Talk D2 to Me

The outdoor track season has arrived in no more than a blink of an eye, and with it has come numerous distance events that seem to be trending towards some of the fastest in D2 history, just like we saw this past winter.

With the spring season now in full force, we have witnessed some surprising performances from athletes, both good and bad. We have also seen the return of some top-tier names who were denied their final season of eligibility last year by virtue of the pandemic.

With the entirety of April competition now complete, there has been enough time for us to gain some kind of sense as to where certain athletes may be in terms of fitness. There have also been enough big races to make some sense of their racing capabilities, something that plays a more prominent role during outdoors than it does during indoors.

 So with that, here are a few key returning veterans who have caught our eye so far this season...

When we last saw this Concord athlete toeing the line, he had recently set a personal best in the 3000 meters with a time of 8:18. While that wasn't anything super special, it was clearly leading to what appeared to be an eventual breakout season.

Fast forward a year and the breakout is indeed here.

Weitzel opened his 2021 season in the 10k and ran 29:34. That’s good enough for the NCAA #10 time on the national leaderboard this year. It’s a new personal best and it's also the first time that he’s cracked the 30:00 barrier. Weitzel has most recently run 14:12 for 5000 meters, another personal best and a top-15 mark on the NCAA leaderboard.

But let’s not stop there. We can add a third PR to the resume as Weitzel ran 9:01 in Charleston for a new steeplechase personal best the other weekend. Weitzel took home the victory in that race, proving that he’s capable of being a legitimate contender in three different events. He likely has some room to improve as the season progresses.

It’s nice to see Weitzel having a major breakthrough and with that breakthrough, he’s given himself a good problem to have, putting himself in top-20 (nationally) in all of the events that he's toed the line for this spring.

The 10k and the steeplechase seem to be his strongest races, but he’ll likely have to make a decision at the national meet about which events he truly wants to pursue. The 10k is on night one with the prelims of the steeplechase taking place earlier in the day.

Parsons is making her last go around the D2 circuit before heading to Albuquerque to join the Lobo women. She returned in normal fashion earlier this spring, opening her season in a time of 4:26 for 1500 meters. That’s only half a second off of her personal best.

To make the return even sweeter, Parsons raced a 5k for just the third time in her collegiate career. She dropped nearly 46-seconds off of her prior best and now currently holds the NCAA #9 mark in D2 this year, as well as the third-fastest time in the 5000 meters.

There was a solid belief that Parsons would look to focus on the 1500 meters this season given her past experience and success in the event. However, with Parsons running 16:18 in the 5000 meters, she’s entered the realm of being a true All-American threat at that distance.

I still believe that her best chance of national meet success is in 1500 meters, especially with how strong the women's 5k is this year. That said, her middle distance speed makes her a threat in a tactical postseason race and the idea of trying to get past Cotter for a national title in the 1500 meters seems unlikely. Of course, it's also possible that she tries the double.

Expect to see Parsons in both events come May and more than likely walking away with two All-American awards. She's more than capable of doing so.

The Saint Leo athlete opened up his 2021 season with an encouraging 1500 meter effort, taking home a solid win at the Embry-Riddle Eagle Invite. Unfortunately, that win didn’t lead to an extremely fast time as he clocked a modest mark of 3:51 which resulted in a four-second victory.

The next weekend, we saw Bracken set a new personal best in the 800 meters when he ran 1:50.15 in a 2nd place effort. Fast forward to this past weekend, and we finally saw the true form of Bracken that we've seen in year's past. His 3:46 victory at the Tampa Invitational was a very encouraging step in the right direction and much more on par with our expectations.

Coming into this season, Bracken held personal bests of 1:52 (800) and 3:44 (1500). He hasn't touched that 1500 meter PR yet, but he's within striking distance and his new 800 PR of 1:50 suggests that he can reach that mark.

We've always thought of Bracken as more of a 1500/mile guy, but what about the 800 meters? The Saint Leo product is currently ranked at NCAA #20 in the 1500 meters and NCAA #9 in the 800 meters. Is it possible that dropping down in distance this postseason will be Bracken's best chance of success in Allendale? I guess we'll have to wait to find out.

Simon Fraser won't be venturing to the D2 national meet later this year due to traveling issues associated with leaving Canada. That, however, hasn’t stopped Townsend from proving that she would have been the middle distance athlete to beat in May.

At the SFU Series #3 meet, Townsend clocked a huge time of 2:03 for 800 meters, bettering her personal best by three-seconds. That's quite the improvement, especially for someone who was already in the elite tier of the D2 ranks. In fact, even in a year that is absurdly deep and top-heavy at the D1 level, that 2:03 mark still would've been one of the better times that the NCAA has seen this year.

And if that wasn’t enough for you, Townsend recently ran 4:15 for 1500 meters at the Oregon Relays to take home the victory over some highly accomplished D1 names, including women like Rachel McArthur, Michaela Degenero, Aneta Konieczek and Christina Aragon. If Townsend's time counted towards the national leaderboard, then her mark would have been the fastest time this season by two seconds and the fastest raw time by three seconds.

It’s a shame that we won’t see Townsend against the top competition in D2, but it’s clear that the career ahead of her will be a successful one.

Now that we’ve kind of gathered our bearings with some reminders of athletes returning to competition, we can navigate the early portion of the season and review some of the marks that have come with it. Here are a few key names and underrated talents who have been throwing down some quietly impressive marks over the last month or so...

Yes, we saw Woldemichael during the indoor season, but he didn’t qualify for the NCAA meet. That issue, however, is already out of the way as the highly decorated athlete took a month off from racing and debuted in late March with a time of 14:03 in the 5k. Two weekends later, he ran 29:12 in the 10,000 meters at the Bellarmine Jim Vargo Invitational, his first time ever running the event.

We saw how good he was during his freshman year for the Lakers, rapidly emerging as one of the NCAA's best distance talents. However, his hiatus from competition was an extensive one and although he came back strong, he didn't come back as the elite talent that he once was as a rookie.

Luckily, it seems like he has shaken off the rust.

Running that fast in the 10k in his first try leads us to believe that he’ll be faster than 14:03 for 5000 meters. How much faster? Well, that has yet to be determined. If that’s the case, then Woldemichael is going to be part of that GVSU trio (featuring himself, Harding and Chada) that has a legitimate shot of having three All-Americans in the 10k and the 5k this year if everything falls their way at the NCAA meet.

Alanis has run a total of 20,000 meters since she debuted for the Royals in mid-March. So far, all of that racing has cultivated in two top-five marks (nationally) in the 5k and 10k distances. The two-time ITU World Triathlon winner has clearly taken to the track in an impressive fashion and continues to validate the idea that triathletes make the best distance runners.

While Alanis finds herself in the "second-tier" of 5k contenders (for now), her time of 16:31 came in only her second-ever try at the end. And the first time? Well, that effort produced a mark of 16:56 and resulted in a nine-second win. Sandwiched in between the first 5k and the second 5k of her career was the 10,000 meters where she ran 35:17.

There’s a good chance that there’s a sub-35 minute race in the near future for her, but that might not be something that we see until the gun goes off in Grand Rapids.

Simply put, we love the recent progress that we've seen from Alanis and it seems like her ongoing comfort with racing these distances (at this high of a level) will likely lead to further progress in her overall resume throughout the rest of the season.

Kipchirchir did not have the type of indoor track season that he was likely anticipating. After finishing 12th at the 2019 NCAA XC Championships, he opted to redshirt the indoor season, and then obviously missed the outdoor season because of the pandemic. He had an okay cross season in the fall before setting a personal best in the 3k, but it was nothing spectacular considering his talent level.

But so far this spring? Well, things have been quite different.

Since the outdoor track season has started, Kipchirchir has raced three times, and in each instance, he’s walked away with a personal best. He ran 9:03 for the 3k steeple and followed that up with a 5k where he ran 14:19. He shaved nine seconds off of his steeple time while dropping 24 seconds off of his prior 5000 meter PR.

However, what’s more impressive is the 10k that he ran. Kipchirchir ran a huge mark 29:30 for the distance, good enough for NCAA #13 on the national leaderboard. His 9:03 steeple also slates him at NCAA #9 on that same list after the conversion. Truthfully, the 10k seems like the event that he was going to have the most success in given his racing style and success on the grass.

At the same time, I'm not sure we anticipated Kipchirchir emerging as such as legitimate contender in the steeplechase. That's been a nice development and something that gives his resume a bit of spark as well as some well-roundedness.

Brown has already raced nine times this outdoor season. That's an absurd amount of racing when you consider that we haven't even finished the month of April yet. After the Lone Star Indoor Championships, Brown took two weeks off and has since put together a strong resume halfway through the season.

After two rust-busters, Brown rolled to a 16:38 (5k) effort at the Texas Relays, finishing 4th overall and taking 1:05 off of her personal best which had been set two weeks prior. The following weekend, Brown ran 4:36 in a solo effort over 1500 meters as she won by 14 seconds.

While that 4:36 isn’t a provisional mark, it’s a personal best by eight seconds. If Brown had any competition in that race, then it's very likely that we could have seen a much faster time from the Dallas Baptist ace. Who knows? Maybe we'll see her validate that suspicion later in the season. If so, then that would make her one of the better dual event distance athletes in the country.

We like her potential and we think she's someone you should keep an eye on, especially since her 5k time suggests that she can run faster in the 1500 meters.

Smith is a Mount Olive transfer who has seemingly gone on to have success at another school. The newest Wingate ace set a personal best in the 3k during indoors this past winter, running a time of 8:18, but we didn't see him return to the level that he was at when he was at Mount Olive.

However, in his three outdoor track races this spring, Smith has progressed into the best shape of his life and is slowly becoming a key name to watch.

His first race this spring was a 1500 meter effort where he ran 3:56, a two-second improvement. His next race was a 10k, where he ran 29:33 and chopped 25-seconds off of his personal best. Not only that, but Smith's most recent race was a 5k where he ran a very underrated time of 14:00 which is another eight seconds off of his prior personal best.

If this year wasn't as wildly deep as it is, then we would be making a much bigger deal about that 14:00 personal best. That's a tremendous mark and on paper, almost anyone who runs that fast is typically put into the All-American conversation.

Smith has clearly taken advantage of his opportunities on the outdoor oval and has become one of the best 5k/10k runners in the country. He’ll qualify for his first NCAA meet and race both of these events. However, we view him as more than just a national qualifier who will be happy to be there. He should have a strong shot at being a two-time All-American come May.

Like most of the athletes who we’ve talked about, Rairdon has had great success early-on this outdoor season. After she finished off her indoor track season with personal bests in the 3k (9:52) and the mile (5:00), she seemed primed to carry her momentum to the outdoor oval.

Earlier this spring, Rairdon posted a time of 17:34 for 5000 meters. That mark isn’t at the top of the national leaderboard, but it’s a personal best by 14 seconds and it led to her promising follow-up performance in the 3k steeple.

Rairdon ran 10:42 and took another 14 seconds off from her personal best in the event. But it didn't stop there as she headed to the Drake Relays where she yet dropped another 11 seconds off of that steeple time, moving it all the way down to 10:31. That’s good enough for an NCAA #5 ranking on the national leaderboard.

We saw steady improvements from this Augustana runner during the winter and it looks like that momentum is being carried to the steeplechase given how much time she has dropped in the event.

Smith is a very solid and underrated talent, making his way over to NW Missouri as a transfer from Iowa a few years back. He waited until the first week of April to open up his outdoor track season and he did so with a strong showing in the steeplechase, running 9:10 in his very first try. Since then? Smith has run his way to a time of 3:47 for 1500 meters, placing him inside the top-25 (nationally) of that event.

However, the 1500 meters is not Smith’s main event and that was pretty clear after the Drake Relays were over. Smith dropped an unbelievable 19 seconds off of that first steeple PR and ran 8:51 to snag the fifth AQ mark in D2. That’s a stellar performance from someone who’s only run the event twice and it gives us reason to believe he can be even better than that PR if he keeps up this consistent progression.

Can he challenge someone like Christian Noble in the steeplechase later this year? It certainly won't be easy, but the steeplechase is a super variable event and someone like Smith has a quietly great well-rounded resume.