Former soccer player with no XC background runs 17:20 (female)

stong work wrote:

A College soccer player that never ran a race in her life ran 17:20 to take 1st place at the Butler Twilight Meet last weekend.

Xavier's Rachel Butler had too many concussions from playing soccer and made the difficult decision to stop playing. She decided to join the XC team.

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/college/xavier/xaviersports/2021/09/10/concussions-ender-her-soccer-career-now-shes-top-runner-xavier/5750638001/https://www.tfrrs.org/results/xc/18468/Bulter_Twilight_Meet

No surprised. Many soccer players turned distance runner stories before this one

Diaper Don wrote:

No surprised. Many soccer players turned distance runner stories before this one

Rupp comes to mind

Agreed. The article also seems to play up her inexperience. It mentioned she was running 13 miles @ 7-8 minute pace prior to joining the team and had developed a distance running training program as part of a practicum. I suspect she was a recreational runner who knew what was going on before joining the team.

Still pretty cool.

Reinforces my long held belief that some 30% of the fastest girls out there are hiding in plain sight in soccer programs. And a few are swimmers. I call it the Brie Oakley syndrome. Course most of them are happier playing soccer then running (I remember a California prospect who put up great times in cross country her freshman year then proceeded to quit at the end of the season and join the soccer team and when asked why would she give up on such promising potential she said "because I hate it! its so boring and painful!" lol!). So we probably shouldnt feel like they are missing out or that they need to be converted. They are doing what they want to do. In this case, Butler's misfortune was to the benefit of running fans. But for her sake I wish she never had had to make the choice. But since she has, heres hoping her running career remains injury free.

I wonder if she's going to try track as well. The speed needed for soccer often translates just as well to distances like the 800m and 1500m.

Agree with others that lots of our running talent is probably locked up in soccer teams (basketball, too). But also agree that it's a personal decision, and that just having the endurance for running doesn't mean one has the desire mentally to spend long hours running alone. There's of course plenty of exceptions, but many soccer players I know are super fun-loving extroverts, who just aren't going to get the same thrill from a trail run as they do from the soccer team experience.

So that makes two soccer-players-turned-runners, as I was told would happen en' masse over 30 years ago.

Rose Lavelle, for example, looks like she could have torn it up on the track.

"Because it's so boring and painful"!

There you have it.

That is how most "normal" people view running.

It helps being a bit "twisted" to be a serious runner, which is borne out on this forum

every day based on the comments.

This is Jim Kiler wrote:

So that makes two soccer-players-turned-runners, as I was told would happen en' masse over 30 years ago.

Grant Fisher was still playing soccer well into high school.

Julia Griffey (nee Kohnen) attended college on a soccer scholarship.

There is some percentage of okay soccer players on the men's side who would be good middle distance runners too. I have long held the hypothesis that the growth of soccer took away a lot of middle and distancing running talent.

Also, let's face it running is not that hard of a sport to come to. Racing tactics and pacing can be learned pretty quickly.

Soccer Speed wrote:

I wonder if she's going to try track as well. The speed needed for soccer often translates just as well to distances like the 800m and 1500m.

Agree with others that lots of our running talent is probably locked up in soccer teams (basketball, too). But also agree that it's a personal decision, and that just having the endurance for running doesn't mean one has the desire mentally to spend long hours running alone. There's of course plenty of exceptions, but many soccer players I know are super fun-loving extroverts, who just aren't going to get the same thrill from a trail run as they do from the soccer team experience.

I am less sure about basketball than soccer. Soccer for many positions has a big endurance component. Basketball has a lot of stoppage. Plus to be really good you pretty need to be explosive or really tall (and if both---sheesh).

with 4 d1+ soccer players in the family I can tell you there are a lot of players capable of running at the top level in track. Most of them are top HS athletes with major endurance and or sprint talent. Soccer is just a lot more fun than running.

Soccer dad here with a similar situation. My daughter entered her FR year playing D1 soccer... with COVID and season cancelled, XC was still happening last year. She reached out to the XC coach and surprise, surprise, ran 18:20 for 5K and ended up with a sub-22 for 6km.. now this season over the summer was running for XC but training with Soccer team not sure what would happen with COVID in '21. Her little sisters are in the same boat.. play soccer as primary but both are top running talent in region. I'd say they are complimentary sports. I got to watch a girl against my oldest play last year and told my wife that's a D1 All-American.. ended up the girl is playing both soccer and track at Georgetown. Tons of talent out there. Enjoy!

Makes a lot of sense. Good midfielders log more than 6 miles per game. The lower body strength developed by running multi-directions makes for a better athlete. Thus a stronger runner. A big reason for the high injury rate of distance runners is the lack or lower body strength due to years of focusing on high mileage and avoiding the weight room.

I don't blame her at all. Who wouldn't want to be playing soccer instead of distance running? XC & track suck as does road racing and marathons. She had that inner drive to compete and turning to the XC program helped allieve that desire. I know that if I had better talent and skills I would have stayed in soccer. As it was, I ended up turning to XC in the fall of my junior year in high school. Went to a D1 school and ran XC and track. Do I still run? Very little. Just enough to stay in shape for playing in my Men's over-40 soccer league.

She finished 9th in 16:50.5 at today's Louisville Classic. In the early splits, she was running 2nd. Since this was only her 2nd race she probably hasn't figured out the whole pacing thing yet.

https://results.flashresults.com/2021_10-01_LouisvilleClassic/002-1_compiled.htm

nike shill wrote:

Diaper Don wrote:

No surprised. Many soccer players turned distance runner stories before this one

Rupp comes to mind

Rupp was a distance runner that played soccer for awhile.

SDSU Aztec wrote:

Rupp was a distance runner that played soccer for awhile.

That is true but this woman seems special. She seems to be extraordinarily gifted. I'm sure that there are a lot of soccer players that have never competed in a running event that might possibly be pretty good. The same would be true for her if concussions did not force her to give up soccer.

She is hanging with and beating competitors with a lot more experience than she has. Some of these are "blue bloods" that were highly recruited runners. This was only her 2nd xc race ever. She never ran track and did not run cross in high school. It would be interesting to see what she could have done had she been competing since high school. I'm curious to know if she will run track but somehow I doubt it.

This thread implies that many great runners play soccer and never find their true calling but the same logic can be applied to other sports. Before they starting running distance, Frank Shorter played baseball and was said to be a power hitter, Pre played football (had a good seat on the bench to watch the games), Nenow and Chapa were wrestlers and Eric Hurst was a tennis player.