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2013 Indoor Track and Field on Flotrack

The Sleeper: Diego Estrada

The Sleeper: Diego Estrada

Jan 16, 2013 by Isaac Wood
The Sleeper: Diego Estrada
Isaac Wood is BYU's XC and track & field assistant/manager, but he's known in the running community for being the man behind The Wood Report. Wood's blog provides extensive analysis for everything in the men's collegiate distance running world, from previews for every single XC conference to in-depth reports on the top 30 teams. This indoor season, Wood will be a part of a weekly segment entitled The Sleeper, where he'll be taking a look at some top tier athletes that may be flying under the radar.

When you think about “sleepers,” Diego Estrada might not be the first person that you would think of, at least in terms of his outstanding collegiate career. As of late though, Diego has kind of flown under the radar following a difficult summer and not competing for NAU outdoors in the spring and cross country this past fall.

Now, most people would not consider a summer spent training for the biggest event and most important race of your career (up to that point), difficult. On the other hand if you think about what Diego went through in getting to London and  representing his home country of Mexico, maybe you would.

After a solid, but not outstanding 21st place in the Olympic Games 10,000, Estrada has spent the rest of the time recovering from a nagging hip injury. During his time not running, Diego watched his fellow teammates at NAU improve and progress to close the season with a podium finish at nationals where they placed 4th as a team in Louisville. Along with watching his team get better, he also saw many newcomers come on to the national scene as contenders.
Now, all eyes are on them. Names like Kennedy Kithuka of Texas Tech and Anthony Rotich of UTEP are among some of the runners  that will now be in his  way of achieving what everyone wants, a national championship.

Photo: Image of Sport

Diego is currently coming off an injury and will not be opening up until at least the middle of February.  He becomes even more of a sleeper because he will be watching everyone else compete at the big indoor meets like the Husky Classic, the Notre Dame Meyo Invite, and many others without him. Also, a change in event focus to the mile for the indoor season will add to the already growing reasons why Estrada might not be on the national championship radar.

The good news for Diego is that he is a very well rounded runner and is definitely no slouch when it comes to the distances shorter than his usual races such as; 3,000m, 5,000m, and 10,000m. Estrada has an altitude converted mile PR of 3:55.48 that he ran at the NAU home invite last indoor. He also has a 1500m PR of 3:41.80 that he ran at Mt. Sac in 2011.

The 2012 indoor season was quite possibly Diego’s best season as a collegian where he racked up a myriad of quality times on the track. At the 2012 Husky Classic Estrada was poised to win the 3000m had it not been for the “ninja kick” of Ryan Hill. He still ran a very good time of 7:44.29. He also had good races in his last official appearance as a Lumberjack at the Indoor National Championships in Boise, where he represented his school well finishing seventh in the 3k and fifth in the 5k. As much as many of us would like to watch him push the pace at the front of the pack in those races at nationals, Diego will likely be found in the mix of things in the mile.


Photo: nauathletics.com

This is not the first time Diego has been considered a sleeper. Coming out of Alisal High School in Salinas, California, he was not necessarily a blue-chip recruit. He never won a race at the CIF state championships, running his best race his senior year in the 3200m when he finished fourth behind first place winner German Fernandez. Besides that, he had relatively decent PRs in the 3200m (9:04.80), 1600m (4:20.64), 5k (15:29) and 800m (2:03.46).

With all of this considered, Estrada has made leaps and bounds since high school under his coach, Eric Heins, at NAU. It is hard not to cheer for a guy like Diego. He came out of nowhere at NAU and is one of the most exciting runners in the NCAA. He deserves some credit for many of his fellow collegiate runners’ PRs because Diego makes races happen. If the pace ever slows you can count on Diego to make a move on the outside to the front of the pack to push the pace once again.

Knowing that Diego will not be competing for at least another month allows many other top-tier runners in the country to throw down some great times that will solidify them a spot at the national championships. If you are one of those athletes in the mile that have barely run a time that puts you in the top 16 in the country (the new system is that the top 16 times will make the national championships) you might want to be ready to improve your time.

When Diego finally opens up this season he is going to be prepared to make a push for the national title and those just holding on to the 16th spot will most likely not be going to nationals, because they were sleeping when Diego Estrada woke up.

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