NCAA D1 CC 6k vs 10k

You see, the NCAA still feels that the women are far inferior to the men and by making them run 10K, their dainty little bodies couldn't take the toll and they would pass out and even possibly die.

Have you ever watched a women's 10k on the track...thats why! Also did you watch NCAA's xc this year? What was the more exciting race, the women, which came down to the last 200 meters or the mens when some skinny ran away with the race...again?

The women's 10,000 on the track needs to have only 20 or so runners, not 250. There is not enough depth for good races. In contrast, that finish at NCAAs XC was stupendous but would not have happened at all if the race was 10,000.

The women have a hard enough time staying healthy running 5000m/6000m and 8000m/10,000m would require much more of a distance base. Look, for instance, at how much high school girls run compared to the boys and in many/most states they run the same distance. The jump up to college already drops out a lot of the high school Footlocker runners because many are long middle distance gals and a fast college 6000 is too long for them. The IAAF has shorter races for the women across the board (open, Junior etc).

"Males. You men. You must do more. Double! Just like in all aspects of life. Females. You stay where you are. Like usual. Don't strain yourself."

Men are forced to run twice as far while women only go up a half-mile towards the end of the year. If men have to move up then girls need to move up. At least to 8k. A 6k is dumb.

If we want equality in this country, then why not start with something healthy like running/races?

Let's assume you're right and that they should be the same. Why 10k? Why not 8k? Or 6k?

I actually think making them both 8k would be more exciting. Then milers would play a bigger role and 800 runners might be more valuable. In other words, the whole spectrum of distance runners would be relevant.

26mi235 wrote:

The women's 10,000 on the track needs to have only 20 or so runners, not 250. There is not enough depth for good races. In contrast, that finish at NCAAs XC was stupendous but would not have happened at all if the race was 10,000.

Jordan Hasay was robbed of victory by the sexist middle distance biased NCAA.

Since no one answered the OP question here it is. When the women were running 5000 meters the finish line at NCAA's got quite congested as the runners were grouped together. Given the propensity for women to get to the line and stop or fall down, it created a management problem for the host institution. So a group of coaches got together and convinced the NCAA Track & field Committee that it would help meet management if the race was extended to 6000 meters, and thus "spread" the women out more, and create less problems at the finish line. It had nothing to do with the distance itself. Many of us (me included) argued that we shouldn't make a change for a meet management issue that any change should be for a better race, regardless of that actual distance.

Wendell Gee wrote:

I actually think making them both 8k would be more exciting. .

I think we should give up all this metric crap and have both run 5 miles at every meet including nationals.

2011 NCAA Cross Country National Championships Analysis

MEN

1st-28:44 behind 1st Runners/second

1-40 28:44-30:12 1:28 1/2.20sec

1-100 28:44-30:47 2:03 (+35) 1/1.23sec

1-150 28:44-31:11 2:27 (+24) 1/0.98sec

1-200 28:44-31:47 3:03 (+36) 1/0.92sec

1-240 28:44-32:27 3:43 (+40) 1/0.93sec

WOMEN

1st-19:41 behind 1st Runners/second

1-40 19:41-20:30 0:49 1/1.23sec

1-100 19:41-21:01 1:20 (+31) 1/0.80sec

1-150 19:41-21:24 1:43 (+23) 1/0.69sec

1-200 19:41-21:52 2:11 (+28) 1/0.66sec

1-240 19:41-22:33 2:52 (+41) 1/0.72sec

I don't know if I did a good job doing this analysis. It appears like the Woman's race is much more compressed overall when compared to the men right now... though each segment after the first 40 seems to be similar. (I chose 40 for the first segment because that's the cut-off for the All American Certificate).

I think it would be good to move the Woman's distance to 8k so the number of minutes would be closer to that of the men's XC race. Top women should be able to race in the 26-27min range and a 3 minute spread after that seems reasonable.

Longer, to make a more significant difference from Track & Field... still shorter to address the idea that women (or less elite/depth women) can't handle the same volume of training as men of similar training age. Not sure I agree with that idea for top women, but I do think that many women farther back are likely to have morphological issues that would make training longer a bit harder.

You have had women 800/mile types win, I don't recall that ever happening in the men's race. Guys like Wheating and Andrews got their butts kicked in XC, which is the way it should be. Kennedy was and won, but he was not an 800/mile type.

It should be increased to 8k to give the true LD types a better shot.

These stats would seem to indicate that the distance is right. Do people seriously think that running an additional 2000m would have made the woman's race more interesting?

8K might 'work' but it would not be a better race and it would not be a more interesting race. It would change some which runners were best at the distance. 10K would be an absolute disaster. There is not a particularly deep woman's field in the 10,000 on the track and there you are taking the top runners from any program, not just those on a deep enough team to fill the XC field with more than ten times as many runners.

Extending to 10K might lead some of the top track and field programs to blow off XC because they do not want to have a lot of middle distance runners and then a bunch of long distance runners because they cannot contribute to a top-level track team that needs to have some of their scholarships and coaching resources at the variety of field events (Jumps and Throws are very different) and all of the sprint and hurdle events. Basically, those 10K distance runners can be competitive for only two track events and to have to have enough to field a deep XC team (new runners coming up as well as the top-7 for racing at NCAAs). Add to that difficulty the additional over-use injuries that would occur if the women try to hit the 100 miles/week that the better men hit and you will basically find that track coaches would cut the XC program loose.

But none of this seems to enter many posters heads. This is not an equality issue; the women have just as many races, it is not like the women are not allowed to have as many events with the longer events truncated out. It will help some runners, especially those that are sort of good at really long distance but are not great athletes. It will hurt those that are pretty good at shorter distances and extend well to somewhat longer distances. Why is one group better than the other. It would make for a terrible XC championship.

Scrw the 800 and 1500 girls if they can't handle the longer distances. That is what cross country is about.

Cross country should be it's own sport, not worrying about who could or could not be competitive from track. It is a disgrace that people feel women are incapable of being competitive running a distance that is 80% of the men.

Ummm...ever heard of Lopez Lomong?

A girl hs runner asked me why NCAA women run 6k and not 10k like the men. HS distance for boys and girls is 5k and it's weird both don't run the same distance in college. My friend is definitely a 10k type so if she runs in college the longer the distance the better she'll do.

simply isn't the depth of women to field appropriate teams for XC if moved that long. If necessary, move to 8km for a few years to help the transition before considering 10k, to see its effect. Are there true 10k/Marathon type runners that would benefit more from the longer the longer distance? Yes, and so what? The depth just isn't there, and the teams would be be relatively poor as a consequence, beyond a handfull of programs.

As it is the men in most programs suck beyond a top 4 on the team - how many programs have guys 7 guys running even under 29.00 for 10k let alone sub-28 (which is what most programs should be running - you know how many Kenyan 20 year-olds can run that fast!!??). Pathetic.

Your stats are a bit misleading since there are more outliers on the men's side, the womens race was more of a sit and kick. Womens race that year had 1st-10th separated by 10 seconds, men 1st-10th were separated by 45 seconds.

If we throw out the top 10, the womens is a bit more compressed but not a lot.

MEN

11th-29:32 behind 11th Runners/second

50th 30:22 0:50 1/1.25sec

110th 30:52 1:20 (+30) 1/0.8sec

160th 31:19 1:47 (+27) 1/0.71sec

210th 31:55 2:23 (+36) 1/0.71sec

WOMEN

11th-19:53 behind 11th Runners/second

50th 20:37 0:44 1/0.88sec

110th 21:07 1:14 (+30) 1/0.67sec

160th 21:26 1:33 (+19) 1/0.62sec

210th 21:57 2:04 (+31) 1/0.62sec

Anyway, this question has been discussed on here before several times in recent memory. Just me, but I think if you look at the training and depth of the majority of college women's teams, a move up in distance is not a good idea.

I'm not saying that women can't in theory handle the same volume of training as men, I'm saying that in practice there is less depth and more injuries on the women's side which means less room for the attrition caused by higher mileage, and less women with the higher-mileage background from high school (it is hard to go from 30 to 90 per week in college).

Bump

Both the men and the women should run 8k. Coaches hate multiple 10ks for men. 5k/6k is too short for women. It makes course creation much easier, with one accurate start and finish line.

then they need to reform scholarships so that cross country has their own. If you are on a xc scholarship you can run track, but nothing shorter than 1500m. if you are on a track scholarship you can not run cross country. this will eliminate the schools that totally disregard the xc/distance events as well as the distance schools that load up cross country but ignore field events and sprints. create a more even playing field so when you line up at a cross country championship there isn't a school with 2 scholarships dedicated to cross country/distance running against a school with 10.

this would go a long way in solving some of the collegiate level nonsense.

Both should run the same distance of 8k or 5 miles. If they run 8k, they should only have kilometer splits. I've run hundreds of 5ks and have never been given a kilometer split. That's insane. If you can't measure kilometer splits, then make the race distance in full miles.