Just saw GREATEST Intl' collegiate men's XC race ever? 9/07/2019

That’s lit

Neat!

This is real. If you count unattached runners (Drew Bosley ran NAU's second best time, taking 4th overall), then NAU gets 1,4,5,6,7 for 23 points against Tokai's 2,3,8,9,11 for 33.

If you don't count Bosley, then NAU gets 1,4,5,6,9 for 25 and Tokai gets 2,3,7,8,10 for 30.

There is usually very little spread for a top team's home opener. Here Raff ran 21:52 for an 18 second in and NAU's next was unattached at 22:21, then three guys at 22:26/26/29. Tokai had two strong guys in 22:10 and 22:15 and then a gap to 8th in 22:32 and 9th in 22:40. Although NAU was not running a couple top guys in Beamish and Ferro, they put a good team out, the new freshman and the redshirt freshman (Hasty) look strong, and Tokai is a very good team. NAU gets an advantage from more training at altitude and a shorter race. Tokai probably excels at the half marathon. It would be fun to have the top ten teams at NCAA XC go to Japan to compete with the collegiate teams in an Ekiden.

https://results.wingfootfinish.com/meets/3902/xc-events/170952/results

Pretty sweet dual meet. It'd be cool to see them race at the end of the season with a few other top-10 teams.

I watched this interesting race and less that 2 miles in several of the Japanese runners had their pain cave faces on, but none of them faltered too bad toward the end, which I sort of expected considering the first mile was like 4:48 and the Tokai guys, while at the end of a 3 week altitude stint, aren't as altitude adapted as the NAU guys. One of the top 5 Tokai guys was kicking it in at the end and had kind of weird form... he was moving fast but was flailing all over the place. Maybe they're really just built for the long stuff. Also, their body types didn't scream "elite runner" to me, but they must have gigantic aerobic engines.

Cool race to see.

Thanks! Good to know about unattached Bosley in 4th who is redshirting for NAU! I did not count his possibility in the sample dual meet. And who is this Kretzmann? Official results have an icon near his name depicting him as a student (senior). Another redshirted NAU guy?

UnsureSherlock wrote:

Thanks! Good to know about unattached Bosley in 4th who is redshirting for NAU! I did not count his possibility in the sample dual meet. And who is this Kretzmann? Official results have an icon near his name depicting him as a student (senior). Another redshirted NAU guy?

Would be a solid addition to the team. Well versed racing at altitude. At least we know he is currently competitive with Cade Burks. Just needs coaching staff to give him a chance.

Huge room for improvement on the track. Came from a cross country only program.

Kretzmann is a grad transfer from RMAC conferences' Fort Lewis.

We need to have a cross country Kumite with the best international teams complete with glass knuckles and bad acting. Of course, what country does NAU represent? To be honest, they represent 4 countries (US, NZ, Guatemala and Somalia). If you want the best US team, then you need CU present.

The oddly placed quotes are comedy but this is great content, hadn't heard of this anywhere. Wouldn't it be awesome for Japanese and US teams to compete against each-other more often?

comedyrelief wrote:

We need to have a cross country Kumite with the best international teams complete with glass knuckles and bad acting. Of course, what country does NAU represent? To be honest, they represent 4 countries (US, NZ, Guatemala and Somalia). If you want the best US team, then you need CU present.

CU gets smoked by Tokai. They may go 1-2, but after that, it's all Tokai.

Thanks for the info on Kretzman. Looks like a steady progression at Ft Lewis. And must be far from his potential if that was a cross country only program!

It would have been awesome to see CU show at that meet, and have issues with elevation.

We've got an article up about the meet now. I think it was really cool that NAU and Tokai raced each other.

OP, thanks for starting this thread -- don't know if I would have noticed this result if not for you!

https://www.letsrun.com/news/2019/09/the-race-for-the-ages-that-no-one-knows-about-the-us-and-japanese-collegiate-champs-just-raced-each-other-in-cross-country-heres-what-happened/

Wow this is awesome. What a cool event to see in person

You might watch NAU on Instagram. They weren't hiding this.

tarckstar wrote:

You might watch NAU on Instagram. They weren't hiding this.

You're acting like staying current on track/xc/road running is his job or something.

epicTCK wrote:

The oddly placed quotes are comedy but this is great content, hadn't heard of this anywhere. Wouldn't it be awesome for Japanese and US teams to compete against each-other more often?

I have to agree with this poster that the original post was very quote-laden. Perhaps he is a follower of one of those very apostrophe-heavy religions. Respect if so.....

The point being that NAU's top ten is closer to representing the New Zealand national team than it is the US national team. Kind of like how New Mexico's top men's and women's teams are closer to the UK national team than the US national team. The irony is that some of the top athletes to ever come out of New Mexico and Arizona have gone on to run for CU (including last year's national champion Dani Jones). When you dedicate your program to bringing in older foreign talent and neglect developing the talent in your own back yard that others do wonderful things with, you deserve some criticism.