The college season has hit February, meaning fast times will start to roll in as more and more teams have completed enough base work to start going fast. (Unless you're Josh Elkan and your teammate can't break 60 in the quarter, then you're probably stuck going slow.)
Haverford's Charlie Marquardt and Hopkin's Andrew Carey are the two stars of the conference who hopefully have an epic showdown in the mile this year (unless Carey bows out because he knows his team doesn't need the points and he wants to dodge Chuck again). Carey has already run 1:53 for 800m, but has looked reasonably human in recent weeks, while Marquardt continues to drop marks that would make even the swarthmore team put down their books and take notice. After he ran 4:12 at the armory, Marquardt ran 8:13 in the 3k at Tufts (a flat track) to win by roughly 20 seconds (although he likely got some help from old teammate Eric Arnold as a pacer).
As I discussed with my fellow running czar, Luke Munyan, the 3k is Charlie's sweet spot and this race coupled with his 800m run the week prior ("only" 1:57) shows he is leaning solidly towards strength over speed. A mile-3k double gold attempt at Conferences seems within reason.
Haverford had a nice weekend all around as they now boast 5 of the top 10 800m spots, 6 of the top 12 miles, 6 of the top 9 3ks and 6 of the top 13 5ks. Frosh Henry Woods has looked great with his 4:21 and 8:44 marks (as well as a sub 2). I've never seen him compete before but odds are he's another weird looking white dude in a haverford jersey chanting about goats.
Regardless of Haverford's dominance they are going to need some help from the other squads breaking up the Hopkins distance points, other wise Hopkins will run away from the title faster than Jeff Horvath runs away from a hair cut. Dickinson has been relatively quiet in the shorter events, but showed signs of life in a recent 5k, putting 4 guys under 15:40.
Swat has been super quiet, but they aren't too relevant in the "who will steal individual points from Hopkins" discussion because they will likely continue to stack the relays. It's a shame because Paul Green, Erick White and Jonas Oppenhiemer are all really darn good. Sid Kakkar in the 5k/3k could also threaten for points, considering his excellent XC season. Pretty sure that guy dislocated his shoulder at conferences, popped it back in and tried to finish the race. Spencer Friske has also been a strong 5k man in the past and could contend for one of the final scoring positions.
Swat's quietness is matched by F&M's as the reigning 4x8 powerhouse has yet to unleash the Olenginski's and whatever their newest hair style is on the conference. To be fair on the quietness thing. I'm not actually sure if the Olenginski's talk, I've never seen them talk. Maybe they have some type of twin physic connection. The twins from the soccer team do the same thing .... One things for sure, if Phillip Johnson scores in the open 800m again and Josh and I have to watch I probably will just go ahead and retire right then and there.
But then I'll probably unretire in 2 months because it's what I do.
I could waste some more space talking about Gettysburg but here's all you need to know. They got like 100 dudes and they all have like similar names and similar PRs. Besides he who must not be named.
Andrew Mackin is real good at the 800m. I've now caught you up on everything I have seen from the Ursinus and McDaniel distance squads.
And finally we have the Berg. Muhlenberg raced at their home meet this weekend, an excellent chance for people to say, "wow that person runs college track and field, so I can do that too?". It's also a nice opportunity for people to check their 160m splits on an indoor track. Because we all know what those mean.
Josh Elkan earned some major props for his performance in the meet. Even NARPs like Lance Dotzman (and not Lauren Polanco of course) were impressed. Dan Polanco (no relation I'm pretty sure) felt the wrath of the Elkan hammer fiercely as well as some kids from DeSales who weren't lucky enough to pretend to be sick and skip the meet. Polanco's 4:20 speed was no match for Elkan, as he dropped him by roughly 20 seconds en route to a 4:38 win.
I saw the video of Elkan outkicking the DeSales boys and taking the W (it was one of Bergs top plays of the week, closely behind Mike Falk's son doing the high jump and one of the theatre kids breaking out into song walking on Academic Row) and after watching the high definition footage I'm actually a lot less impressed then I was when I just heard about it from other people. I mean, I'm not sure if it was even him in the race I honestly couldn't see a thing.
You know what I am upset I missed. Ken Wohl's kick. He straight up murdered that field and I heard he ran his last lap in 25 in the 1k (yes that's a 160m split). Then I heard he did his Kenny dance and pretended to be married to Kirsten and everyone loved it. Sometimes you throw em off a bridge ...
But seriously, people were loving this KWohl win and it's exciting to hear the speed is coming back (I swear he ran 2:01 once. I don't lie about this thing). But the problem was KWohl ran too fast. He promptly got sick immediately after his dramatic win at his first Mule home meet. See Kenny this is what happens when you try to hard. I thought you knew better man.
Steve Sroka just had a solid race out there. He beat John Bayeux, AKA the guy who beat me at Gwynedd Mercy and ruined the Mule sweep so it's nice to vicariously live through someone who is better looking and faster than me. I really need to get back into doing core ...
I did have the privilege of watching the 5k at Lehigh. I mean it was a pretty good meet, but nothing I would berate the coaching staff to attend. Completely hypothetical situation of course.
Luke Munyan ran awesome out there with his 15:44.6 and I was really surprised that he disproved my prediction. Not my prediction that he would run high 15:50s, the one where I predicted he would complain about the pacing or the fact that the race was not Bucknell. He didn't do that and I have to give the man credit.
And now Luke is 15th in the conference with that 15:44 and you gotta like that. 15th in the conference is really impressive.
Although admittedly, me and Charlie Kline are tied for 15th in the 60m hurdles because ... Well .. only 14 people have run it. (For the record Charlie don't run the 60m hurdles, it would destroy your body.
And I obviously can't run it because of my knees. I think I would end up worst off.)
Then we have my boy Zachary Lifman. 16:18 is a really solid day. So what if it doesn't qualify for conferences, it's still good right? Think of how fun it will be for the two of us to watch all the races together in a couple weeks man! We can watch Jesse Deffler pole vault and anchor the 4x8!
But actually though, it's on the table. The coaches have great faith in the guy to run on relays that he hasn't really trained for.
Zach ran a strong race, even holding on to someone who lapped him for like a mile of the race. C'mon Danny why did you go out so fast ...
But seriously Zach, we are all having fun here, but the jokes done. You don't have to keep coming agonizingly close to the conference time anymore you can just make it next time. The joke is kinda getting old honestly, and as much as you know I appreciate good jokes, this one is at it's end.
Just remember you could beat me over any distance right now.
See you kids on Saturday. I'm not coming to ESU though. For real this time.
So text me your race schedule.
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