First Thoughts: Thornton-Bott Runs 4:08 (1500) in Australia Last Week & Rose Goes 2:00 (800)

I'm not sure when the last time I said this was, but this weekend was...surprisingly quiet in terms of top times and performances!

Part of that can be attributed to the poor weather plaguing parts of the east coast. And with a large handful of top names already racing last weekend, as well as the Easter holiday potentially playing a role, this weekend didn't really change the national leaderboard all that much.

Today's article won't be too crazy long, but there were still a good number of upper-tier performances that you need to know about. Luckily, that's what I'm here for!

Click here for read First Thoughts: Duke Invitational (1500 Meters)

---

Izzy Thornton-Bott Runs 4:08 For 1500 Meters at Australian Championships Last Week

I'll admit, I wasn't entirely sure if this result would count towards the NCAA leaderboard. It's not that I had any reason to believe that it wouldn't count, but in my experience, I had never seen an international mark from a non-NCAA meet count for collegiate postseason qualification.

But Izzy Thornton-Bott, the rising Oregon star, did represent the Ducks at the Australian Open & U20 Championships last week, a result that didn't show up on the national leaderboard until recently. And despite finishing 6th place overall, the dynamic cross country All-American still came away with a fantastic new personal best of 4:08 for 1500 meters.

This past winter, we saw Thornton-Bott take a clear step up in her fitness. She ran a 4:32 mile PR and looked like a very legitimate All-American threat at that distance before having a slight "off" day in the mile finals at the indoor national meet.

And yet, despite her improvements this past winter, seeing Thornton-Bott take yet another leap upwards in her fitness isn't something that I was totally expecting to see from her, at least not during the first days of April!

In terms of raw firepower and talent, it's clear that this Aussie ace can be among the best milers / 1500 meter runners in the nation. She's far more versatile than some people realize, is (usually) very consistent and now has marks that make her one of the faster women that the NCAA has ever seen at this distance.

Putting all of the greatest aspects of her skillset together -- talent, tactics, consistency, postseason peaking, etc. -- is what will ultimately decide how much success she has in June. But the good thing is that we know that she has all of those traits...which isn't something that we can say about all competitive 1500 meter runners in the NCAA.

The season is still young and the field that Thornton-Bott faced in the "Land Down Under" isn't going to be anything like what she'll face on the national stage in Austin, Texas later this year (although there's a chance that the race will be just as fast).

I'm not sure I see this Oregon superstar as a national title contender yet, but that possibility seems far more realistic than it did just a few weeks ago.

Michaela Rose Drops Huge 2:00 Mark Over 800 Meters to Secure Top Time on National Leaderboard

The grass is green, the sky is blue and Michaela Rose is really good at running really fast 800 meter times seemingly out of nowhere.

Throughout the indoor track season, we saw LSU superstar Michaela Rose go from "good" to "elite", effectively skipping the "great" tier altogether. Over the half-mile distance, she went from 2:01.66 to 2:00.18 to 2:01.09 to 2:00.85 (at altitude) to most recently, 2:00.34.

That is an INSANE level of consistency for times that are that fast! I sincerely can't remember the last time someone ran that many 800 meter times that were that quick that often (and yes, not even the Stanford duo ran under 2:02 that often this past winter).

In terms of raw talent, Rose is probably one of the better 800 meter runners that the NCAA has ever seen. She has been metronomic in her performances and is even coming off of a 1:58 split for this distance in a 4x800 meter relay from last weekend!

But despite how incredible she has been as of late, I'm not sure that we can look at this LSU superstar any differently than we already have. The Stanford duo of Roisin Willis and Juliette Whittaker are still the top women in this event, nationally. And until Rose can reach a point where she's consistently running as fast as they are in the open event (i.e. sub-2:00), then her spot in our top-25 rankings won't change all that much.

Of course, that doesn't make her recent success any less impressive.

In that same 800 meter race, we saw fellow LSU standout Lorena Rangel Batres run 2:03 for the same distance, taking down BIG 10 standout Rachel Gearing (Penn State) in the process.

Keep an eye on Rangel Batres. She's been sneaky-good as of late, showing greater consistency and improved times. If the LSU middle distance standout can continue to build on her fitness, then she may have an outside shot of making it to the national stage in June.

Olivia Howell Validates Recent Rise in Fitness, Goes 2:02 For 800 Meters to Comfortably Win by Over Three Seconds

Going into the winter months, no one was questioning how talented Olivia Howell was. She had run 4:09 for 1500 meters before, was tactically excellent, had been to the national stage three times in her career (prior to March) and had earned an All-American honor before.

But what we didn't expect was for this Illinois veteran to have the race of her life on the national stage at altitude. At the NCAA Indoor Championships, Howell took down Lauren Gregory for the mile national title and a 4:34.00 mark that would convert to an absurdly fast time, likely under the 4:30 barrier.

Admittedly, that performance came a little bit out of left field. While it wasn't unrealistic to think that Howell could reach that level, nothing that we saw from her during the winter months indicated that she was in that kind of fitness.

Of course, as we've said time and time again, momentum is a very real thing -- and Howell has a lot of it. That's because this past weekend, the Illinois star ran a fantastic 800 meter time of 2:02, an overall personal best by a little under two seconds and a seasonal best by four seconds.

Is this result incredibly strong for Howell? Yes, absolutely.

Does this result (at least partially) validate her incredible national title victory? Yes, I think so.

Are we going to view Howell any differently because of this result? No, probably not.

Based on her mile performance from a few weeks ago, a time like this seemed like it was well within her wheelhouse. Howell previously owned a 2:04 (800) personal best and has since made a leap in fitness that is clearly stronger than that.

But regardless of what her resume did or did not suggest about her capabilities, Howell's recent performance makes our conversation about the women's 1500 meters this spring that much more challenging.

Think back to last year when Colorado's Michaela DeGenero won the mile national title (somewhat unexpectedly). On paper, she didn't quite have the same resume as a few others, but it was impossible to leave her out of the national title conversation the following spring when it came to the women's 1500 meters.

And although she didn't win gold at the 2022 outdoor national meet, she came extremely close to doing so.

Now, just one year later, we seemingly have the same scenario, this time with Olivia Howell.

Austridge, Olivere & Patterson Go Sub-10:00 in Steeple as Each Woman Earns Relatively Comfortable Win

The women's steeplechase around the NCAA has yet to show the same level of upper-tier firepower that the men's steeplechase has. But in terms of depth, the number of women dipping under the 10:00 barrier for that event has been better than expected.

This past weekend, we saw Yasmin Austridge (Lamar), Lydia Olivere (Villanova) and Victoria Patterson (Columbia) each earn promising early-season wins in the steeplechase with marks that went comfortably under the 10-minute barrier.

Austridge is someone who you'll need to start keep a closer eye on. She is having a very solid start to her 2023 outdoor track campaign, flexing surprisingly strong versatility while also securing multiple wins with competitive times.

After running 2:04 for 800 meters to start her season and later running 4:19 for 1500 meters, we saw this rising Lamar ace post a very impressive mark of 9:52 in the steeplechase.

And the best part?

That seemed to be a completely solo effort.

Unless the two women who recorded DNF results ended up being pacers, Austridge essentially ran a 9:52 steeple mark all on her own at the Joe Walker Invitational, destroying her competition by 47 seconds! For perspective, she ran her 10:14 PR in this event at this same exact meet as last year.

In other words, Austridge is 22 seconds ahead of schedule.

This is just another result in what will ultimately be a string of impressive performances for this breakout distance talent. However, I can't help but wonder how fast Austridge can go in the steeplechase if she's actually in a competitive field that can push her...

As for Olivere and Patterson, they each ran 9:56 in the steeplechase at two separate meets.

For Olivere, this was a fairly important result. She's always been a nationally competitive name, but the Villanova distance talent has admittedly been a bit quiet over the past year.

Seeing her run 9:56 (which is not a PR despite what her TFRRS profile says) and take down a field that featured Sasha Neglia (North Carolina) and teammate Anna Helwigh is really encouraging.

She still has a long way to go, but Olivere should be very happy with this effort.

When it comes to Patterson, she continues to stack fitness and build momentum. She just ran 15:55 for 5000 meters at the Raleigh Relays the other weekend, ran 9:02 for 3000 meters on the indoor oval and ended her winter campaign with Ivy League titles in the 5k and the 3k.

This past weekend was Patterson's first time competing in the steeplechase, making her 9:56 debut in the event that much more impressive. Just like Austridge, it feels like her ceiling in this discipline is far higher than what we saw on Saturday.

Handal Roban's 1:47 (800) Mark Gives Him Overall Win As Penn State Men Take Three of Top-Four Spots at LSU, Ayman Zahafi Runs 1:47 (800) on Home Track

There admittedly isn't too much to analyze here. Nothing that we saw from either Handal Roban or Ayman Zahafi this past weekend should surprise anyone.

As we all saw during the winter months, Roban is at another level with his fitness. He ran 1:47 for 800 meters on the indoor oval at altitude and earned bronze at the NCAA Indoor Championships (after a DQ). And while that was clearly the best result of his season, he had done enough throughout the last few months to be viewed as a nationally competitive name.

That's why a 1:47 mark over 800 meters at LSU this past weekend leaves me shrugging my shoulders and saying, "Yeah, that's about what I expected."

We should also note that Canadian middle distance runner Olivier Desmeules finished 2nd in this race with a time of 1:48. He took down a very solid talent in Alex Selles (LSU) who also ran 1:48. Keep an eye on Desmeules, he's due for a big performance soon.

It's a very similar story for Ayman Zahafi (Miami (FL)). Seeing him run 1:47 for 800 meters on his home track is probably the least surprising result of the weekend. Still, it's a strong performance and it's a simple extension of what he was doing during the winter months...which is running really fast during the regular season.

Quick Hits

• Solid runs by Maia Ramsden (Harvard) and Laura Nicholson (Temple). They each ran 4:15 for 1500 meters, securing easy wins in the process. For Ramsden, this kind of result is hardly a surprise, but Nicholson did catch my attention. This was a five-second PR for the Philly-based runner and she ran no faster than 4:48 in the mile this past winter. Keep an eye on her moving forward.

• Nice result for Villanova's Evan Addison in the steeplechase. He ran 8:50 to win that event at the Duke Invitational, comfortably defeating an underrated runner in Marshall Williamson (North Carolina) by 13 seconds in poor weather. The former Pitt runner holds an 8:44 (steeple) PR. And if he was able to run 8:50 in bad conditions this early in the season, then he seemingly has a good chance of beating his personal best later this spring.