From the inside: BYU is sending a stacked team to Wasatch Back

[Tyler]

Here's the scoop: Tyrel Jensen works in my office, says BYU is filling out its team with fast guys. In the past, maybe 6-8 members of the team were actual BYU runners, but this year they expect to have 9-12.

On the plus side, many of those guys are mid-distance dudes; strong, but beatable over the longer, rougher terrain. 3:59 - 4:05 milers could be vulnerable to our more experienced long-distance veterans.

From what I've heard, these are a few of the expected suspects: Tyrel, Kyle Perry, Chandler Goodwin, Chad Durham, Jon Kotter, Rich Nelson, Nathan Ogden, and Derek Taylor. Not sure about the others, but this is a strong group. I think we can take 'em.

I'm looking forward to a tough, competitive race.... it should be a blast. Any other thoughts?

[Sasha Pachev]

Seth, Logan, and Jeff McClellan could either beat the top traveling squad guys or at least not get gapped by very much. Clyde, Dave, and myself would probably lose a minute - minute and a half per leg against a BYU "super-runner".  We do have a chance on the "out of shape" legs. Any of our guys can put good 5 minutes per leg on an out of shape former BYU runner if he is your standard American post-collegiate out of shape.  And of course, in the past BYU has been notorious for wrong turns and not having the guy there at the hand-off. To their credit, they have handled those situations without profanity.

Do not put too much hope on the fact that you are racing a middle-distance specialist and he might run out of juice on the third leg. Those relays are too short for it to happen, and a young athletic college student is usually better at dealing with the sleep deprivation regardless of his long distance fitness. If this was an ultra relay, things would be difference. The pace would be slow enough where neural fatigue would not be as much of a factor, and the longer legs would expose the lack of aerobic conditioning and glycogen storing capacity of a middle distance guy. In other words, if you find that a middle distance guy is running faster than you thought he possibly could on the third leg and he is starting to gap you like there is no tomorrow, do not let the surprise effect discourage you, just do your best, and try to hand off as close as possible to the next team member that will hopefully make a juicy sacrifice on an out of shape BYU ram in the thicket.

[Jon Allen]

We really don't know how we are going to do or how they will do, so comparisons don't mean much.  Especially since we are dealing with "hypothetical" runners (standard American post-collegiate, etc). 

I figure that if I run the best I can, it doesn't really matter who shows up, I'll still get my same time.  If we happen to be fast enough to win, great.  If not, then I couldn't have done any better, anyways.  I don't want to give anyone any ammunition to get fired up, though.  I hope all teams run great, no one gets injured, and everyone has fun.  Whoever deserves to win, will win.
 
Like the quote I saw yesterday- "There are always going to be runners faster than you and runners slower than you.  You just don't know if they'll be at your race that day."

[Tyler]

The pre-race hype is all part of the fun.

[Jon Allen]

I like trash talking, but only when I know people so they will know how I am never serious and always sarcastic/joking.  I don't know the BYU guys, so I can't do it.  It sounds like you do, though, so trash talk away!

After all, my avatar is Hulk Hogan, one of the trash talking masters...

[adam]

The pre-race hype is all part of the fun.

Yeah, I heard that they had been logging on to fastrunningblog.com on a daily basis to get info on FRB team members and find their weaknesses. But, when they found out that there weren't any, and they would get dominated, they got scared and decided to stack their roster.

[Paul Petersen]

On the plus side, many of those guys are mid-distance dudes; strong, but beatable over the longer, rougher terrain. 3:59 - 4:05 milers could be vulnerable to our more experienced long-distance veterans.

Mid-distance makes no difference. A 800m/mile specialist of that level runs like a gazelle and has no problem holding 5:30 pace for 6 miles. They can do it with their eyes closed. Case in the point, the ringer on the Google team last year at Del Sol. The guy was a 3:39 1500m runner (or something like that), and just crushed it leg and after leg. On his third leg he still didn't even look like he was working. And supposedly he was "out of shape".

Probably the biggest thing going against BYU compared to FRB would be that generally college guys are coming off of track and rebuilding their base over the summer, whereas us old guys are in the thick of our summer racing season and are a bit sharper from speedwork. But I have no idea if that's true for BYU or not.

[Superfly]

This is getting interesting. We really need to make sure to stay on the course this year and not give anything back. Everyone needs to study their legs and be ready.

[Jon Allen]

Clyde, we'll just stick you on legs that don't have any turns.  No driveways, even.   

[Tyler]

Hey, I'm not trying to smack talk.... much. Mostly I wanted everyone aware that we may be facing a team more on the level of the 2005 era. We were originally hoping to win by a reasonable margin, now it seems to be less clear cut.

[Logan Fielding]

All this talk of competition against BYU is taking away the real reason why we are doing Wasatch Back.  We are going to have a ton of fun doing this.  Nothing like 12 sweaty guys cramped up in vehicles and then running all through night.  I am going just to have fun.

[Paul Petersen]

...the real reason why we are doing Wasatch Back...

To stimulate the local economy?

[jtshad]

Sounds like the competition is going to be fun and we should all approach it that way!  Thanks for the scoop Tyler, good to just know who we are up against (since they seem to know more about us than we do about them).  Must have got in their heads if the are checking out the blog (Sasha, here is a recruiting base for you!).

[Sasha Pachev]

I think Adam's post was meant more as a joke. BYU team captain seemed to have no clue of who they were going to race from the post he made a while ago on the Ragnar board. But they might have learned something by now. The race will be interesting.

[Dave Holt]

They should probably know something with Nick on their team, since he helped (was a major reason for...) us dominate del Sol - unless he isn't running.