I saw Burns run on video, I am sure he is very strong, but he seemed kind of flat footed to me? Reinhardt Harrison was not even the best HS'er last year and I don't think will ever be a factor Nationally in Cross, we shall see on all.
I saw Burns run on video, I am sure he is very strong, but he seemed kind of flat footed to me? Reinhardt Harrison was not even the best HS'er last year and I don't think will ever be a factor Nationally in Cross, we shall see on all.
Maybe others are better at this than me, but trying to guess which HS’ers will have a great college XC career seems pointless. I would agree that HS XC greatness seems more relevant for college XC than chasing a sub 4.
Generally, Oregon seems to be recruiting too much talent for a guy to be a 1500 specialist in track and also get to be a varsity XC runner. I know a couple mid distance runners who picked their college specifically because the team seemed to have space for them to do both. Oregon doesn’t seem to obviously be that kind of school, but maybe Schumacher can make it work.
That’s a long winded way of leading up to the fact that I expect Harrison to be a track guy and if Birnbaum and/or Burns don’t crush it at XC nationals (like anyone with relatively a better HS mile than XC result), I will also expect them to wind up being track specialists.
From the interviews I've seen, Birnbaum has said he wants to focus on the track in college. He's the strongest in the 1500 and the 800. Burns is more distance oriented and may want to specialize in xc.