Fast Running Blog

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?

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.

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."

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

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...

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. :P

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.

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.

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

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.

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. :)

To stimulate the local economy?

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!).

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.

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.

Unless there have been last minute changes, Nick isn't running.  He is doing the Bear Lake marathon this weekend, I believe.

Bonus for us... He's fast! 

The one thing that I have learned from racing in big D I NCAA races is that you can't control the other runners or teams.  I really doesn't matter which jersey they are running in.  I hope that everyone is just focusing on the little things in their own training, so we can all do our best in the end.  It will be fun to race with BYU, but I am looking more forward to enjoying running with our FRB guys.  Good Luck. PS are we going to get together before the race for pasta or anything?

Good point Seth - that is exactly what I am most excited for.  Actually I really didn't enjoy the running at del Sol at all, but the "team" atmosphere, being a crazy tired idiot, and pulling together to all run well is what made me decide to give relays another try... well all that and of course pancakes.

Yup, that was exactly my comment at the start of this thread, Seth.  Winning is great, but having fun is more important.

Dave, IHOP must have been quite the experience for you guys...

I think Cody and James will be sending out an email to both teams, but we will be having some sort of gathering Thursday night at my house.  I'm not sure how many people will be there since most will drive up Friday, but everyone is welcome. 

Oh, we were given the high hat! See last question on last page:

http://www.ragnarrelay.com/wasatchback/2008_Team_Captain_Meeting.pdf

No mention of the Del Sol champions whatsoever...

I was just reading through the PDF file on the Team Captain Meeting.

"Free indoor sleeping on wrestling mats."

Free ringworm too I'd guess.

Lucky for Clyde... he is already immune!  (From his wrestling days - not from growing up in Wayne Co.; that gives you a resistance to a whole other group of things.)

Hey. You have to at least go to the WC before you can poke fun at it. Plus I lived in Torrey away from all the rednecks. I had to deal with all the parkies, hippy guys, German tourists, and all the wasted Californians.