VERONA, WISCONSIN, October 19 — It may not have been the proverbial irresistible force and immovable object, but when the two most recent NCAA 10K winners — one from the track and the other from the grass — collided, a race to remember resulted.
New Mexico soph Habtom Samuel, who was disappointed that he wasn’t picked for the Eritrean Olympic team, certainly served notice here at the Pre-Nationals, shredding North Carolina senior Parker Wolfe’s 3-week-old course record of 23:04 with a convincing win over a strong field in 22:33.8. It was a virtually perfect setup for a good day of racing, with temps hovering near 60 degrees with a slight breeze and firm but not hard turf.
With 2K left, Samuel abandoned his patient, stay-within-himself approach and made his move, ever so gradually lengthening a slight lead into a no-doubt-about-it finish off a final 5:31 over that last fourth of the race. His most notable “victim” was defending NCAA cross champ Graham Blanks, a Harvard senior running his first race this fall since his 9th-place effort in the 5K in Paris. Blanks’ self-proclaimed “rust-buster” debut was none too shabby either, with his 22:40 effort also easily eclipsing the old course record and showing that he won’t go quietly 5 weeks hence in defending his NCAA title.
“The pace was fast,” Samuel said. “I stayed calm and patient with the guys at the back of the [lead] group. I looked at the [other] guys and they looked a little tired. That was my plan, after talking with my coach, to run very hard on the last mile or K. When I ran this course last year I wasn’t as good on the finish so I decided to go fast [from farther out].”
With a bunch of other NCAA title contenders absent here, the prospects of an epic race on November 23 look promising. Confidence will also be high among the other top finishers, seven more of whom were also under Wolfe’s mark, which itself may be some sort of record for shortest record ownership. Right on Blanks’ tail were a host of the early front-runners. Eastern Kentucky’s Justine Kipkoech was 3rd (22:41), Arkansas’s Patrick Kiprop 4th (22:43) and Iowa State’s Robin Kwemoi Bera 5th (22:45).
Teamwise, third-rated Arkansas took command early and trailed New Mexico by a tad in the team battle at 2K but then moved into first by…
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