Now for the non-Hasay portion of an exciting national meet for the 800 meters and up. Let's start with the athlete on the left, who prior to this year was a little-known runner from a school that was not exactly considered a middle-distance powerhouse. That school, BYU, remarkably left these championships with as many mid-distance titles (3) as everyone else combined.Miles Batty Double Champion
Miles Batty came into this year's indoor season with a ho-hum 1500m PR of 3:44 and zero NCAA Track and Field nationals appearances. His was a fairly nondescript resume for someone who hoped to hit the NCAA provisional marks, let alone make noise at the national meet. Batty had had an extremely solid 2010 cross country season, however, with top finishes at the Roy Griak invitational (3'rd) and Pre-Nationals (5'th). His season culminated with a superb 15'th place finish at Nationals.
Building upon his cross country campaign, Batty's indoor season started innocently enough with two low-key but solid efforts (a 4:04 mile and a 1:49 800). Next, he had a good, but not great double at the University of Washington 307 meter speedway. Batty's double included a 4:00.91 mile followed by an 8:02 3000. These were solid performances, but not nearly enough to get into the National Meet. In this year especially, when 3:58 miles and sub 8:00 3000s became commonplace, Batty's performance did not place him on anybody's radar screen. Of course, the beauty of running is that one performance can change everything. Batty's next time on the Washington track did just that.
Batty returned to the Washington track a mere two weeks after his double and dropped an over five second personal best to run an incredible 3:55.79 mile. Against a loaded field, the only person to defeat him was top-flight pro Chris Solinsky. Now, the BYU junior was firmly on the map. After a successful DMR/Mile double at the Mountain West Conference championship meet, Batty was ready to try and repeat the same thing at the considerably more challenging venue that is the NCAA championships. Astoundingly, in his first national meet he pulled it off.
In the DMR, Batty received the baton in first place after an excellent 1:48.05 800 meter carry from teammate Justin Hedin. Batty was fortunate that trailing just behind him was aggressive Arizona anchor Lawi Lalang. Lalang, the brother of 1:42.9 800 meter runner Boaz, shot past Batty and set a very fast pace of 1:57 for the first four circuits. Batty, who was a few hours removed from a relatively taxing effort to qualify for the mile finals, wisely let him set the pace and waited to strike. The other man that was close as the anchors began their run was Alabama's Emmanuel Bor, who while an excellent distance runner was a bit out of his element against a batch of 3:55-3:59 milers.
Batty had some luck against an astonishing crew of anchors. Andrew Bayer's Indiana squad left him a ton of ground to make up, as did Ben Blankenship's Minnesota squad. Stanford did not run their best possible team with Elliot Heath on anchor, as they allowed him to rest after he'd competed in the 5,000 earlier in the day. Oregon's nation-leading team had survived the omission of a flu-ridden Elijah Greer, but stud anchor Matt Centrowitz' loss of a shoe pushed them out of contention early on in his anchor leg.
To his credit, Batty executed his race with poise and patience that belied his inexperience. He waited for the right moment to strike in the race and made sure that once Lalang faltered that Bayer and Blankenship had to make more moves than they could possibly make after coming from so far back. His split was a measured 3:56.14, and with it one half of his double was complete. In most years, a 3:56 split would have been considered otherworldly. However, this year Batty's winning performance was perhaps overlooked due to an amazing and unprecedented array of splits. Perhaps, most remarkably Lawi Lalang ran a 3:56.96 split upon immediately seizing the lead for his anchor leg and lost four places.
In the mile, Batty had another chance to take center stage and establish himself as the best miler in the country. With many of the nation's best opting for the DMR/3K double, the race morphed into a four man battle between Batty, Tulsa's Chris O'Hare, Penn State 800m star Ryan Foster, and Florida's Mile/3,000 SEC champion Dumisane Hlaselo.
From the start Batty was involved in tussles of pushing-and-shoving as he determinedly tried to reach the shoulder of the leader with little regard for his competitors. Batty's style is far from graceful. When he runs, it looks like he is straining to stick out his chest. His moves to the front were made with a full commitment to place himself as close to the lead as possible, and they were done with little subtlety and efficiency that might characterize a runner like Bernard Lagat.
The race really began taking shape as Hlaselo moved up to second at two laps to go. At that point O'Hare and Batty were pressed into action by an aggressive move to take the lead at a little before 350 to go by Foster. Batty, in fact found himself boxed in at that point behind Hlaselo and O'Hare who held inside position. He surged hard on the outside to cover Foster's injection of pace and to get to second position behind him. O'Hare meanwhile countered Fosters move by passing him on the edge of lane one on the turn at 250 to go. O'Hare's counter-move forced Batty even wider- deep into lane two. Watching live, I counted him out because he'd run significantly wider than O'Hare and had run an extra race as well. At the bell and even at 150 to go, I was pretty confident I was right and that O'Hare would hold on for the victory. The gap held relatively constant for a significant portion of the last lap.
Then with 75 meters to go, Batty began to rally and started pumping extra hard. At 30 meters to go, O'Hare sensed his presence and made a fateful glance to his outside. Catching Batty in his sights, O'Hare tried desperately for an extra burst, but it was too late as Batty would win in a stellar championship time of 3:59.49. Batty just had more momentum on the home straightaway, even after running considerable extra distance and relying on at least two reckless surges. Through it all, he had pulled off an outstanding double and established himself as the newest middle distance star in the NCAA ranks.
With the absence of the DMR outdoors and thus new competitors like Ben Blankenship and Matt Centrowitz as well as Redshirt Senior AJ Acosta, duplicating his championship in the 1500 will be no easy task. It's hard to pick against the top two returners Acosta and Centrowitz, but Batty sure looked unstoppable against all-comers at the Indoor Meet.
Two first-time champs in the 5000
On the women's side with Alex Kosinski injured and out of the field, prohibitive favorite Jackie Areson kicked away unchallenged off of a dawdling pace to win her first title in her last championships as a collegiate. Areson's advantage over the rest of the field was so decisive that no one even bothered to try and track her in the early stage of her breakaway from the pack.
The men's side was far more wide open, and the winner was not the favorite but rather a runner who was running borderline elite Division 3 marks less than a year ago. That would be Leonard Korir of Iona, who hung in there as slight race favorite Samuel Chelanga set a blistering pace to start the race. The race resembled the NCAA Cross Country Nationals as the the four main protagonists were the runner-up in XC Stephen Sambu, the champion Chelanga, the early leader Diego Estrada, and the fourth place finisher at that meet, Korir. Chelanga set a punishing pace that was too much for dark-horse Elliot Heath to handle, but was not enough to shake off Korir who dropped a 27.35 last 200 to cover all of Chelanga's finals attempts to pass him.
If you thought Batty's rise was meteoric, Korir went from running 4:06 plus 1500 meter races (roughly a 4:26 mile) in April to 4'th in NCAA Cross Country in November, and the NCAA title in a championship record 13:25 in March. According to his teammate, Korir ran 14:08 at altitude before arriving at Iona and had considerable difficulty adjusting last year. This is still one of the most incredible improvements I've ever seen.
Two outstanding non-winning performances from these races should not be overlooked. First on the women's side, a dumbfounded Mia Behm of Texas snagged second place honors. On the men's side, oft-overlooked Diego Estrada ran a stellar 13:29 and was the first non-Kenyan finisher. Estrada impressed by running confidently and mixing it up with the Kenyans- he even took the lead for a short period. I thought he was somewhat off-his-rocker to snatch the early lead in Cross Country Nationals and he did fade somewhat to finish 16'th as it was. However, this performance shows he really is that good and should be held in the same regard as higher profile guys like German Fernandez, Chris Derrick, Luke Puskedra and so on.
The 800s: Samoei plays with fire and survives, Bleazard does it again
On the women's side, Lacey Bleazard (formerly Lacey Cramer) did herself one better than last year's runner-up finish indoors to win her second national title. Bleazard ran a textbook race as she took the lead and set a solid pace of 60-plus for the first 400 to establish her position. She was passed with two laps to go, but remained calm and collected and in striking distance for the last lap. Once she went, it was no contest. Indoors, leading in the 800 and establishing one's position is a viable, even desirable strategy considering there is no wind. The runners behind Bleazard cut each other off, threw elbows, surged to reestablish position, ran wide and so on, which undoubtedly had a lot to do with no one having any response to her finishing speed.
The men's race was wide open with many of the big names exiting prematurely in the preliminary round. The probable winner figured to be Alabama runner Fred Samoei, who had looked outstanding in his preliminary heat and on his 800 meter leg of the distance medley. Veteran Connecticut Husky runner Michael Rutt meanwhile had other ideas as he saw the open field as an opportunity to be aggressive and take it to the field with 350 meters to go. Usual frontrunners Michael Preble and Harun Abda held first and second respectively, until that point when Rutt boldly surged hard past everyone. Samoei was in fourth and boxed- seemingly unwilling to go wide.
Samoei's first stroke of good luck was Preble leaving the first lane unoccupied as they passed the home stretch for the penultimate time. Samoei moved up effortlessly into third at the bell, but still had a wall of Abda and Rutt blocking his way to the lead. On the turn with less than 200 to go, Preble picked it up again in an attempt to catch the lead. Preble's move more or less blocked Samoei's path to the outside. In the front, Rutt poured it on again and Samoei had his second stroke of good fortune as Abda continued to run wide even as passing Rutt on the straight became less and less likely. Samoei pounced on the opening and went for the pass for second on the inside, getting it before the last turn. Rutt still had two steps on Samoei as they entered the home straightaway. Samoei finally moved to the outside to attempt to pass Rutt. He had just enough to overtake him at fifteen meters to go and drive through for for the title. While Samoei pulled it off in dramatic fashion here, at least six or seven times out of ten relying on multiple inside passes is a futile strategy. The 800 perhaps more than any race allows one chance for a patient runner to get one inside pass (see Symmonds, Nick ), but asking for two is dangerous.
Men's 3000: "That One Man's Blazing Speed that Has Torn the Field Asunder" (circa 2011)
The men's 3000 was absolutely stacked with probably 10 guys who realistically could have designs on winning the title. Almost everyone from the blazing 5000 was there, and an outstanding group of runners doubling back from a sensational group of anchor were there. There were even some big names running fresh in Ryan Hill, David McCarthy, German Fernandez, and Justin Tyner. Only one many however had the Kenyan-clowning "kick of Heath. The preposterous kick evoked to me the reference of the title above, Steve Ovett's monster kick in the 1977 World Cup, which inspired announcer Ron Pickering to say " that one man's blazing speed has torn the field asunder". Heath's kick this time dismantled the field and laid to rest any notion that he couldn't put it all together at an NCAA meet. I'm unsure of what Heath's best race is outdoors, but if he can unleash that potent finish from the front there is no one in the NCAA right now equipped to deal with it.
Also in the race, Ben Blankenship and Andrew Bayer completed outstanding doubles finishing second and third, respectively. Their splits for the 1600 in the Distance Medley were a game-changing 3:53.29 for Bayer and a 3:54.61 for Blankenship. Bayer has already run 13:32 for 5000 this outdoor season in a romp at Stanford. He is redshirting the season to work on his base and get a full fifth year, but evidently will be racing at a high level. Blankenship meanwhile entered the NCAA meet having run one of the most impressive races I've seen all season in his triumph at the Big 10 indoor meet. I caught this race only because with the Comcast sports package I get the Big 10 channel. Anyhow, the mile race featuring numerous sub 3:59 guys like Corey Leslie, Jeff Thode, Bayer, and Blankenship. Bayer took the lead early on and led them out on a hard, honest pace of around two minutes for the first 800 on the slow, flat track. Blankenship bounced around the top four positions before striking the last lap. He split 26 low for it on the flat track, easily crushing Bayer (by .8 seconds) and everyone else. His winning time was 4:01.14 on the flat track, and that was with a little bit of celebrating and easing off the gas pedal at the end. These two should be monsters outdoors from 1500 to 5000 and it will be great to see them challenge Batty in the 1500.
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