More than 100 PRs in Arcadia 3200m races?

According the rtspt results, they were 160 runners in the 5 3200m races. So likely more than half ran a PR. Perhaps well over half.

Arcadia Madness wrote:

I'm certain the exact numbers are off because athletic.net doesn't have every race, but they do have pretty good data for the faster races in the nation. Keeping that in mind I see that for 2017, they list 125 boys with their season best 3200m at the Arcadia Invitational. Of those, 113 are denoted as PRs. The exact number is probably closer to 100.

This is even more than usual. The weather was about as perfect as you can get this year, so I doubt this is repeatable at this level. Maybe next year it will be down to 50, but what a great year for what my teammates called the TurboCharger 3200.

Your post is the antithesis of what's expected from a LetsRun post: you should have unequivocally declared it a short course, and kept your excitement for the sport out of it.

I've taken three kids out there other the years from the east side of the country. The weather seems like it's perfect every year. Travelling to a meet, especially across the country, is always exciting for kids and gets them even more focussed than normal. The primary goal is to run fast, winning is almost secondary. It's not like a state championship where the title matters most.

This year 18 of the guys in the race had already one at least one state championship. Most of these guys go into their state championship as favorites. They're expected to win there. Anything less than a win would be a massive disappointment.

At Arcadia, few have such expectations so they are freer to take risks and let it rip.

Furthermore, everything about that meet is set up for record breaking performances. They change the directions of sprints to give the greatest chance at setting records or creating top performances in the US. By the time the 3200s run, the environment is absolutely electric.

Like Footlocker it's also a great opportunity for elite kids to race other kids they will likely see in major races in college.

Having the New Balance meet in the southeast in June just isn't conducive to great times, so I doubt there will ever be many years where the 3200 at Nationals is near as deep as Arcadia. The exception might have been 2007 when Centrowitz and Forys went at it at Nationals. The Adidas and Brooks meets are also siphoning off talent at that time. Aracdia is like a perfect storm for elite 3200s.

Nationals isn't really nationals. National meets tend to be regional meets.

Arcadia 3200 is an all-star meet but also largely a regional meet, strong in some events and much weaker in others. Most 1600/3200 kids peak there then try to hang on through their respective state meets. For the kids from states like CA where over-racing is the norm, Arcadia is a good compromise but not necessarily the best solution for the athletes.

+1 to everything by poster Another Option.

Most competitive high school meet in the country. Kids go there to run fast.

But it's all the altitude drop for the Utah boys, right? Lol