The Future of Summit League Track and Field

I did a lot of thinking both during and after last weekend's Summit League Indoor Conference Track meet.  A lot of the thinking dealt with the loss of Southern Utah to the Big Sky Conference and Oral Roberts to the Southland Conference.  Southern Utah has long been a deep distance running based team with other stellar athletes spread through the other events.  The same pattern has developed at Oral Roberts except their base is in the long sprints, especially the 400 meters.  The result of losing these teams is going to have a negative effect on the Summit League.  The addition of USD this year is a positive one and IUPUI is adding track and field starting this outdoor season but these schools simply are not as good as SUU or ORU.  Nebraska-Omaha is also joining the Summit League- without men's track.  It is hard to visit IPFW's new facility without wondering if they plan to add a men's team soon.  However, I would hold IPFW's school records in the 800, 1500, Mile, 3000, 5000, 10,000 and 3000 Steeplechase without approaching SDSU's Top-10 lists in any of those events.  It is safe to say that IPFW won't be a major factor in the near-future of Summit League Track.

Here are the team scores from the past weekend if you take out SUU and ORU.
Women
1. NDSU 226
2. USD 146
3. SDSU 94
4. UMKC 92
5. WIU 70
6. OU 16
7. IPFW 9

Men
1. NDSU 169
2. USD 148
3. SDSU 134
4. UMKC 120
5. WIU 58
6. OU 21

On both sides it is a Dakota battle with UMKC on the outside, looking it.  Nebraska-Omaha's women will probably be about as good as Western Illinois.  They have some great athletes that will score some points but lack depth.  IUPUI will add more distance runners to the mix but will have little to no effect on the team scoring.  I think the Summit League should look for another school to join and hopefully that school is good at track.  The Summit League track landscape is going to be much different in some events- the men's 400 or 5000 for example.  Those events lose 5 and 6 scorers respectively just to teams leaving the conference.

Jacks Seeking National Qualifiers

Mike Krsnak and Jake Schneller will be racing this Saturday at Notre Dame seeking fast times in order to break school records and possibly qualify for the NCAA Track meet which is just a few weeks away.  Jake Schneller currently sits in the 101st spot in the NCAA Division 1 800.  His time of 1:51.14 is less than 4 seconds away from the automatic qualifier for NCAAs.  Only 4 athletes have qualified so far and I expect the line to be drawn at about 1:48.0.  Other than qualifying for NCAAs, Jake is looking to better his own school record set earlier in the year.  Coach Rod DeHaven's record had stood for 26 years but I don't expect Schneller's record to last long unless he sets the bar even higher.  The level of competition at SDSU has risen since entering the DI era.

Mike Krsnak sits in nearly the same spot as Schneller in the national rankings at 95th.  Krsnak is second all time and will also be seeking the school record held by Brad Lowery of 8:05.04.  The NCAA automatic qualifies is 7:52.30 and it will certainly take that time to get in as 15 men already have it.  Cam Levins of Southern Utah has qualified for the Mile, 3000 and 5000.

Jumpers Jared Vlastuin and Mary Wirth will also be traveling, this time to Arkansas.  They too seek the NCAA qualifying marks.

Jared is the school record holder in the Long Jump, High Jump, and is ranked 4th all time after last weekend's triple jump performance.  Vlastuin seeks qualifiers in the High Jump and Long Jump.  He is tied for 32nd in the national rankings in the High Jump with his 7'1" performance at conference.  The automatic qualifier is 7'4.25".  Vlastuin is ranked 34th in the Long Jump with his school record of 24'9".  The auto qualifier is 8.00m or about 26'3".  Jared would have to jump about 25'5" to make it to nationals.  The Arkansas runway is said to be among the fastest in the nation and many of the top jumps this year are from that facility including the #2 jump by Texan Marquis Goodwin.  Clive Chafausipo of Oral Roberts is ranked 7th nationally in this event.

Vlastuin Over 7'1" at Summit Leagues- Photo By: Rod Schneller

Mary Wirth is ranked 34th nationally in the High Jump with her school record performance of 5'9.75".  The Auto qualifier is over 6' and Mary would need to clear that height to secure a place at nationals.  Mary finished 13th at last spring's NCAA West Region when a top-12 placing was needed to secure a bid.

Best of luck to all Jackrabbits in their bids to set school records and possibly qualify for NCAA Nationals.

Men's Summit League Predictions Revisited

Heat Sheets!

When I last did Summit League Predictions they were based on last year's championships and the few meets that had happened.  I am not going to do a full prediction like last time but am just going to predict team places and some keys for the Jackrabbits.

1. NDSU- The Bison have proven to be strong in the Field Events and Multi Events like always and have a few big scorers on the track including Travis Fitzke and Donte Smart.
2. SDSU- The Jacks look to be peaking at the right time and have had good performances and workouts leading up to this meet.  See keys for the Jacks below.
3. Oral Roberts- The Golden Eagles were ranked higher in the preseason predictions but their depth has been a weakness this year.  They will be strong in the 200, 400 and 4x4 on the track and in the Long Jump and Vault in the field.  In previous years they had more strength in the field and the 60m.
4. Southern Utah- Southern Utah will score big points in the distance races and will pick up points here and there in the field.  Cam Levins will most likely win the Mile, 3000 and 5000 and be named Track MVP.
5. South Dakota- The Yotes are well rounded and will pick up points in most disciplines.  Their stars include distance runner Jeff Mettler, throwers Kyle McKelvey and Cody Snyder, sprinter Michael Burrus, and Vaulter Kyle Ballew.
6. UMKC- The 'Roos are quickly improving, look for them to be in the mix next year with the loss of ORU and SUU.  They are led by distance runner Cosmas Ayabei and jumper DC Okonta.
7. Western Illinois- The Leathernecks will score most of their points in the high jump and throws.
8. Oakland- The Grizzlies will be lucky to score any points that aren't from the DMR and 4x4.

*IUPUI will begin track competition in the Summit League this outdoor season.

**It will be a battle for spots 2-6 so don't be surprised if this gets switched around.

Keys for the Jackrabbits-
1. Jared Vlastuin- Vlastuin has the ability to win two events.  He is ranked 1st in the High Jump and 2nd in the Long Jump.  He has defeated Clive from Oral Roberts in head to head competitions in the past.
2. 400 and 4x4- Jared Foote and Brandon Priebe are ranked in the top 8 in the 400 and make up half of the 4x4 team that may challenge for the win.  ORU is the favorite but you never know what will happen in the last event of the meet.
3. 800- Jake Schneller looks to cap his indoor career with an 800 meter title.  He is seeded 3rd but has defeated Shade head to head and Cam Levins will be tired.  Dom Thielen has been improving rapidly this year and I wouldn't be surprised if there were 2 Jacks challenging for the win here.
4. 3000 and 5000- The whole conference is especially strong in these events.  The Jacks need Mike Krsnak, Greg Vollmer, and Trent Lusignan to score in both events.  I hope to do the same.
5. 60 Hurdles- Only 10 men are entered and the Jacks expect to have 2 in the top 8.  Watch out for an upset of Pierre alum Matt Tetzlaff by Brandon Priebe of SDSU.  Priebe has risen to the occasion in previous years.
6. Throws- The Jacks throwers haven't had the greatest season until last week but they are usually ready to go at conference.  Don't forget that Jake Brinkman is a conference champ in the weight throw.

Summit League Indoors- IPFW Facility

Below is a picture of the new facility at IPFW.  The track surface looks to be nice and fast.  My main concern would be overall space in the building for warm-ups, team camps, and field event areas.  Those concerns aside, this is still the premier facility in the Summit League.  And this is for a school that isn't very good at track and doesn't even have a men's team.  Below the picture is a link to the Summit League Schedule.



Summit League Schedule

Interview with Eric Houle of Southern Utah

Here is a recent interview between Running Times and Eric Houle of Southern Utah.  Houle, the program, and the Summit League have been getting a lot more recognition than usual this year due to the success of Cam Levins.  It is too bad the T-Birds are leaving the Summit League for the Big Sky Conference after this year.  Enjoy the article!

5 Minutes with coach Eric Houle

The Southern Utah coach gives insights into Cam Levins' training

By Zachary Ross
As featured in the Web Only issue of Running Times Magazine

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Eric Houle is the head cross country and track coach at Southern Utah University in Cedar City, Utah. In 20 years at the helm of the Thunderbirds program, Houle has coached 736 all-conference athletes, 252 individual conference champions, 25 conference athletes of the year, 27 conference newcomers of the year, 24 NCAA national qualifiers, 75 NCAA West Regional qualifiers and four NCAA All-Americans. Among his most notable athletes are Jess Baumgartner, who finished third at the NCAA cross country championships in 2006 and more recently Cam Levins, who was fourth at NCAAs this past cross country season and has been near the top of the NCAA lists for the mile (3:57.16), 3,000m (7:48.25) and 5,000m (13:42.90) this indoor season. We talked to Houle about how Cedar City is one of America’s “best-kept secrets” for distance runners, keeping Cam Levins healthy, and how he’s able to maintain a flexible schedule with Levins in order for him to compete in big races with professional athletes.

Running Times: First of all, tell us your training philosophy as a coach. 

Eric Houle: I believe the body is capable of a lot more than sometimes we give it credit for. Sometimes we put in a lot of work that sometimes doesn’t add up to much, it’s just sometimes going through the motions. So I think, in a well-thought-out program, in terms of all the different elements of training you can focus on quality and take that approach. We can get young athletes to arrive, but it’s a hard process to know exactly what to do. So my philosophy basically is to increase the loads with each athlete in a systematic way that is healthy and good and will allow these athletes to experience more success at the college level.

RT: Would you consider your program to be more of a high-mileage program or a low-mileage/high-intensity program, or does it just depend on the athlete?

EH: For me, with each athlete I do an evaluation — and I know all coaches do this — what they did in high school, where you would like them to be, their talents. And some athletes cannot handle high mileage. So not everybody is on high mileage here. Some kids you start to place some loads on them and you start to realize they’re strong, so you try to up that mileage for them and they respond poorly.

I think if you’re going to go low-mileage, you’ve got to think about quality; if you’re going to go high-mileage, you can focus on some other things comparable. But I don’t think you can get high-mileage and high-intensity to work together all the time. You’re asking for some huge problems in terms of injury and mental burnout.

RT: What are some key workouts you have your athletes do?

EH: We like to test where they are periodically throughout the year. We’ll do endurance type-workouts that test their max VO2, we have speed-type workouts that will test where they are with their overall speed, and try to use that information to set up workouts that are tailored to them. Specifically, for instance, if they’re lacking endurance and they’re not at the level they need to run at, then I’m going to spend more time doing power runs with them, try to build a better endurance strength so they can maintain for a longer time.

RT: Do you do a lot of things off of the track? Like in the weight room or strengthening exercises?

EH: Basically, core work. We focus a lot on core. I really do not want to beat up the athletes legs, especially if they’re on high mileage. It’s just high intensity. I personally just want them focused on core and upper body work. They’re not sprinters; they’re not throwers. We do a lot of that (core) and we do a lot of alternate workouts depending on where they are with health and if they need a break. We do pool workouts and bike workouts depending on where the athlete is.

I make my athletes rest. We do cycles and within those cycles I incorporate rest. Athletes, mainly distance athletes, they don’t want to rest. They think if they miss one mile, they’re done. Within the system I have it just naturally repeats itself and they’re forced to take a rest.

RT: How does the altitude of SUU play into training?

EH: Oh, yeah, we’re at 5,700 feet. The beauty of this place is: the track sits at 5,700 feet, I can get them in vans and drive up the canyon 30 minutes and they can be as high as 10,000 feet, or I can go south of Cedar City and they’re at 2,000 feet. To me, it’s one of the best kept secrets in terms of the availability of different altitudes in reach. It’s pretty sweet.

And when it snows here — like we have a big snow storm hitting us right now — we can’t get that track cleared. We don’t have an indoor facility so workouts are incredibly important and if I can’t make adjustments in the power runs then we’ll gather everyone and head down to St. George (about an hour southwest near the Utah-Arizona border) and do a workout. If it’s 30 degrees here, it’s 55 degrees there.

RT: What exactly is a power run?

EH: We’ll either set them at their max VO2 and force them to maintain a percentage, say 70 percent of their max VO2. I’ll either have them do 90-second pickups, 2-minute pick-ups with equal amounts of rest, depending on the energy system we’re trying to focus on that day. It’s easy to substitute a workout you were going to do on the track on the road based on where the athlete is emotionally, where the athlete is physically, the situation environmentally. You know, it’d be nice to have an indoor facility or live in California with weather that is nearly always perfect but with that being said, you can still get the work done at the level you need to get done and have it still become a positive no matter what’s thrown at you.

RT: So, what do athletes like Jess Baumgartner (who finished third at the 2006 NCAA cross country championships) and Cam Levins bring to the atmosphere of the team?

EH: Anytime any program can get someone to blow up, in a positive way, and achieve great things, it inspires everyone around them. All of the sudden, the focus is “Is it possible?” and yes, it is possible. They see it happen in front of their eyes. They know, yes, the work they’re putting in and the things they believe they can achieve are happening. They can do them. And that’s what (Baumgartner and Levins) bring to our program. I think they bring inspiration, I think they bring belief — that the program does have — but now (their teammates) see and realize.

RT: How do you keep Cam Levins healthy when he’s running 130-160 miles a week?

EH: I think it’s important to monitor health. I think it’s important to monitor pulse. I think it’s important to monitor what the athlete is taking into their body prior to upping their mileage and while they’re maintaining their mileage and seeing all of the indicators — you know, health indicators, mental indicators — that start to talk to you, not outwardly, but you start to see the signs and start to make quick adjustments for that. You’re always going to have breakdowns. No matter how well you prepare or how well the athlete prepares, you’re going to have those breakdowns. But my philosophy for the athletes is, if we can keep interruptions to a minimum you’re going to be able to do the things you need to do to get yourself to a level unlike you’ve ever been before. So, it’s the interruptions we try to control, which is why in the program itself there are things we work on that force the athlete to take rest, to monitor certain aspects of their training, to look at certain aspects of their sleep patterns and pulse, and stuff like that. I know all the other programs do this stuff, it’s just what things that are working for us.

RT: How do you manage a program in which athletes are going all over to race on any given weekend? 

EH: I think I have to be flexible. If you look at my schedule, I have a three-tier program that I try to run. So, the first-tier people go to meets close by that I feel are at their level that the athletes there (at the meet) will help them rise, won’t be overwhelming and allow them to adapt. The second tier is made up of those who are most likely going to make up conference team, so we’ll get them to higher level meets and warmer climates, like California, to race in. And the third tier, the very top, we will do whatever we have to in order to get you to the races that they need to get to. Obviously, we don’t always get to Millrose or Boston, and that may never happen again, but the opportunity presented itself so I had to look in terms of: what can we do to raise his level of performance, raise his overall experience in competition so when he moves to the next stage of his competitive life — outside of Southern Utah — he has come out fully educated, so to speak, ready to take on that next stage? So I have to be flexible, and there’s a little bit of promotion there as well. Anytime you can get your university out there on big stages it speaks well of the university and what’s happening in the program. In my opinion, you have to be flexible. If we have to pull out of a meet, we have to be flexible to pull out of meets. If we need to attend a meet and that opportunity arises, we need to be able to attend. 



Link to Article

Cam Levins

I am a big Cam Levins fan.  Now, that may seem counter-intuitive seeing as he attends the Jackrabbits biggest rivals in Cross Country, Southern Utah University.  However, you can't not like the guy.  The only reason I ever felt any dislike for him is when Jason Bigelow was trying to run him down in the 2010 Summit League Indoor Mile and Cam moved out a couple lanes to ensure his victory.  Other than that, here are a few reasons why I like Cam Levins:

1. He runs BIG miles.  I like to run lots of miles and I think that generally more miles are better.  Many athletes that run as many miles as Cam end up hurt or burnt out.  That hasn't happened to Cam yet, and I don't think it will.  Cam has had a nice progression up to his average of 155 this past fall.

2. He is a good, humble interviewer.  It is obvious that Cam has a lot of confidence, you need to to run at his level, but he doesn't necessarily show it in his interviews.

3. He is a very smart racer.  Many people are really fast but when you put them in a less than ideal situation they don't know how to react.  I have watched Cam run fairly low-key (for him) meets like the Summit League all the way up to the Regional and National levels and he seems to never have a bad race.

4. He has a rockin' Jew Fro. (I've had many people search: Cam Levins Jewish, and find my site so to clarify, he isn't Jewish)

5. He hails from my conference, and even if he didn't, he's still from a small school.  He also didn't run crazy fast high school times as the video below shows.  He was a talented kid but didn't run fast enough for many to think he would ever approach this level.

6. He races with balls.  He was the only one to go with Lawi at NCAA XC.  It may have cost him a place or two at the end and it may not have at all.  Cam went for the win and came up short.  However, Lawi may be one of the most talented runners in NCAA history.  Obviously there's no way of proving that Cam could have won NCAAs in past years but I like to think he would have had a shot.

7. He gives it everything he's got, every race. Some may see this as a negative or may think he could race faster if he didn't run this hard often.  But it might be the same as his miles, it seems to be working for him.

8. He's Canadian, and from BC even.  I am fascinated with the Pacific Northwest.  Anyway, he's the two-time Canadian National Cross Country champion.  The second of which came right after his 4th place at NCAA XC.

9. He has a monster kick.  This was evident at last year's NCAA West region 5k when he battled Elliott Heath and his kick in the UW 3k last weekend wasn't bad.

10. He just set meet records at the Dempsey.  13:42 on Friday followed by 7:48 on Saturday.  He beat some legit runners along the way.  And again, this was back to back days!

11. He hasn't left Southern Utah for say... Oklahoma.

12. He isn't afraid to race a lot.  Including 5 times (4 events) at the Summit League winning all events and setting two conference records!  People who race too infrequently are bad for the sport of track and field.

Cam's Flotrack Vids

Runner's Feed Interview- High Mileage

Confirmation of High Mileage

5k Video

3k Video