This weekend, I’m working Flotrack’s coverage of the Alex Wilson Invitational at Notre Dame. This is college track’s “last chance” weekend, as NCAA Championships qualifying will close on Sunday.

Qualifying for the NCAAs is a little different this year. There are no automatic qualifying marks any more, instead the top 16 in each individual event and top 12 relays will qualify. Some don’t like it this way, but keep reading and you’ll see why I love it.

Distance Medleys

For whatever reason, all the top distance medley relays tend to come to this meet, especially for the men. It appears that this is the only of the “last chance” meets even holding a men’s distance medley. Also, most top teams don’t load up their relay and try to run a really fast time until last chance weekend. So the Alex Wilson Invitational distance medleys really fly.

Twenty-seven different teams entered a men’s distance medley. Meet management split them into three roughly equal heats, or at least what they perceived to be equal. Every single relay team with NCAA Championships aspirations was entered, save one: national leaders Texas, who elected to sit out the weekend as they thought their 9:31.82 leader would keep them in the top twelve.

Heat One

This was the list of top twelve relay teams before the weekend began.

1 Texas 9:31.82
2 Indiana 9:33.42
3 Stanford 9:34.20
4 Oregon 9:35.06
5 Arkansas 9:35.50
6 Penn State 9:39.87
7 UCLA 9:40.18
7 Wisconsin 9:40.18
9 Columbia 9:40.67
10 Texas Tech 9:40.71
11 California 9:41.18
12 Minnesota 9:41.20

Then heat one came along. Watch the video and check out the results.

This heat produced the national top five, all in one race. Remember, Texas was counting on fewer than eleven teams beating them, yet five did in the first of three heats. After that first heat, those top 12 looked like this:
1 Penn State 9:26.60 (heat 1)
2 Oklahoma State 9:28.38 (heat 1)
3 Minnesota 9:29.22 (heat 1)
4 Virginia 9:31.23 (heat 1)
5 Nebraska 9:31.71 (heat 1)
6 Texas 9:31.82 (standing pat)
7 Oregon 9:31.91 (heat 1)
7 Indiana 9:33.42
9 Brown 9:33.53 (heat 1)
10 Stanford 9:34.20
11 Arkansas 9:35.50
12 UCLA 9:40.18

Heat Two

The carnage continued…

Another five teams moved into the national top twelve. Texas is now sitting in a very tenuous eleventh. The national top twelve:
1 Penn State 9:26.60 (heat 1)
2 Princeton 9:27.74 (heat 2)
3 Stanford 9:28.25 (heat 2)
4 Oklahoma State 9:28.38 (heat 1)
5 Minnesota 9:29.22 (heat 1)
6 Illinois 9:29.40 (heat 2)
7 Oklahoma 9:29.44 (heat 2)
7 Arkansas 9:30.22 (heat 2)
9 Virginia 9:31.23 (heat 1)
10 Nebraska 9:31.71 (heat 1)
11 Texas 9:31.82 (standing pat)
12 Oregon 9:31.91 (heat 1)

One more heat to go.

Heat Three

Stunning. Every single NCAA qualifier ran last night, all in the same meet. Texas ended up sixteenth and way out of qualifying. Wisconsin was thirteenth, and we suspect they are the fastest team ever to miss qualifying to the NCAA Championships.

Your final (unofficial) qualifying list:
1 Penn State 9:26.60 (heat 1)
2 Princeton 9:27.74 (heat 2)
3 Stanford 9:28.25 (heat 2)
4 Oklahoma State 9:28.38 (heat 1)
5 Minnesota 9:29.22 (heat 1)
6 Illinois 9:29.40 (heat 2)
7 Oklahoma 9:29.44 (heat 2)
7 Arkansas 9:30.22 (heat 2)
9 Villanova 9:30.47 (heat 3)
10 Virginia Tech 9:30.83 (heat 3)
11 Indiana 9:31.11 (heat 3)
12 Virginia 9:31.23 (heat 1)

A Record Run

As everyone was packing up their stuff (and the Flotrack crew was editing and uploading video and photos), a 5k began at The Armory Track and Field Center in Manhattan. The seven big (male) guns in Jerry Schumacher’s Portland-based training group were in attendance and trying to run 13:15.00, the ‘A’ qualifying mark for the 5000 meters at August’s World Championship. We started watching the live feed just before the leaders hit 3000 meters in 7:53. That’s sub-13:10 pace.

After a few more laps continuing at this pace, Alex Lohr turned to me and said, “Hey, what’s the American indoor record? Is it 13:07?” It was set by Bernard Lagat at last year’s Millrose Games, and it checked out at 13:07.15.

As the laps kept going, two runners began to pull away: reigning USATF Cross Country champion Chris Derrick and new Wanamaker Mile record holder Lopez Lomong. We kept on looking at each other, saying “this is going to be fast”.

Lomong kept going and going and began to accelerate and gap Derrick. With about 400 meters to go it looked like he could break the record.

He hit the tape in 13:07.00, an American Record by an eyelash and out of the blue.

Do you want to know the really crazy thing about this? There have been so many overhyped record attempts this indoor season (mostly overhyped by Flotrack), but one that actually happened wasn’t on anyone’s radar.

Really Wild

This is the kind of wild time that Flotrack has on a road trip. Then we went back to the hotel and the bar closed at 11:00. We were cray, man.