Footlocker/NXN Finalists and Indoors

Footlocker and NXN really take a chunk out of prime training time for athletes trying to get ready for indoors. By season's end the effects seem to be negligible, especially when we are talking outdoors, but there is theory that training hard for the extra month of XC inhibits the ability of athletes to compete at the Indoor State meet with guys who have a month of extra training advantage.

So I figured I'd check the stats.

Here are the last couple Footlocker/NXN Individual Finalists
2006: Paul Springer
2007: Mark Dennin, Chris Aldrich, Vince McNally
2008: Ben Furcht
2009: Brad Miles, Rad Gunzenhauser, Ryan Gil
2010: Wade Endress, Chris Campbell, Zach Hebda
2011: Dustin Wilson
2012: Tony Russell*, Reiny Barchet*, Sami Aziz, Brendan Shearn, Max Norris, Brent Kennedy, Austin Pondel

In 2007, Springer won the mile state championship in a state meet record time. He went on outdoors to set the state record in the 3200m.

In 2008, Dennin was a disappointing 5th before coming outdoors and dominating the 3k at Penn and outdoor 3200m. Aldrich ended up being 4th in the 3k, running his mark out of the slow heat. He was second outdoors in the 3200m. McNally struggled to match his magical outdoor performance of 4:07, finishing 4th in both the indoor and outdoor mile. McNally did, however, run a 9:05 3200m very early outdoors.

In 2009, Ben Furcht battled for the mile and 3k titles indoors but came up short in both. He came close to the 3k and 3200m titles outdoors but couldn't quite pull away from the kickers.

In 2010, Miles did not run indoors, but Gunzenhauser won the 3k and Gil was a surprising 5th indoors in the mile. All three went on to set massive PRs in the 3200m, Gunz won the D7 championship and Gil was 2nd outdoors with a school record.

In 2011, we saw Endress win double gold indoors, including a (short lived) state record. Campbell did arguably his best work indoors taking third in the mile and anchoring his DMR squad to a top spot. Hebda did not run indoors but had a big time performance in the 3200m outdoors.

In 2012, Wilson couldn't quite match his 9:02 mark from the year before but he did grab an indoor state title in the 3k and won the Henderson invite 3200m yet again. He also broke 15 for the first time in the 5k outdoors.

In 2012-2013, we will see a wide variety of samples for the experiment. A stunningly high number of individual national qualifiers emerged from PA this past fall and that will make things interesting this coming winter.

The fact of the matter is, if you qualify for one of these meets, you are one of the top runners in the state and will always be in the mix for a state championship. Out of the 12 runners listed above who qualified for a national championship 4 went on to take a state title indoors. 10 went on to run under 9:20 outdoors the following spring while the final two were both under 4:17 (Endress of course ran the equivalent of 4:11 and 1:51). 7 of the 12 guys placed just as high or higher at indoor states than they did outdoors (Wilson is kind of a wash here because he is not in the PIAA but did win indoors so couldn't really place lower outdoors). Among those 5 guys who didn't have great indoor performances were Zach Hebda and Brad Miles, neither of whom ran indoors at all.

Overall, the conclusion I make from seeing these results is that National qualifiers aren't slowed at all by their XC seasons. If anything they get a nice bit of momentum and confidence that allows them to grab a top spot in either indoor or outdoor track. 9 of the 12 were first or second at a state championship.

As long as these boys stay focused and use their confidence to their advantage we will probably see a state champ indoors from this bunch, and perhaps another 1 or 2 outdoors.