btw, I think I read somewhere that BYU often has older athletes. One might think many of them also ran the mile at this facility, but apparently not as fast as what Aiden just did.
Do you still have to duck going into the east curve?
I certainly could be wrong, but it would surprise me if very many past top milers have done an all-out mile on that thing.
That's a great atmosphere for a race and it makes it really exciting, regardless of whether they're 23-25 or what. All that allows for support of athletes longer. Maybe all the NCAA programs should do it, keep them into their mid-20s, add the half marathon or marathon to the championship calendar, and we'd have more elite marathoners.
There are around a dozen athletes who will get to run NCAA XC for a 5th time on Saturday. We introduce you to a few of them, plus the 26-year-old ninth-year senior (and mother) who first ran NCAA XC in 2013.
The 3 posts immediately above this mention something happening 'longer' either at BYU or with Mormons in general. There was no '9th year'. Nobody had NCAA elegibility all of those years. '8-1/2 years after graduation' was written. So what? He didn't use any elegibility during some of those years.
This confuses many who believe some important event happens upon HS graduation. The NCAA doesn't mandate that you finish within 5 years of that day. They just say you can only do 4 seasons of any single sport. Now, Covid added one, but BYU doesn't add any more on top of that. Nor does any church.
You are welcome to start at 20 or 22, but the date elegibility starts tolling is the only meaningful date. Nobody is still around 8 or 9 years after that. Their eligibilty clock didn't start upon graduation. So, you can be 10 years out from high school, but that is not a meaningful stat since the end of high school doea not equal the beginning of NCAA elegibility.
Truth is any school can employ the religious mission strategy. If a Catholic kid going to Notre Dame, or a protestant going to secular Wisconsin, put together a serious well planned proposal sponsored by their denomination, they would surely receive a 2yr exemption. They could even run during their mission unlike the Mormons.
Fact is the Mormon church happens to have a well organized mission program, but other denominations do not.
Without support of an organized structure, other kids don't do this. Also in reality most kids and their parents don't want to drag out college an extra 2 years.
Truth is any school can employ the religious mission strategy. If a Catholic kid going to Notre Dame, or a protestant going to secular Wisconsin, put together a serious well planned proposal sponsored by their denomination, they would surely receive a 2yr exemption. They could even run during their mission unlike the Mormons.
Fact is the Mormon church happens to have a well organized mission program, but other denominations do not.
Without support of an organized structure, other kids don't do this. Also in reality most kids and their parents don't want to drag out college an extra 2 years.
I have seen a lot of posts on this website about the "mission strategy" and would like to explain it a bit. I know some coaches in Utah who have successful runners who go on a mission before college competition. When they are on a mission, they are generally running very little if at all. This is the reason that when they return, they often struggle getting into things. It is not a "loophole" to go grind 100 mile weeks or something like that. Yes they are older, but if anything they have a disadvantage from coming off 2 years with a small amount if any running
btw, I think I read somewhere that BYU often has older athletes. One might think many of them also ran the mile at this facility, but apparently not as fast as what Aiden just did.
Do you still have to duck going into the east curve?
I certainly could be wrong, but it would surprise me if very many past top milers have done an all-out mile on that thing.
You definitely need to be careful with your lean at some points, I seriously would only ever run a 3k on that track and I hate the 3k.
Super impressive performance, this is obviously due to periodization and whatnot too, but lots of 4:10-4:20 type guys will seriously bust a 4:30 here, I don’t think the altitude conversion even tells the full story
Kind of fun to go in and out of the tunnel though, I also opened an aggressive 800m there in reportedly 24.high and had the worst fall apart of my running career so nothing but fond memories there
Truth is any school can employ the religious mission strategy. If a Catholic kid going to Notre Dame, or a protestant going to secular Wisconsin, put together a serious well planned proposal sponsored by their denomination, they would surely receive a 2yr exemption. They could even run during their mission unlike the Mormons.
Fact is the Mormon church happens to have a well organized mission program, but other denominations do not.
Without support of an organized structure, other kids don't do this. Also in reality most kids and their parents don't want to drag out college an extra 2 years.
I have seen a lot of posts on this website about the "mission strategy" and would like to explain it a bit. I know some coaches in Utah who have successful runners who go on a mission before college competition. When they are on a mission, they are generally running very little if at all. This is the reason that when they return, they often struggle getting into things. It is not a "loophole" to go grind 100 mile weeks or something like that. Yes they are older, but if anything they have a disadvantage from coming off 2 years with a small amount if any running
This, missions completely ruin some athletes. Your companions are essentially randomly assigned and I promise the LDS church isn’t in on some scheme to let their college track athletes train extra over 2 years. You can run 2-3 miles every other day if you’re lucky.
I was told by mantz that even 7-8 minute miles were hard when he got home from his mission. Doesn’t sound like a good cheating method to me.
One of my LDS teammates (who ran around 4:20 and 15:00 in highschool) also showed up weighing about 180 lbs at 5’8ish and wasn’t breaking 6:00 in mile repeats, didn’t match his PBs until he’d been with the program for over a year
This post was edited 2 minutes after it was posted.
I have seen a lot of posts on this website about the "mission strategy" and would like to explain it a bit. I know some coaches in Utah who have successful runners who go on a mission before college competition. When they are on a mission, they are generally running very little if at all. This is the reason that when they return, they often struggle getting into things. It is not a "loophole" to go grind 100 mile weeks or something like that. Yes they are older, but if anything they have a disadvantage from coming off 2 years with a small amount if any running
This, missions completely ruin some athletes. Your companions are essentially randomly assigned and I promise the LDS church isn’t in on some scheme to let their college track athletes train extra over 2 years. You can run 2-3 miles every other day if you’re lucky.
I was told by mantz that even 7-8 minute miles were hard when he got home from his mission. Doesn’t sound like a good cheating method to me.
One of my LDS teammates (who ran around 4:20 and 15:00 in highschool) also showed up weighing about 180 lbs at 5’8ish and wasn’t breaking 6:00 in mile repeats, didn’t match his PBs until he’d been with the program for over a year
Yes, this completely lines up with everything I have heard. People hear a COVID mission BYU guy is 26 or something and like to attribute their success to just their age. Very different than someone like graham blanks taking a year off to train hard. Some negative opinions I have heard are that Aiden Troutner has never been the same after the mission, which makes a result like this even more good to see. People forget he won NXN, and doesn't seem to have adjusted after the mission as well as mantz or clinger.
It is crazy to suggest that it would be better to take 2 years mostly/all the way off running, with suboptimal sleep and often a terrible diet than to continue training straight into college. Or that doing so produces some magical advantage
