Official 2016 D3 Cross Country Thread

Over/Under 7 teams from the Midwest making it

Bet Man wrote:

Over/Under 7 teams from the Midwest making it

Nationals will ONLY be midwest teams

little toad wrote:

Thorson is not returning for UWEC. He's going to a DII school out west for grad school.

Not true. He's on his 3 week break right now before Schwamberger starts up his deadly summer training. Thorson still finna get smoked by LaMere and would get smoked by the top D2. Wouldn't even make nats in D1. So why would he transfer?

Hey Now Your Not An All Star wrote:

little toad wrote:

Thorson is not returning for UWEC. He's going to a DII school out west for grad school.

Not true. He's on his 3 week break right now before Schwamberger starts up his deadly summer training. Thorson still finna get smoked by LaMere and would get smoked by the top D2. Wouldn't even make nats in D1. So why would he transfer?

YOU'RE an idiot

What?? wrote:

Can this rumor be confirmed by anything? Losing Thorson would be a huge hit to Eau-Claire.

theOTHERwhitemeat wrote:

What?? wrote:

Can this rumor be confirmed by anything? Losing Thorson would be a huge hit to Eau-Claire.

http://www.leadertelegram.com/Sports/2016/05/22/Full-circle-3.html#.V0JlJWz03Rc.twitter

I was just hoping it wasn't true!! (cries himself to sleep)

Just how fast can Ian Lamere run this year in Louisville at E.P. Tom Sawyer? The fastest I have seen for 8k was Lawi Lalang in 2012 running 22:33. It should be noted he was pushed by his teammate Stephen Sambu who finished at 22:36.

Assuming perfect conditions I'll predict 23:15, wins by about 40 seconds again.

Is Tom Sawyer a fast course? It looked pretty flat for D1 last year.

Bruh. Can u not read? 22:30 for 8k

yeh but that doesnt seem incredibly fast considering they split 22:51 during a 10k. I was wondering more about the topography. Is it flat? Alotta turns?

I was thinking about this on my run today.

So, I know Ian Lamere is the god amongst men in D3 right now, but I have to ask..who would win in a cross country race with a full field, Senior year Grant Wintheiser from St. Olaf (2014 champion), or Junior year Ian?

This sounds preposterous because no one has touched Lamere in the last year and a half, but the question does make sense to ask. Grant has great foot speed, shown by his 3:48.69 1500m, and strength, 23:44 8k. That's a dangerous combination, and one we never really got to see metabolize into something great his senior year due to injuries. Ian, on the other hand, was virtually untouched his junior year on the grass, running a 23:31 8k in his regional meet.

Why I bring this up is because Ian's fastest, and only times under 24:00, were on the racetrack that is the Oshkosh course. Granted, he was by himself both times, but one has to agree that he often runs his best when he is alone. Grant only ran once under 24:00, and it was at the national championships. What makes that run so great was the fact that he hung with the leaders until the last 800m or so before taking off and dropping the field. This was also done on a slower course. One must assume that if the pace was pushed slightly more, he might have been able to hang.

An example would be Ian's 4:44 pace at the 2015 championships, which compares to Grant's 4:46 pace from 2014 championships.

The course Grant ran 23:44 on was short. Several people that ran well at nationals in both 2014 and 2015 (Thorson, Mugan Campbell, Escher, Mazaheri, Hornor) ran roughly the same times at the two races or ran a slower time at Oshkosh, which is a speedway but is now a full 8K. My guess is that Grant had a little more in the tank on the day he won, but it's not like he was just jogging the first 4.5 miles. It's also likely that LaMere could have run faster if he hadn't been 30-40 seconds in front of the field for the entire race. For another comparison, LaMere ran a little faster at Eau Claire in 2015 than Wintheiser did in 2014, though the races played out totally differently. LaMere went out super hard, faded, and was nearly caught; Grant ran with the field for 2/3 of the race and then broke away.

In a race that has a fast pace from the gun LaMere wins. If the first 4K is run in ~12:15 Grant may have the upper hand, but based on how LaMere closed in the Stanford 10K and the Nationals 5K I'd say it could go either way. Any slower than 12:30 at 4K and Grant takes it.

He ran near 24:00 at Sloshkosh in horrid conditions. Look at all the other times people ran and compare to the regular season times. He could have gone around 23:20 that day. Grant, as well as any other D3 guy in history, would get smoked because LaMere makes it honest. He doesn't let it come down to a clown kick.

Anyone know if they'll be any good freshman coming in?

anyone know if there are any good juniors coming in?

d3nerd wrote:

Anyone know if they'll be any good freshman coming in?

Yep.

Clown Question Bro wrote:

He ran near 24:00 at Sloshkosh in horrid conditions. Look at all the other times people ran and compare to the regular season times. He could have gone around 23:20 that day. Grant, as well as any other D3 guy in history, would get smoked because LaMere makes it honest. He doesn't let it come down to a clown kick.

I think this is actually a fair question. I'm a fan of both these guys, both are extremely nice and hard working so not biased one way or another. I believe Ian Lamere from this spring isn't losing to anybody in DIII history above 5k. However Ian from the fall is not quite that level. Grant was clicking on all cylinders at the end of that XC season and is/was near Ian type talent. I mean the dude ran 14:14 twice, once with anemia and once with stress fractures. I think there is two ppl in DIII history that could make it a close race, Grant and Arnie Shraeder (back in the 80's he won DIII and then flew to DI's and was in the lead pack until a mile to go. ended up all-American), maybe a tim nelson for the ol'tim nelson fan boys.

That was the answer I was really looking for. I respect both runners immensely and wish we could have seen a healthy Grant his senior year. Thankfully, we are blessed enough to watch the Ian Lamere show this next year.

New Question:

As we've been seeing the past couple of years, many individuals have been etching their names in to the All-Time D3 lists. So, I think it is safe to assume that the competitive level of Division 3 Athletics (mainly in terms of cross country and track) has been on the rise.

That said, do D3 cross and track coaches need to shift their recruiting techniques up? By this, I mean do they start to recruit higher tiered athletes than in the past in order to fill their rosters with enough talent to compete on the national level? I understand that many coaches search for the average high school runner and hope (wishfully, sometimes) to turn them in to an All-American caliber athlete. But that only works so often.

What kind of high school athletes should we expect to be top-tier D3 recruits in the future? 48.xx 400m runners? 4:15 milers? 9:10 2-milers? Or is this just a trend, and we will soon return to our 'normal' D3 ways soon enough?