To most of the 50 or so athletes making up the men’s 5,000m and women’s 10,000m fields, this newsletter asks something of you. Do as the late, great singer Prince once implored: go crazy, get nuts.

Why not lead a portion of your race at an aggressive clip?

We get that to even qualify for the Trials you need to be at least a little deluded in your self-belief. Just about everyone on the line thinks there’s at minimum a tiny shot they can get to Paris. But if you are, mathematically speaking, not going to make the Olympic team, please consider becoming an agent of chaos.

Placing eighth at the Trials is cool. But you know what’s really cool? Spontaneously hitting the front and injecting a sub-60-second 5th lap in the second heat of the 5,000m. Or leading from the gun and grinding yourself into a fine paste for the first third of Saturday’s 10,000m final at the legendary Hayward Field! (Editor’s note: This particular section does not reflect the views of the full Lap Count family and definitely should not be considered coaching advice.)

Raise every single eyebrow possessed by those in possession of the Olympic standard in your event. Force them to immediately discard their race plan and actually race. You saw it in the men’s 10,000m on night one: Conner Mantz led the first four miles of the race, going out in 4:18 then getting incrementally slower, but still holding on for an impressive sixth place showing. He didn’t have to do that. He didn’t even really have to be in the race at all, having already secured a spot on the marathon starting line in Paris. But he did need to be in Eugene for athlete processing, so why not also sacrifice yourself and pick up a couple thousand bucks in the process?

On paper, the men’s 10,000m should have been a real snoozefest. The outcome that we got – a three man team of Grant Fisher, Woody Kincaid, and Nico Young – was not only what everyone expected. Those three were the only men in possession of the Olympic standard; it was basically the only possible outcome, unless Paul Chelimo suddenly found himself in 2021 form again.

But Mantz wasn’t alone in his commitment to entertainment. There were wildly unpredictable lead changes, including a short stint where Sam Chelenga hit the front seemingly out of nowhere, a late infusion of pace courtesy of Andrew Colley, an even later bid for the win by Nico Young, the classic Grant Fisher 1200m surge, a classic Woody Kick, and an edge-of-your-seat final 200m where it looked as though reformed miler Drew Hunter might finish in the top three in just his second-ever 10,000m race.