I can see that. I think most kids get great coaching in Spokane, and tend to run higher mileage than other areas. When considered with the intense week-to-week competition in both cross country and track and what is required to make it out of leagues (4:25/9:30), performances do tend to be maximized. It takes a lot of hard running to make the varsity of many of these teams, and much harder running to be competitive on the league level. When you see a guy running sub-9:10 in Seattle, it may be because he is super talented and running 45 miles a week or it may be because he is less talented and running 85, because he may not need to maximize that talent to make it to state. But in Spokane, it is much more likely he is running 85 because there are 2-3 guys behind him at 9:11 who will take his spot if he doesnt put in the extra miles.Additionally, college running may not provide the extra motivation for the runners from Mead and Ferris (and maybe North Central) that it does for others since they were already surrounded by 20 extremely dedicated teammates, already went to national meets, etc.That being said, Laef Barnes did go under 4 minutes a few years ago, Richie Nelson was competitive in the steeple at BYU, Andrew Kimpel is running well at WSU, and it will interesting to see what Ben Johnson does at BYU.Gardner and Weitz have probably shown the most talent of any GSL runner since Matt Davis, so it will be interesting to see how they develop. Should be pretty fast this spring with the addition of Beijrig at 15:09xc, just off Moskowitz's state record.
strapiton wrote:
It strikes me that most Spokane kids are running near to their potential in HS. Gardner seems different.
Bung (yes, Bung) wrote:That's friggin awesome. I just hope he can escape the mediocrity that plagues Spokane runners after HS.