Future Olympians, World Championship medalists, NCAA record holders, NCAA champions both team and individual and a high school sub-4 miler. These were the competitors in the 2011 Adidas Wisconsin Invitational Men's 8k. This mid-season race could be considered an afterthought for many teams and individuals in the buildup for the year, but my prep and collegiate running was inspired by this day on October 13, 2011.
Video Highlights of This Race
Aside from my usual enjoyment from consuming race footage from FloTrack as a high schooler, I was particularly fond of idolizing collegiate runners. Although the accomplishments listed above were only had later that year or later on in those runners' careers, my original attraction to this video's thumbnail was Lukas Verzbicas's collegiate debut. Verzbicas was the only collegiate runner I knew at the time since there was much-warranted hype around his high school career.
All of these photos capture high school records or major accomplishments of the stud. He ended the sub-4 mile drought in high school after a decade after becoming the 5th person to do it. Additionally, that fall he became the 3rd person to ever win back-to-back Foot Locker XC titles and grabbed the 2-mile high school record outdoors.
His elegant and effortless form made him look like a god among men. Without a doubt, he also made me insanely jealous over the years for not touching even his high school records in my college career.
...oh well.
This race marked his collegiate debut and even though he fell short of his own expectations and ultimately left Oregon to pursue his triathlon career later that year, it was a fun watch.
Fast forward to today, I still watch this race whenever I need a running fix.
Without going into too much detail on each runner, I'll highlight some of my favorites in the top 17.
Ryan Hill beyond his successful collegiate career captured gold in 2015 during the indoor world championships in the 3k for the USA.
Diego Estrada & Mo Ahmed both became Olympians for Mexico and Canada that spring in 2012 for the 10k in London.
Donn Cabral & Hassan Mead also became Olympians. Cabral qualified that spring for London in the Steeple Chase, while Mead qualified in 2016 for the 5k.
Chris Derrick continued an amazing NCAA career as a 2x runner-up in XC and the 5k indoors. His talent also qualified him in the 10k for the World Championships in 2015. Additionally, he became a multi US XC champion and was a member of the world team who placed 2nd to Kenya that year in XC.
Miles Batty became the NCAA collegiate record holder that year in 2012 for the mile.
Jared Ward who was Batty's teammate went on to get 6th in the 2016 Olympics for the US in the marathon.
Luke Puskedra competed in the US Olympic trials that year in 2012 in the 10k, but had an interesting post-grad timeline. After running a 61 min half-marathon in college, he made the jump to the marathon. Unfortunately, he found himself on a bumpy road when he began training with the elite group of the Nike Oregon Project. His 2:28 debut in NYC derailed his expectations and pushed him into a hiatus from the sport. It wasn't until his college coach, Andy Powell, encouraged him to get his running shoes back on again. Fast forward to his third marathon before the 2016 Olympic Trials, he ran a 2:10 in Chicago, unsponsored- the third fastest seed time in the field for the US Trials.
The wonder of this race in Wisconsin may appear to reside in the absurd talent that had already begun to bloom. However, that wasn't exactly the case. Aside from the individual performances mentioned above, there was also a team dynamic brought on by the Wisconsin Badgers that year which had set the bar for any team I wanted to be a part of.
Pictured above are four teammates running side by side whose scoring potential eventually won them the NCAA team title that season. It set the example of how effective running and training collectively can be on a team. If ever I needed some motivation to start a fall cross-country season, this video had it all. With over 20 ranked teams that year in the NCAA all in one race, the commentator- Ryan Fenton, remarked "This is the deepest race we'll see in a long time" and he was right. Obviously, anyone could watch the NCAA XC Championship race from that year and see all the same people, but the Wisconsin Invite started that record-breaking year for so many. It made me want to run in the front and at least attempt to try and run well in the NCAA.
Hopefully, we can continue to look back fondly at this race and geek-out over performances no one else really could care less about.
Tom Slattery
Comments
Post a Comment