Blast from the past. 1998 NCAA XCountry. Goucher over Abdi. Lagat 7th.

YMMV wrote:

I was wondering who the fullback running for O was. Blast from the past.

Many many "could-have-beens" in the '90s, due IMO to low mile, high-intensity, Coe-BS training prevalent then. Truly a low point in U.S. running.

Matt Davis was one of the ultimate could-have-beens from the 90s. Legendary performances.

How bout the Edinboro PA runner winning the D2 race.

AdiVector wrote:

Goucher winning by almost 20seconds in last mile, 29:26 on hilly rimrock.

Can they bring that course back?

KU is hosting Midwest regionals in 2020 so that course will be back in the fall!

I'm surprised there aren't more people commenting on Rim Rock from being at this race.

The parking/access was a disaster of a bottleneck. I love Rim Rock - raced there myself - but they botched hosting in 1998 and that has been a black mark on their potentially hosting the NCAA championships in the years since. I hope that they do well hosting 2020 regionals, if it exists, and gains more credibility to be able to fix their mistakes from 98.

Yeah, Goucher's form looks so ugly. But he was such an awesome runner in college. Absolutely dominant--and that field!

AdiVector wrote:

Goucher winning by almost 20seconds in last mile, 29:26 on hilly rimrock.

Can they bring that course back?

I finished not far behind Goucher when he set the course record on the old RR course his Frosh year.

areusure? wrote:

AdiVector wrote:

Goucher winning by almost 20seconds in last mile, 29:26 on hilly rimrock.

Can they bring that course back?

I finished not far behind Goucher when he set the course record on the old RR course his Frosh year.

Shoot...not Rim Rock but the old CU XC course was what I was thinking about.

And here's a video of Goucher and Abdi duking it out in the 5000m that same year!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQJUCD3D5FU

PRD wrote:

And here's a video of Goucher and Abdi duking it out in the 5000m that same year!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQJUCD3D5FU

Mike was 4th the next year in Boise with lagat bumping up to win the title. Hauser moved up to second, and Abdi tanked pretty far back.

Nice thread, Adam Goucher. Post some more threads, if you aren't busy.

Where are they now?

george oscar bluth wrote:

I'm surprised there aren't more people commenting on Rim Rock from being at this race.

The parking/access was a disaster of a bottleneck. I love Rim Rock - raced there myself - but they botched hosting in 1998 and that has been a black mark on their potentially hosting the NCAA championships in the years since. I hope that they do well hosting 2020 regionals, if it exists, and gains more credibility to be able to fix their mistakes from 98.

Yea I was there it was a great meet but there were huge parking problems. The D2 races were after the D1 and standing at the course you could see a long line of cars (I recall someone saying it was a 5 mile line of cars taking the 1 road in) snaking off into the distance. A number of D2 teams had to jump out of vans/buses and jog to the course.

Thank you for posting this video. Goucher was very well coached and he executed many races extremely well to get winning results. He reached the top of NCAA Cross Country and Track with golds. He is one of the best runners in NCAA history - a true competitor.

Jonathan Gault stumbled upon this thread and watched the race. Below he hilariously recounts what he was thinking as he watched the footage for the first time.

https://www.letsrun.com/news/2020/04/i-was-bored-so-i-went-back-and-watched-the-1998-ncaa-cross-country-championships/

yesteryear wrote:

PRD wrote:

And here's a video of Goucher and Abdi duking it out in the 5000m that same year!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQJUCD3D5FU

Mike was 4th the next year in Boise with lagat bumping up to win the title. Hauser moved up to second, and Abdi tanked pretty far back.

Abdi just redefines "heelstriker".

That was awesome! I'm a huge fan of RWTB so it was really cool to be able to watch that race and try to pick at familiar faces/names from the crowd shots.

I thought the broadcast was pretty legit and I would be ecstatic to see something like that on TV nowadays, considering all the available technology it baffles me to see a much better broadcast than anything put out by flotrack. I know they never put up team scores (don't understand that one although initially it was interesting to see the spread) the commentators throughout were knowledgeable and did a great job of picking out runners so that I felt like I knew what was going on. I know they got hung up in the chute too but they at least showed up some of the finishers which is more than you get from most races which just follow the winner around.

Also I know RWTB covers Colorado and a great book following McDonnell documents Arkansas pretty well. Is anything out there about Stanford/ Vin? I would like to read more about their program during the "Machine" era, any books fit that bill? If not I hope someone gets to work on a Lannana bio because that would have great insight.

I ran in that race in '98 and am one of many to say that the 90's chewed up and spit out a lot of runners that could've been great. Way too much interval training and too few miles. My college program was ran the same way. 65-70 miles per week at peak. Only hard days were intervals. No tempo/threshold running. Long run was 10 miles. Easy days were spent racing teammates for the "top-dog on the team" title.

Thankfully things have changed. Lots of good coaches out there and an abundance of resources. Wish I knew then what I know now.

Thank you for posting this video! It was a blast from the past and helped me relive a bit of my own college days running at NCAA's.

it is coming everywhere wrote:

I know they never put up team scores (don't understand that one although initially it was interesting to see the spread)

This was 1998 and there was no chip timing. There was no way for them to know the team scores during the race. The team spreads were determined by volunteers out on the course. I was in high school at the time and our cross country team took a field trip to the meet and volunteered at the meet to get in for free. We even got free long sleeve t-shirts. Our job was to go to the mile markers and report back the spread from the first to the fifth runner for one team. Each person was assigned a team and a mile mark. There was a meet worker with a cart and a walkie talkie that drove to the mark and we would watch the race go by and time the spread for the team we were assigned to the best of our abilities. I'm sure that means some of the spreads were not 100% accurate as it could be somewhat difficult to pick out the runners early in the race. But that is how they got the spreads. I can't remember how many of us there were but we only timed the teams that were expected to be amongst the top teams.