Colorado Mines Loses by DNF?

They didn't have their third and fifth guys taken out... Their #1 was in the lead with a mile to go and appeared to cramp up. It would have been a extremely close team competition had he won over the Grand Valley guys, no use speculating though. Unfortunately situation but these things happen.

I think a lot of it was that his body wasn't able to handle the transition from Golden, Colorado to running in the swamp that is Florida.

check your math

Sorry I mixed up Dylan Ko and Dillon Powell. So a top 3 overall guy drops and the 23rd scorer drops. To be replaced by 29th and 73rd in team scoring. So 76 ( close to 80). And GVSU would have added probably 12 points. All speculation but it would have been close. Tough way to lose.

just a regular guy in the neighborhood wrote:

I think a lot of it was that his body wasn't able to handle the transition from Golden, Colorado to running in the swamp that is Florida.

Agree with environmental adjustments not being accounted for. However, the pace was entirely too fast the first half of the race. The field was spread thin from the get go. His legs gave out going up the big hill. Staggering, fell, staggered right off the course. He was actually looking pretty good until he hit that hill but he was definitely running wide open from the start. The defending champion faded way back to 11th or so as he was pushing the pace as well. GV guys and 3rd placer were poised and finished strong.

You can't add 12 points to another team's score by inserting 2 runners. Even if the 2 runners finish ahead of all 5 runners, that only adds 10.

There were others who basically gave out at the end near the front. The hard pace allow GVSU runners to close the gap in the 4 and 5 slots near the end. Without Powell hammering there would have been more runners pushing the backend. 12 was a safe guess. Solid finish by GVSU.

Powell was pumping his arms the whole way like it was the end of an 800. I don't know if that is his normal form, but I was impressed as hell until he cratered.

It looked like GVSU was clearly a better and deeper team. Ran smart race knowing the course and conditions and completely dominated.

GVSU ran as close to perfect as you can get. Lots of DNFs or individuals dropping hard in the humidity and hard course. Most guys who led before the GV guys took it got in trouble.

Flew there to watch from Australia in 2016 and the conditions were terribly humid. Big disadvantage for guys coming from the cold.

coahc wrote:

Flew there to watch from Australia in 2016 and the conditions were terribly humid. Big disadvantage for guys coming from the cold.

GVSU came from a cold weather home. How did they prepare?

They had ice towels on their necks and wrists before the race. And yes miserable conditions with the heat, humidity, and mud

Didn't Adams St. dominate?

Did they relocate to New Orleans or are they still neighbors of Mines?

5k splits:

https://results.leonetiming.com/XC.html?mid=4685

14:25 at 5k for Mines' Powell, 27 sec ahead of the Grand Valley guys who would go 1-2. That might be the dumbest race execution I've ever heard of given the heat/humidity. If Mines had run a normal race plan, they would have been close to GV. Hope their 2 guys recover from the heat illness.

Reply to last.

If you click on the results at each split, you can see that Mines didn't lose because of the DNF runners. They were losing ground anyway.

https://results.leonetiming.com/xc.html?mid=4685

They moved from 6th (1.3k) to first by one point (3K) but then started to drop. Down nine points, then eleven, then down into third place and fifteen points back at 6.7k (still with all five runners).

Then they stayed in third as they lost one, then two runners. But to say that they would have moved up over the last couple of kilometers would mean they had to have everyone moving up and the evidence says they were going the other way.

In fact, the team that was moving up was the eventual winner. Grand Valley improved from 1.3k to the finish with point totals of 149, 97, 78, 77, 59, 48, 47, and 43 at the end.

The RMAC put 5 teams in the top 10 coming from high and dry Colorado.

Looking at the results above the splits show the teams progression. UCCS went from 27th to 5th. They were 19th at 5k.

Imimpresssed wrote:

coahc wrote:

Flew there to watch from Australia in 2016 and the conditions were terribly humid. Big disadvantage for guys coming from the cold.

GVSU came from a cold weather home. How did they prepare?

It was also warm and humid for most of the season in Michigan. It just got chilly pretty recently.

Funrunkid wrote:

I know it’s always called “baby nationals?

It hasn't always been called "baby nationals",. The only place you have ever heard that disrespectful lexeme is at LRC -- always by people who've never qualified for the Big Dance.

If you are the real deal you are never dismissive of DII or DIII.