Runners bump distance from 8K to 10K for NCAA regionals

Imagine having to prepare for an extra 15-minute quarter in a college football game just as the final seconds tick away.

Or imagine having to compete for an additional 10-minute period of a college basketball game after the final buzzer had already sounded.

It’s par for the course for the Gophers men’s cross country team each year, and is again the circumstance the team will face when it travels to DeKalb, Ill., on Nov. 11 to compete in the NCAA Midwest Regional.

After the conference championships each year, cross country races stretch from a uniform 8-kilometer race to an extended 10-kilometer race.

The change will remain if the team qualifies for the Nov. 21 NCAA championships.

“There are not that many sports where they change things around like that,” head coach Steve Plasencia said. “I don’t understand exactly why we do it that way, but that’s the way we’ve done it.”

Plasencia’s workout regimen usually has runners on his team peaking at this point in the season, regardless of the added distance. Although the team has prepared for the added distance in practice, Minnesota has yet to run in a 10-kilometer meet this season.

“I think you probably wouldn’t want to run 10 kilometers all year long because it’s a little bit tougher distance — races are already tough enough, so they kind of have a tendency to tear guys down a little bit,” Plasencia said.

In their final 8-kilometer race of the season, the Gophers tied for third with Michigan at the Oct. 30 Big Ten championships. They finished behind 13-time defending champion and top-ranked Wisconsin and No. 7 Indiana.

While the change can be frustrating to some, junior Pieter Gagnon said he enjoys the added 2 kilometers in the regional and national meet.

Gagnon is the Gophers’ second runner, behind All-American Hassan Mead. Gagnon finished 16th at the Big Ten meet.

Gagnon said he benefits from the extra distance because it allows him to utilize his main strength as a runner and exploit others’ limitations.

“I will see a lot more of my competition bleeding out during the later parts of the race, and I can maintain better than they can,” Gagnon said.

“It doesn’t necessarily change my strategy, but I definitely look forward to the change,” Gagnon said. “It’s something that I very much enjoy running the 10K opposed to the 8K, mostly because the longer the distance, the happier I am.”

Plasencia said he is confident heading into the regional meet because of the type of runners he has.

“We’ve run only 8,000 meters going into this, but many of our guys are endurance-sided guys, so the change doesn’t necessarily hurt them,” Plasencia said.

Despite the added distance and overall lack of experience in running 10-kilometer meets, Gagnon did not temper any expectations for this weekend.

“We have the capacity to do higher volume work than most of what I’ve seen,” Gagnon said. “We have some pretty strong long-distance guys.

“I expect we’re going to move on to nationals,” Gagnon said.