Where We Were Right & Wrong: 2023 Raleigh Relays (Day One)

Happy Friday, friends!

Last night was plenty entertaining as we got to see a handful of excellent distance battles on the men's side as well as a very interesting women's 10k race in Raleigh, North Carolina.

However, instead of just writing some headlines and offering some standard written analysis, I wanted to do something a little different today.

I went back and revisited my "Day One" preview for the Raleigh Relays. And after comparing my preview/predictions to the results that we saw on Thursday, I found myself being either very accurate or not even remotely close to being correct...at all.

So let's give this a go, shall we?

I like to think that I said all of the right things about the top heat of the men's 1500 meters in our Raleigh Relays meet preview.

In that article, I highlighted how the Virginia men were, for the most part, the top contenders in this field and how Conor Murphy was probably the safest pick to take home the win.

And what do ya know, I was right!

I had three UVA milers finishing in the top-five. More specifically, my predictions had Conor Murphy in 2nd place with a time of 3:39, Gary Martin in 4th place with a time of 3:40 and Wes Porter in 5th place with a time of 3:40.

The final results?

Conor Murphy with the win in 3:39, Gary Martin earning a runner-up finish in 3:40 and Wes Porter placing 5th overall with a 3:41 mark. Were my predictions perfect? No, but I either had the correct time for those three UVA men or their correct place.

So...pretty solid, right?

Now, admittedly, I wanted to be bold and pick a winner who was different than Conor Murphy. As a result, I had Vivien Henz (Harvard) taking home gold in a mark of 3:38 (1500) which would have matched his personal best.

That prediction, however, couldn't have been further off than it was.

Henz just so happened to have one of the worst races of his entire year on Thursday afternoon, falling to a mark of 3:50 for 1500 meters.

With the live stream not being available for this race, it's hard to say what happened to the Luxembourg native, but based on his splits, the Harvard distance runner seemed to be out of the contention fairly early-on.

Was that probably a fluke? Yes, almost definitely. Henz, after all, just ran 3:57 in the mile not too long ago. He'll be a factor in future races moving forward -- he's too talented not to be.

I'Il also admit that I could have given Baldvin Magnusson and Gavin Gaynor a little more attention prior to this race. I figured some of the most established veterans would play a greater role in this field, but I thought those "veterans" would be a proven 1500 meter runner like John Petruno. And although he ran well, Magnusson proved that he may have some of the more underrated versatility in the nation.

When it came to Thursday's distance races, Minnesota standout Matthew Wilkinson was probably the most obvious pick to win his event (or at least, emerge as the top collegiate).

And sure enough, that's exactly what happened.

Wilkinson, a steeplechase All-American from last spring, slowly worked his way up the field, eventually overtaking all of his collegiate opponents. Yes, the Golden Gopher ace would fall behind Empire Elite's Isaac Updike who controlled this race from the beginning, but Wilkinson put on a masterclass steeplechase performance.

No, we shouldn't be surprised, and no, I probably shouldn't get much credit for accurately nailing a pretty obvious pick...but let me take my wins where I can get them.

Patrick Thygesen, however, was a prediction that I was a bit more proud of.

The rising Providence distance standout was one of numerous collegiate men in Thursday's field who had run in the 8:40s range in the steeplechase. But with no obvious differentiating factors amongst that group of men, trying to predict the next few finishers behind Wilkinson felt like a challenge.

That being said, Thygesen was someone who had done a handful of subtly great things during the tail-end of his indoor track season. He ran 7:57 for 3000 meters twice before running 7:54 for the same distance to win the IC4A title. A 4:01 mile PR was also encouraging to see.

In my eyes, Thygesen had a ton of momentum in an event that he could effectively translate to the steeplechase. And thankfully, he backed up my theory with a fantastic performance, posting a huge 8:33 personal best.

Here's what I said about the steeplechase in our "Day One" preview...

"for whatever reason, the men's and women's steeplechase marks around the NCAA almost never get super fast until the postseason."

Welp...that theory didn't seem to hold much merit on Thursday night.

Thanks to some great running from Empire Elite's Isaac Updike, this pace was quick -- far quicker than I think I've ever seen for a March-time steeplechase race. And with a talent as strong as Matthew Wilkinson moving up this field, we got to see a handful of men set a slew of personal bests.

Am I surprised that Wilkinson ran 8:29 in the steeplechase?

No, not necessarily. He had run 8:25 in the steeplechase last spring, after all.

But am I surprised that Wilkinson ran an 8:29 steeple mark in March literally just three days after the official season of spring began? Yes, I am surprised.

Of course, what really caught me off guard was seeing Patrick Thygesen run a near-16 second personal best and Kevin Robertson (Syracuse) run a nine-second PR. In fact, four of the top-five collegiates (and seven of the top-10) in this field ran new steeple personal bests.

HOWEVER, I did say this in our meet preview...

"Almost everyone in this field feels like they could have a breakout race. But at the very least, numerous men are going to run new personal bests and if the race plays out like we think it could, then maybe someone other than Wilkinson breaks the 8:40 barrier."

I'll be honest, the men's 5k race in Raleigh did not go AT ALL how I thought it would. Of course, we'll save that analysis for the below section. Instead, let's talk about Indiana's Jake Gebhardt, a guy who made me look much smarter than I really am.

Gebhardt had a very solid (and even underrated) indoor track season. He ran a 3:59 mile PR before posting 3k times of 7:52, 7:52 and then 7:51, the latter performance ultimately giving him a silver medal at the BIG 10 Indoor Championships.

Those are all excellent marks, but they don't necessarily suggest that Gebhardt was going to run 13:37 for 5000 meters in the month of March after never running any faster than 14:02 for the distance.

However, what a lot of people don't realize is that Gebhardt split 3:54 on the anchor leg of Indiana's DMR at the Alex Wilson Invitational. That was a massive performance for someone who has been predominately viewed as a true aerobic-centric distance talent.

All of those results added up, in my mind, to a breakout race at a distance that theoretically should be Gebhardt's best event. That's why I predicted him to place 4th overall in a time of 13:36 for 5000 meters.

His actual placement, however, was runner-up.

But his time?

13:37.

There were a TON of guys who had shown signs of having a breakout race, but I felt pretty proud that in a mass contingent of talent, I was able to pick the right guy.

I was CONVINCED that Harvard's Acer Iverson and Butler's Simon Bedard would highlight the men's 5000 meters. Iverson was coming off of a very strong indoor track season and Bedard had a history of success in the longer distances, holding one of the faster 5k personal bests in this field.

I would have put money down that one of those two men would finish in the top-two.

But neither man did.

Whoops.

Instead, it was Toby Gillen who made the headlines, putting himself near the front of the pack for most of the race and then really pulling away over the final lap. The Saint Louis runner stunned the field (and myself) en route to a 13:35 (5k) PR and a monumental victory that effectively alters how we view Gillen as a national-caliber talent.

This was an unbelievably impressive breakout race for the sophomore distance talent. According to TFRRS, he holds personal bests of 4:02 (mile), 8:01 (3k) and 30:55 (10k track). Yes, he did run a 13:41 (5k) PR at Boston University back in February, but other than that, he had never run faster than 14:07 at that distance.

There's still so much that we don't know about Gillen. His resume is still very unbalanced in terms of his personal bests and his finishes in competitive fields aren't anywhere close to what he just threw down.

I didn't see this coming at all. I'm not sure I would have put him in my top-10 if I had extended my predictions that far. And frankly, I'm not sure many people outside of Saint Louis would have done the same with their own predictions.

Of course, after Thursday night, we won't make that mistake again.

After a tough indoor track season (in terms of my predictions), I like to think that I got my groove back with this race. When you look at the women who I predicted to finish in the top-five of this race (amongst collegiates), I was incredibly accurate.

Here were my top-five predictions for the women's 10k...

And here were the actual results (collegiates only)...

In a 10k race where there's a lot of time for things to go wrong, I like to think that this was one of my better sets of predictions that I've had so far this year.

Now, admittedly, there was a pretty distinct gap between the two tiers of talent in the women's invitational 10k field. If you look at the graphic that we posted on our social channels, you'll find that we highlighted 11 collegiate women in this field as the key names to watch.

Of those 11 women, seven of them placed in the upper-half of this field (15th place overall or better). Of the four women who didn't finish in the upper-half, one of them was a DNF (Elizabeth Mancini) and one of them had never run a 10k before (Rachel McCardell).

So was this just a predictable race?

In terms of the top contenders, sure, maybe it was.

But in terms of the times and finishes? Well, that's a different story...

Outside of Matthew Wilkinson winning the men's steeplechase (or at least emerging as the top collegiate), there wasn't anyone in any distance event who I felt more confident about winning than Kelsey Chmiel in the women's invitational 10k.

But I mean c'mon, who could blame me?

Chmiel has been on fire this year. She was absolutely incredible on the grass and peaked perfectly for the postseason this past winter. And in theory, the 10k is closer to her ideal distance than the 3k is.

With a 10k personal best of 32:45 from the spring of 2021, as well as an All-American honor at this distance, it felt like Chmiel would win this race pretty convincingly.

And sure, I certainly thought that Chmiel's teammate, Allie Hays, would be competitive in this race. She did, after all, earn 5th place All-American honors at this distance last spring.

However, Hays didn't have any cross country or indoor track eligibility remaining this year. Naturally, we entered this outdoor track season with a very limited understanding of where her fitness was at.

But Hays made sure to leave no doubt about just how far she has come over the past year. The NC State veteran and former Columbia Lion posted a monster 10k PR of 32:21 on Thursday night. She beat the next-best finisher, Sam Nadel (who is the distance coach at George Washington) by seven seconds and the next-best collegiate (Eleanor Mancini) by a whopping 22 seconds!

What was even more impressive about Hay's race is that she took over the lead with a little under two miles to go. She didn't just try to pull away over the last few laps. She legitimately tried to assert her aerobic dominance over a very good field -- and it worked!

I didn't have Allie Hays showcasing better endurance than Kelsey Chmiel on my bingo card and I also didn't have Hays running a time as fast as 32:21 over 10,000 meters! For perspective, that would have been the fastest 10k time in the NCAA last spring by six seconds.

And if we're going to talk about times, then I also have to admit that I didn't see Eleanor Mancini running 32:43 over the same distance and beating Kelsey Chmiel who still cracked the 33-minute barrier in the process.

So sure, I may have predicted who most of the top women in this field were going to be, but I was way off on their times and the order in which they finished.