First Thoughts: Legendre's D2 5k Record, Adams State Women Impress in 3k & Big Conversions From WCU

Although we already highlighted the top performances at Boston University, we wanted to make sure that some of the better D2 efforts from that meet, and from everywhere else, were also given some attention.

Here is some early-season analysis on many of the top D2 performances that we've seen throughout the first-half of December...

When Adams State's Romain Legendre first entered the NCAA, we knew that he was a special talent. The French distance runner had joined the Grizzlies with personal bests of 3:42 (1500) and 13:35 (5k), instantly making him one of the top D2 runners in the country.

And despite his tough national meet showing in November, it was clear that this Grizzly standout was still one of the better distance talents in the nation.

But even then, I don't think anyone could have predicted that the RMAC newcomer would later venture to Boston U. and run a jaw-dropping time of 13:24.09 for 5000 meters. That mark easily beats Dillon Powell's old D2 indoor 5k record of 13:28 from last February and makes Legendre the second-fastest D2 5k runner in NCAA history regardless of season (among record-eligibile performances).

We knew that Legendre was a top-flight name, but running the time that he just did admittedly came as a bit of a surprise. He was very good during the fall months, but we didn't see anything out of this Adams State star which suggested that he would demolish a D2 record like that, especially when you consider that he dropped 11 seconds off of his PR.

Of course, just like I do for every absurdly fast mark that someone runs, I can't help but wonder how an effort like this will translate to the championship stage. Make no mistake, Legendre has very much put himself in the national title conversation (obviously) and it would take A LOT over the next few months to have him fall out of that discussion, altogether.

But time trial environments and tactical battles are two very diffrent styles of racing. The next task that we'll assign to this French distance ace is seeing how he utilizes some of his 1500 meter speed in different settings. Regardless, we now know that Lengedre has enough natural fitness to be a serious contender for NCAA gold -- and for someone whose cross country season didn't always show that, that's a very exciting revelation.

We then come to Loic Scomparion (Colorado Mines) whose 13:29 mark for 5000 meters may end up being overlooked given Legendre's record. But maybe we shouldn't be all that surprised about the excellence of that result for Scomparin. After all, this is someone who has posted all-time marks before, running 7:51.84 for 3000 meters last winter, coming within one second of the NCAA D2 record.

Knowing that, it makes sense that Scomparin now sits at NCAA #3 All-Time (D2) for the indoor 5k. He has thrived against top-tier competition and is clearly one of the more naturally fit names in the NCAA.

However, his championship efforts, while still impressive, have also not reached the caliber that his all-time marks would suggest of him. In theory, this guy is probably due for a national title, although it will be interesting to see how he attacks this winter campaign compared to last year.

Adams State superstar Brianna Robles ran 15:55 for 5000 meters at Boston U. earlier this month...and truthfully, there really isn't anything to talk about when it comes to her performance.

Robles is someone who has been unafraid to compete in fast fields and running under 16 minutes for this distance is hardly new. Her overall resume is among the best in Division Two and I'm not sure that her latest effort, while impressive, tells us anything new about her.

However, what was stunning was seeing her redshirt rookie teammate, Tristian Spence, throw down a jaw-dropping 5k time of 16:08! That's an outstanding mark for someone who is still very inexperienced and was compartively quiet during the fall months.

This past fall, Spence had a nice season, but none of her results suggested that she was going to finish 16th at the NCAA D2 XC Championships. And to be completely honest, that performance felt like a clear outlier relative to the rest of her resume.

But with a new 5k PR of 16:08, Spence has validated her national meet performance with a mark that now sits at NCAA #11 All-Time (D2).

There is still a lot that we need to learn about Spence. In the grand scheme of things, we only have two results from her which put her in a completely new tier compared to what she had done previously. And yet, at the same time, we have to start taking this redshirt rookie seriously given her back-to-back "I'm the real deal," performances.

On Western Colorado's home track, Mountaineer ace Simon Kelati stormed past the challenges of altitude and a flat-track to produce an indoor 5k time of 14:35. But after some significant conversions, that mark came down to 13:39, good for NCAA #3 on the D2 national leaderboard.

It's no secret that a lot of athletes who don't reside in the RMAC feel like the converions that a lot of altitude-based schools are getting are too generous (you should see some of the messages that we've gotten over the years).

However, the top-five men's D2 indoor 5k times ever were all run at Boston and they all belong to either Adams State or Colorado Mines athletes. And when you consider how dominant those schools have historically been on the grass, I can't help but ask myself, "Gosh, I don't think these conversions are all that extreme."

After all, Kelati was the runner-up finisher at the NCAA D2 XC Championships last month and had clearly taken a step up from his previous year's fitness (which was already high).

Now, admittedly, performances on the national stage are another story, although I'd attribute that more to tactics than fitness. Regardless, I can't say that Kelati's 13:39 (5k) conversion is all that surprising. That's about on par with my expectations for him.

As for Tyler Nord, this dynamic sophomore star has been so good over the last year or so. He also took advantage of the conversions on his home track by producing a monster 7:54 mark for 3000 meters!

Running 8:25 (unconverted) for 3000 meters on an indoor flat-track at 7700 feet of altitude is absurd. Yes, this Mountaineer star was already excellent last winter, but this is a step up from what we've seen from him before.

We'll see how he translates that kind of effort to other races in the future, but at the very least, Nord has seemingly gained far greater control of his talent. It showed last fall and it just showed on the indoor oval.

When Brianna Robles ran a converted 9:12 mark for 3000 meters at Western Colorado, it was hard to be too surprised. If I were to guess, I could see Coach Damon Martin wanting her to get her national qualifying marks out of the way so that she could focus on her base training moving forward.

And as much as I'd like to add more analysis to that effort, I don't think I can offer anything that would be new or original insight on Robles.

But Ava O'Connor? Running 9:10 for 3000 meters at Boston University? That is such an outstanding mark for this Adams State standout. She continues to improve her aerobic-based fitness (as we saw this past fall) which further strengthens her argument as one of the more versatile distance talents in Division Two.

Does anyone realize how fast a time like 9:10 is for 3000 meters at the D2 level? For perspective, that mark now puts O'Connor at NCAA #6 All-Time (D2) in the event. And the women who are listed ahead of her? They are Stephanie Cotter, Brianna Robles, Eleonora Curtabbi, Natalie Graber and Lindsay Cunningham.

In other words, O'Connor's 3k mark now sits behind numerous women are who among the all-time greats in the fastest era of D2 distance running (and it's not even remotely close).

I would be very scared of what O'Connor could bring to the table on the national stage. That's because she has 800 meter and mile speed that other aerobic-centric stars don't have. Admittedly, the women's 3k at the NCAA D2 Indoor Championships will likely be fast from the gun (thanks to Lindsay Cunningham) which neutralizes that aspect, but in terms of skillset, O'Connor is the full package, at least on paper.

Oh, let's also not forget that Klaudia O'Malley (Grand Valley State) and Precious Robinson (Adams State) also stood out with excellent 3k marks of their own, running 9:17 and 9:26, respectively. That latter mark was heavily converted from the Mountaineer Open at Western Colorado.

The long-time Colorado Christian veteran has returned! Josh Pierantoni has been one of Division Two's more consistent and reliable distance standouts over the last year or two. And sure enough, he's already off to a strong start.

The Cougar standout went to UC-Colorado Springs last weekend and simply dominated, running converted times of 7:57 (3k) and 13:51 (5k) less than 24 hours apart. That is a fantiastc double and it demands a lot of respect, especially when you consider how challenging recovery from altitude-based races can be.

Oh, and by the way, he ran 13:57 (5k) at Boston U. one week prior to all of that.

So...what do these results tell us?

Well, it tells us is that Pierantoni is still as fit as ever after not racing during the fall months. It also shows us how durable and effective he is as a doubler. He did, after all, earn top-five finishes at the NCAA D2 Outdoor Championships in the 10k and the 5k last spring.

The next step forward for Pierantoni is seeing if he can take his consistent racing at a high level and truly rise as a legitimate national title contender. He has slowly climbed the D2 ranks over the last couple of years, but in a season that seems somewhat wide-open (at least more than it has been as of late), this is seemingly that time for Pierantoni to make that next jump.

To me, it feels like Hamza Chahid is the Fouad Messaoudi of Division Two. Both men, who are also both Moroccan, thrive in the mile and the 3000 meters, but the latter is probably their ideal event and they were instrumental to the success of their team's DMR lineups last winter.

Not only that, but when asked to move up in distance (such as the 5k or cross country), both men more than held their own (albeit, to varying degrees). That's why Chahid's recent marks of 7:58 (3k) and 13:56 (5k) don't necessarily stun me. The Wingate star is coming off of a fantastic cross country season (which consisted of only two races for him) and seems just as sharp as last year.

I don't have a whole lot to offer regarding Chahid's recent efforts, but that's by no means a bad thing. If the Wingate ace runs fast enough in the mile this winter -- and I could realstically see him running sub-4:00 -- then he may not be needed for the Bulldogs' DMR in March. This is, after all, one of the deepest distance programs in all of Division Two.

Regular readers of The Stride Report will know that I love to talk about underclassmen talents in a certain way. To put it simply, most rookies and sophomores are fairly inexperienced and are, to no fault of their own, underdeveloped (in terms of their fitness) compared to their veteran peers.

But at the same time, younger athletes also hold so much more upside. They have far greater room for growth and when they get on hot streaks, they can become some of the more dangerous distance runners in the NCAA.

Sure enough, the latter seems to be happening with second-year Western Colorado talent, Peyton Weiss. Listed as a rookie on TFRRS (which means that she's a redshirt freshman), Weiss has capitalized on a very strong end to her cross country season with a top mile mark in December.

When Weiss earned a huge 26th place finish at the NCAA D2 XC Championships last month, we were impressed, although that result did feel like a fluke at the time given her prior resume. Of course, as it turns out, that season-ending performance was anything but a fluke.

The rising Mountaineer star just ran a converted 4:46 mile mark on her home track which now leads D2 in the admittedly super-early portions of the season. Even so, that performance is massive in terms of validation. Just like conference rival Tristian Spence, we now have two recent back-to-back performances in two very different environments which showcase a new level of fitness that was never seen before.

Keep an eye out on how Weiss develops moving forward. If she continues to grow into an upper-tier mile threat, then the Mountaineers could have a lethal DMR lineup this winter with Allison Beasley and Leah Taylor also in the mix.

However, if I had to guess, then I would say that the mile is not going to be Weiss' best event moving forward given her recent success in the mile and on the grass. In theory, her sweet spot is probably the 3k, a middle ground of sorts between those two ends. Although given how stacked the women's D2 3k already looks this year, it's very possible that Weiss' best chance at an All-American honor in March will be in the event that she just contested.

As for Maria Mitchell, the Grand Valley State runner just had one heckuva of a race. In a mile battle where she was behind a few unattached Michigan women, Mitchell took full advantage of the fast field and produced an awesome 4:49 mile PR.

 Yet again, the Lakers have produced another nationally competitive name...but this time, maybe we should have seen it coming. Mitchell did, after all, hold personal bests of 2:11 (800), 4:28 (1500) and 10:31 (steeple) going into last weekend.

Does that mean that I expected her to run 4:49? No, but there were subtle signs throughout her resume suggesting that she was better than some people may have realized.

Even so, we now have to keep Mitchell on our radar. When it comes to racing at this level, we don't know a whole lot about her. But as the season goes on, she's someone who could very easily end up cracking our top-25 indoor track rankings.

The Marsh sisters, Katherine and Isabel, have been steady and consistent veterans at the half-mile distance for the last few seasons. They both hold 2:08 personal bests for 800 meters and just ran 2:10 and 2:11 for that distance, respectively.

Those two women have been on the fringes of All-American honors for the last few years with Isabel holding one 7th place finish at the 2023 NCAA D2 Indoor Championships. But for the month of December, these are strong starting points that the Adelphi sister duo can build off of moving forward.

It's pretty much an identical story for Adams State's Jessica Simon who just ran a converted 2:10 (800) mark of her own. But when it comes to Academy of Art's Lina Hanich, her recent 2:10.42 should be considered extremely encouraging. This is someone who ran 2:09.91 for the half-mile distance at the very peak of her spring fitness.

If Hanich is already less than half a second out from matching her PR, then imagine how good this west coast middle distance runner will be in February and March.

If I'm Maxime Touron right now, I am very excited about what the future holds for me. The former Lindenwood runner just ran 1:50.47 for 800 meters on December 2nd, a new personal best despite coming straight off of cross country.

Admittedly, that is only a PR for Touron by the slighest of margins, but that is still an incredibly encouraging step in the right direction. With his current time, he would have made last year's indoor national meet and he probably has a good shot to do so in 2024 with that time alone.

But for someone who was consistently great last spring and is now running personal bests in December, the upside of this Northwest Missouri talent is something that shouldn't be left unnoticed.