2025 BU Terrier: A Super Fast Men’s Mile & New Mexico’s Squad of World U20 Medalists Comes to Boston

Cooper Teare's NCAA mile record of 3:50.39 could be under threat on Saturday

The first weekend in February (yes, that is this upcoming weekend) is going to be a big one in the elite running world. A number of top college and pro distance runners will be racing at the John Thomas Terrier Classic at Boston University (women on Friday, men on Saturday). On Sunday, less than two miles down the road, The Track at New Balance will host the first major US professional meet of 2025, the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix. And in the middle of all that, Shelby Houlihan will make her return from a four-year doping ban on Saturday afternoon at the Razorback Invitational in Arkansas.

We’ve already addressed Houlihan’s return a couple of times on LetsRun.com, so let’s take a closer look at some of the names and races who will be racing in Boston this weekend. Below, we have a quick preview of the BU meet, with a full preview of the NBIGP coming soon. LetsRun.com will have boots-on-the-ground coverage of both meets.

*Terrier Classic schedule *Men’s entries *Women’s entries *Live results *Watch live on FloTrack

Could we see an NCAA record in the mile on Saturday?

The last time North Carolina’s Ethan Strand came to Boston, in December, he ran 7:30.15 to crush the NCAA record in the 3,000 meters. Eight weeks later, he is heading back to run the mile, and buzz is already building around how fast he might run. Between Strand, Northern Arizona’s Colin Sahlman (who ran 3:53.17 at this meet last year), Eastern Kentucky’s Justine Kipkoech and On Athletics Club pro Robert Farken of Germany (3:32.10 1500 pb), there are some very fast guys in this field.

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The NCAA record of 3:50.39 by Cooper Teare from 2021, is no joke. But the fact is, to be an NCAA champion in the 1500/mile in the year 2025, you have to be able to run around 3:50 in the mile. LetsRun.com’s rule of thumb for a mile-to-1500 conversion is to divide the mile time by 1.08 (Editor’s note: We actually like to divide by 1.0802 but it drives Jonathan nuts we want to be that precise as it’s only a .04 difference). If you divide 3:50.39 by 1.08, you get 3:33.32. Right now, there are no fewer than five guys in the NCAA who have run 3:33 or faster: Wisconsin’s Adam Spencer (3:31.81 pb), Washington’s Nathan Green (3:32.20; he has already run a 3:50.74 mile this season), Kipkoech (3:32.94 pb), Oregon’s Elliott Cook (3:33.84), and Sahlman (3:33.96). Kipkoech and Sahlman are both running in Boston. Strand’s 3:35.60 pb is a little slower, but his 7:30 3k suggests he can run faster for 1500.

That doesn’t mean Teare’s record is going down on Saturday. Runners like Strand, Sahlman, and Kipkoech want to be in peak fitness in June (or this year, perhaps August for USAs), not January. UNC coach Chris Miltenberg stressed that this is just the first race in what he hopes will be a long 2025 season for Strand.

“Given how long XC was and then going right into that big 3k, we really gave him and Parker [Wolfe] a big down cycle in December to relax physically and mentally before getting in the long build through the coming summer,” Miltenberg wrote in a text to LetsRun.com. “…It’s so easy to get into a constant state of reactivity with all the times [being run] etc. and all of our guys do a really good job of remembering big picture that we are always the ones getting better later in the year. So this will be a great hard starting effort for Ethan that will accelrate his training for the next month.”

So you may want to keep expectations in check for Strand and Kipkoech (who only ran 3:57 in the mile last week in New York). Still, there is no better track in the country to hunt a mile personal best than BU, and meet organizers told LetsRun.com that the race will be paced for the NCAA record, with a target split of 2:22 at 1k. Plus word on the street is Farken is in great shape, and Sahlman (48.63/1:17.24 double in the 400/600 on January 10) is already looking sharp in 2025. The prediction here is that someone runs very fast on Saturday.

One final note: you can use a mile time to qualify for the 2025 World Championships outdoors. The auto standard is 3:50.00.

MB: Ncaa mile record on watch at BU

Will anyone break Cooper Teare's NCAA mile record (3:50.39) at BU?

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LRC Prediction: If the NCAA record goes down, it’s going to Sahlman. Farken FTW.

New Mexico’s embarrassment of riches, led by a World U20 XC champion

Do you realize the University of New Mexico has a world U20 cross country champion on its roster right now? And do you realize how insane that is?

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Here are some former winners of the U20 race at World XC: Kenenisa Bekele. Eliud Kipchoge. Asbel Kiprop. Geoffrey Kamworor. Hagos Gebrhiwet. Jacob Kiplimo.

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You can add Ishmael Kipkurui‘s name to that list. He won the 2023 World U20 XC title in Australia, finished 10th in the 5,000 at the 2023 World Championships for Kenya, and owns a personal best of 13:05. In previous years, someone with that resume would never even consider coming to the US for college. Read those names from the last paragraph again — if you win World XC, you are a mega, mega talent.

But with NCAA schools being able to offer generous aid packages, including Alston awards, and shoe companies able to offer NIL deals while an athlete is still in college, the financial incentives are driving more and more of the world’s top young distance talents to the NCAA.

“Putting himself in the NCAA allows him to raise his profile and will hopefully open up larger financial windows for him in the near future,” New Mexico coach Darren Gauson told LetsRun.com. “If he wins a couple NCAA titles and we do well as a team, that’s only going to make his [value higher] like it has with [NCAA XC runner-up] Pamela [Kosgei]. She’s had some incredible offers, same with Habtom [Samuel, who has an NIL with HOKA], in the short time that she’s has been here. And I would predict it would the exact same thing with Ishmael once he gets rolling.

“It’s like the guy who went to Oregon, [Koitatoi Kidali]. A 1:42 guy [in the 800], why would he come to the NCAA? I think now just with the deregulation of a lot of things and the NIL piece, you’re going to see more and more of that.”

After the fall of 2001, when Dathan Ritzenhein (world jr xc bronze in 2001) enrolled at the University of Colorado, until 2023, a grand total of one distance runner entered the NCAA with a World U20 medal under their belt: Christina Aragon, who took bronze in the 1500 at World U20s in 2016 before heading to Stanford that fall. New Mexico has added five World U20 medalists in just the last 18 months: Samuel (bronze in the 3k/5k) came in the fall of 2023, Kosgei (bronze in XC) came in the fall of 2024, and Kipkurui, Matthew Kosgei (silver in the steeple), and Marion Jepngetich (silver in the 3k) all enrolled in January 2025.

Few NCAA schools have ever had such an assemblage of international talent. Now we’ll see what Gauson can do with it. Kipkurui, who battled a calf injury last year (perhaps explaining why he was “only” 4th in the 5,000 at World U20s in August), ran a 4:03 mile at altitude last weekend in Albuquerque, which placed him 5th overall. One of the guys who beat him was Samuel, who ran 3:59, and both are entered in the 5,000 at BU along with Kosgei and Collins Kiprotich (who won the mile last week in 3:58).

The 5,000 will be rabbitted for 13:00 pace. The favorite is Jimmy Gressier, a 12:54/26:58 guy from France, and John Heymans (11th in the Olympic final for Belgium) should also be up there. Other guys to watch: US Olympic steeplers Kenneth Rooks and Matthew Wilkinson, Sam Parsons of Tinman Elite, Canada’s Charles Philibert-Thiboutot, NAZ Elite’s Jackson Sharp, BYU’s Casey Clinger, Arkansas’ Patrick Kiprop, and Wisconsin’s Bob Liking (13:09 pb).

We explored the topic of why more top Kenyans are coming to the NCAA in more detail in November: LRC Here’s Why There Are So Many Top Kenyan Runners in the NCAA This Year — Scholarbook & the New NCAA Math

Elise Cranny pulling double duty

The most notable name on the women’s side at BU is American pro Elise Cranny, who will be opening up her season on Friday in the mile. Cranny swept the 5k and 10k at USAs in 2023 but since then has changed coaches twice, from Jerry Schumacher to Joe Bosshard to Jarred Cornfield. Now she is settled with Cornfield and will look to build on a 2024 season in which she ran personal bests in the 1500 (3:57) and 3000 (8:25) and finished 11th in the Olympic 5,000 final.

Cranny will be favored in a mile field that also includes 2021 NCAA champ Anna Camp-Bennett, 4:04 1500 runner Shannon Flockhart of Providence College, and Riley Chamberlain, who anchored BYU’s DMR to victory at NCAAs last year. When the race is over, Cranny will have a little over 48 hours to recover as she is also running the 3,000 at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix on Sunday against a stacked field led by Olympic medalists Jessica Hull and Georgia Bell.

Update: US 1500m champ Nikki Hiltz was a late add to the meet and is entered in both the 3,000 and 5,000 at BU. Fellow US Olympians Courtney Wayment and Whittni Morgan are also in the 5,000.

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