are are going to be proven wrong at some point this year, probably at nationals but maybe later on the track. This was a historic performance; with 70m added to it, that MacAlpine course is just not that fast.

By the end of this year, he'll establish that he belongs in the company of Ritz, Webb, Verzbicas, etc. Hunter will be under 4:00 and 8:40, possibly by more than a little.

All of that text doesn't change my statement one iota. Hunter is nothing like Ritz and Virgin. Those guys were different animals entirely: cross-country beasts, but vulnerable on the track to a last lap kick. You may recall what happened to RItz when matched up against Webb in the latter's 10000 debut. On the other hand, I can visualize Hunter losing FL, but then bouncing back in spring with a sub-4:00/8:30I'm not saying Hunter is necessarily better (we'll know by next summer), just very different.

the letter why wrote:

Those of you downplaying Hunter are are going to be proven wrong at some point this year, probably at nationals but maybe later on the track. This was a historic performance; with 70m added to it, that MacAlpine course is just not that fast.

By the end of this year, he'll establish that he belongs in the company of Ritz, Webb, Verzbicas, etc. Hunter will be under 4:00 and 8:40, possibly by more than a little.

I won't speak for anybody else, but I am not downplaying Hunter at all. He's great. He is the favorite for Footlocker and will very likely win.

Running a fast time on the Footlocker South course is not, however, my basis for that belief. Lots of guys run blazing fast times at McAlpine.

I will say that I did not know about the course changes when I originally posted in this thread. That makes his time more impressive. I am still convinced that we should pay less attention to times in XC.

Don't count out Jon Davis from IL. Ran 13:59 (3 mile) in IL state 1A championship completely alone (beating the 2A and 3A times this year). Joins a small group to have gone under 14 on this course including Virgin, Derrick, and Verzbicas. Also won Midwest NXN and Midwest Footlocker this year. Should be a good race.

JBM wrote:

Don't count out Jon Davis from IL. Ran 13:59 (3 mile) in IL state 1A championship completely alone (beating the 2A and 3A times this year). Joins a small group to have gone under 14 on this course including Virgin, Derrick, and Verzbicas. Also won Midwest NXN and Midwest Footlocker this year. Should be a good race.

I second this. Was at Midwest FL on Sat. Davis was one of 4 guys sub 15 on a muddy Parkside course. Those are historically impressive times on that course.

Hunter deserves to be the favorite but there are several guys out there that could make it interesting.

But was he doping?

Slingerz wrote:

Drew Hunter is going to smash the competition.

Yeah, just like Fisher smashed Hunter and the competition at last year's FL!

Hunter had no answer for Fisher at last year's race. It's nothing new. We see this time and time again at FL and NXN. That is why thees guys re concidered favorites because on any given day they can have a great race and drop some very good fields.

Wilmont's NXN comes to mind, The Chest & Futsum FL show, LV at FL 2011, Fisher FL 2014, and countless others. It actually happens more often than not. Gonna see nothing new at neither FL or NXN this year. Still fun to watch though!

Dreamland wrote:

Best damn coach in the land wrote:

Besides being happy that the guy crushed it and looks great, I really love how pissy it will make hordes of letsrunners knowing he is coached by tinman.

Hunter's dad was 5 whole minutes faster for the 5k then that clown.

your point being what?

I heard they didn't cut the grass for two weeks before the race. From my grass length calculator that probably added 5-7 seconds, so this could have easily been 13:59 on the previous course if they had cut the grass.

Undoubtedly. Footlocker South has a ton of grass. It's ALL grass, in fact. Tall grass.

Yeah, and from what I hear, there was also an unusually high percentage of pick-ups and SUVs (even for the South) in the parking lot at McAlpine too... which obviously emit more pollution, which the runners directly inhale during the race. So taking this additional factor into account, it's looking a lot more like you can convert that 13:59 down to 13:47.

the grass wrote:

I heard they didn't cut the grass for two weeks before the race. From my grass length calculator that probably added 5-7 seconds, so this could have easily been 13:59 on the previous course if they had cut the grass.