Burke Lake is a rare thing in cross country - a consistent gold standard upon which to measure runners from year to year.
The 1-2 runners yesterday each live within a mile of me and ran 14:59- starting to get in fairly fast territory.
A lot of the course is on a road so even weather conditions are less significant in terms of times year to year.
Alan Webb holds the course record in an incredible time 13:57(the road element just had to help him, I would think).
Sharif Karie (a 4:02 high school miler) ran 14:19 and Jim Hill ran 14:26. Webb's time is obviously impressive, but it demonstrates to me why Ritzenhein is one of the best high school XC runners ever - he beat Webb that year by 20 seconds.
By the way, the Oakton coach is one of the better high school coaches in the country, and more importantly, simply a great guy and an asset to the community.