Bill Aris' Fayetteville-Manlius team has already got its run in today - Have you?

Looks like a team from Scandinavia.

Great, glad to see these kids work hard for high school championships to completely vanish in college where they could have reached their full potential.

At this year's XC NCAA's, true freshman Kaitlyn Neal was U Wash 2nd finisher. Last year she was FM's lead girl at NXN and nearly all of the rest of the season. Ask both Metcalf and her if she's vanished.

Most of FM kids are just average hs runners who do above average things. Very few of them have been of the top tier ability required to be successful in top tier NCAA racing (exceptions- Gruenewald, Hatz, a few girls). Some have been of that level but not many. Has nothing to do with so-called 'burnout' as has been implied.

Despite the naysayers out there, this topic has been exhaustively written about on the boards over the years. Maybe some of the responsibility for 'non-performance' should be directed toward their College programs instead of their HS program. For what these kids have done over the years, with far less than 'elite' talent for the most part (a few exceptions noted) is truly exceptional.

Looking at the very small size of their team rosters over the years, there is no way that they are overtrained, otherwise they wouldn't have teams standing on the starting lines year after year. Likely intelligent training rather than overtraining......along with plenty of motivation.

Congrats to them and Best Wishes for continued success!

You can't win without talent. Talent that works hard wins.

This is a very talented HIGH SCHOOL team. This is a very hard working high school team. The school has a successful sports culture. Junior High students can compete for the HS. Great coach that has buy in.

Kaitlyn Neal only ran for aris for under 10 months. In that span she lost significant weight and got really fast. Lucky for her,her parents didn't let her go to fm till senior year. It gave her some hope for college. Lucky for her, her previous coaches didn't chase national titles at the sake of her developement in 7-10th grade

Check with Neal about her opinion of the effect that running for FM had on her in her senior year, before listening to gossip or writing it. And ask her about her experiences at her previous high school. You might find quite a different perspective from her than what you wrote, rest assured. You might also find that (temporary, in her case) weight loss is not always caused by training and/or disordered eating as you insinuated. Then again, you probably don't want to hear that because it is much simpler to accuse with bs than to find out and state the truth.

I got 7 miles on the treadmill done already. Too much trail running and racing the last couple weeks have made my knees ache so I have to limit my downhill running as much as possible.

I'm jealous, in Virginia the last two days have been mandatory "dead days" for all sports. Meaning we are not allowed to have practice Wednesday or Thursday or any contact with our athletes. Very conducive for those competing in the NXR SE meet two days later.

Ahh, New York. The state with an unfair advantage.

How many running programs have required readings?

Aris mentions "Unbroken," "Boys in the Boat" and Glenn Cunningham's "Never Quit." Has anyone read that last one?

How does Aris manage to have such consistently good teams with only 20 girls and 12 boys this year? This is ridiculous to compare them to their NXN competitors often with over 100 on their teams. I'm guessing he demands so much from his runners than only so many are willing to buy in but that's amazing to think that his teams can't afford to "throw them against the wall and see who sticks" and yet competes so well on the national level

the truth hurtzzzzz wrote:

Ahh, New York. The state with an unfair advantage.

Yep, not-practice practice. The rule is only 6 days a week for practice. That's not a "real " practice the other day.

anemiadude wrote:

How does Aris manage to have such consistently good teams with only 20 girls and 12 boys this year? This is ridiculous to compare them to their NXN competitors often with over 100 on their teams. I'm guessing he demands so much from his runners than only so many are willing to buy in but that's amazing to think that his teams can't afford to "throw them against the wall and see who sticks" and yet competes so well on the national level

Because they run off all the noncompetive people. Seriously there aren't many cases of some sucking in 9th grade and being a meaningful scorer as a junior/senior especially among the woman.

vhslneedstowakeup wrote:

I'm jealous, in Virginia the last two days have been mandatory "dead days" for all sports. Meaning we are not allowed to have practice Wednesday or Thursday or any contact with our athletes. Very conducive for those competing in the NXR SE meet two days later.

Not sure who told you this, but it's not accurate. The winter dead period was from November 7th through November 16th.

This shouldn't affect year round runners at all anyway. Cross Country, Indoor track, and Outdoor track all overlap. Your XC athletes can still be training with you as part of indoor track (assuming they do indoor) and compete at NXR SE, without having to ever acknowledge a dead period. The only dead period that affects year-round runners is the one mid-summer, usally the week of the 4th of July.

Either way, I got in 11 miles this morning- 2 mile warm-up, 5k race, 6 mile cool down.

that's my mistake, I went back and read the email and it is strictly a county enforced dead period for today and yesterday. we also don't have indoor track in our county and get another county enforced dead period the week of spring break. all very conducive to training

So she made it less than a year in his program. She will be considered an fm alumnus and bill will take credit for making her. ,not a coincidence that the one who makes it in college from the fm program is the one who didn't run through the training program for multiple years. So yes aris made her great but given more time he would have broken her chasing titles. The other top girl to run in college well was the girl at Albany. She only ran xc for one season - so maybe that's secret is run one season with him to. E ready for college. Run 3 to be broken by college.

There are very few elite HS programs whose alumni excel in college.

anemiadude wrote:

How does Aris manage to have such consistently good teams with only 20 girls and 12 boys this year?

That is by design.

This thread has already derailed after the first few posts.