Nico Young - top 10 guy at NCAAs?

"For anyone thinking the course was short, most watches had it a little over 5 miles, which sounds right if it was 8k."

Uhh 8k is short of 5 miles

Yeah but GPS watches usually overestimate the actual distance.

oqew wrote:

Yeah but GPS watches usually overestimate the actual distance.

This. Run a 5k on the track and would not be surprised if your GPS watch says you "ran" 3.30 or 3.35 miles

birdbeard wrote:

Would have an asterisk wrote:

This year a top 10 doesn't mean as much, there's a split focus on track and field and cross country. I'll be more impressed if he scores points (top 8) at the outdoor track championships.

Eh I'd say those two things are somewhat on par this year. I agree that NCAA XC will be watered down this year, but the different events in track water it all down a bit too, either because guys are tired running multiple events or because they don't run multiple events. I would actually be somewhat surprised if a guy that ran 7:56 a year ago 13:44 in December wasn't able to score points in whichever event he chooses (presumably the 5000, but possibly the 10,000 I suppose).

13:44 is still a ways away from scoring points at the NCAA championships. I ran faster than 13:44 fairly recently in the NCAA and didn't score points, there are tons of guys these days that can run faster than that. You've probably got to be a 13:35 guy or better this year to be top 8 in the 5k, especially since there is an extra year of athletes from covid that are back.

He wasn't in great shape when he ran the 13:44, I think he was injured a month before that and was still getting used to NAU training. He also ran an 8:10 3k a week or 2 before the 5k, he can probably run a 7:50 now. He should be at least be a 13:35 guy by the time NCAAs roll around.

nico young annoying

oqew wrote:

Would have an asterisk wrote:

13:44 is still a ways away from scoring points at the NCAA championships. I ran faster than 13:44 fairly recently in the NCAA and didn't score points, there are tons of guys these days that can run faster than that. You've probably got to be a 13:35 guy or better this year to be top 8 in the 5k, especially since there is an extra year of athletes from covid that are back.

He wasn't in great shape when he ran the 13:44, I think he was injured a month before that and was still getting used to NAU training. He also ran an 8:10 3k a week or 2 before the 5k, he can probably run a 7:50 now. He should be at least be a 13:35 guy by the time NCAAs roll around.

^^^^ this.

During the battle born collegiate challenge nico young beat Luis with nur slightly beating him by .2 milliseconds (22:30.5 and nico with 22:30.7) so I think he has a real shot

garciaj369 wrote:

During the battle born collegiate challenge nico young beat Luis with nur slightly beating him by .2 milliseconds (22:30.5 and nico with 22:30.7) so I think he has a real shot

Nur did not beat Young by only 2 milliseconds.

For people that watched the race, did it look like Grijalva shut it down/ didn't make an attempt to catch Nur/Young/Herrera?

If he just couldn't respond, I find it hard to believe he would be a title contender in a few weeks.

Luis G wrote:

For people that watched the race, did it look like Grijalva shut it down/ didn't make an attempt to catch Nur/Young/Herrera?

If he just couldn't respond, I find it hard to believe he would be a title contender in a few weeks.

That’s because he isn’t.

Sort of hard to see after he dropped back a bit. But I think he was trying. Too many people were ready to hand him the title. How many NCAA titles does he have? I think the top 3 NAU guys will finish about 6-7-8 in the meet.

OC4 wrote:

oqew wrote:

Yeah but GPS watches usually overestimate the actual distance.

This. Run a 5k on the track and would not be surprised if your GPS watch says you "ran" 3.30 or 3.35 miles

This effect is only seen on the track though. Look on Strava and see the shape that is being recorded - it's more like a square or a triangle - that's the source of error (known as interpolation error) on the track. Cross country courses with much fewer curves than a track are going to be more accurate.

Yeah, probably about 4th.

The Insider wrote:

Is it just me, or does Nico's form look a lot better since high school??? From what I recall, he always looked like he was in complete agony from the gun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3XWhotsvl4

Nico has gotten worse because his form has gotten less efficient. While he has fixed issues with upper body rotation for sure, he has taken a major step backwards with regard to his running posture. He know runs very upright and has lost his forward lean that he had in high school and early college.

How did he get worse?

He went from 13:50 to 13:24

13:50 in a solo 5k at the end of a season training in a pandemic in your debut effort vs. 13:24 in a perfectly paced race with plenty of competition and during a regular season of training is not a fair comparison.

Nico's 3000m time of 7:56.97 in February of his senior year is equivalent to a 13:33 for 5000m outdoors [according to IAAF scoring calculator]. Even with a modest improvement from February to June Nico would have likely gotten Verzbicas's record of 8:29 for 2 miles and been at the equivalent of 13:30 or under as a high school senior.

So Nico has improved about 5 seconds only since joining NAU and most of that is because he has improved his cardiovascular fitness by training at altitude and also adding volume to his training. His form has gotten worse.

I honestly think that his brothers [Lex and Leo] could possibly beat him in a 3k right now.

He wouldn't run 13:24 right now. That's how he got worse.