How do you QUALIFY for Footlocker Regional?

midwest wrote:

what state can you win with a time above 16? in illinois last year 25th place was 15:06 i think

It's gonna depend on the course and the level of competition. North Carolina's winners last year:

4A - Debole, Matt 15:33.70

3A - Rojas, Jesus 16:42.37

2A - Holman, Preston 16:55.23

1A - Martinez, Eric 17:02.03

Oh...that makes things a little more reasonable then.

I run in Oklahoma. I was state champion in class 3A. I won by more than 15 seconds. I ran 16:40 at state. Thanks for all your input guys.

I am not sure what region that puts me in. Probably the South

Or Midwest

This of course brings up the whole discussion about how many people should get to compete at the state meet. Coming from Illinois, we had (and they still have) 2 divisions in track and cross country (A for smaller schools, AA for larger schools). I live in Colorado now and when checking out the results I have to remember that there's many more divisions (4 or 5?) so that's why it seems like everyone qaulifies for state.

Also, they're running a 5K at altitude, whereas we were running a 3 mile at sea level in Illinois. But from what I know, the Illinois course was right on 3 miles with some gradual inclines/declines on a relatively quick running surface most years. 15:30 got me 66th place in the AA race 17 years ago, but Illinois was/is a pretty tough HS running state. I never ran Foot Locker/Kinney - for some reason it wasn't a big deal where I was from. I wish I had - the course at Wisconsin - Parkside is sweet.

BDG

Ya, the Parkside course if off the hook. Horrific conditions usually in Nov. up there BUT I loved every minute of it last year.

The PointMAN

BDG wrote:

This of course brings up the whole discussion about how many people should get to compete at the state meet.

EVERY high school in NC "qualified" for the state playoffs in football last year. Even teams that finished the season 0-10 "qualified". They split 1A through 4A into 2 divisions each so there were basically 8 state champions. It was bad seeing a 10-0 team taking on 1-9 team in the first round of states. As you can imagine, the games were absolute blowouts - but the NCHSAA made a lot of money from all those playoff games.

That sucks if money is a big part of it. Otherwise it's just you're typical "everyone's a winner" bullshit. That's great (and appropriate) for little kids, but when you get into high school NOT everyone is a winner. NOT everyone is as talented and NOT everyone works as hard. It's good to have a fair amount of people qualify for a state competition, but it shouldn't be watered down "for the kids" & especially not for money. Fuck that.

BDG

BDG wrote:

Also, they're running a 5K at altitude, whereas we were running a 3 mile at sea level in Illinois. But from what I know, the Illinois course was right on 3 miles with some gradual inclines/declines on a relatively quick running surface most years.

1. The Illinois course is 4760 meters in length, well short of 3 miles (4823 meters). Craig Virgin's time would have been over 14 minutes had the course been an accurate 3 miles.

2. The Illinois course is flat as a pancake. A .05% gradual incline/decline does not add up to any advantage or disadvantages over the course of the race.

3. You simply cannot compare Detweiller times against other courses across the nation. Top Illinois runners consistently run about a minute slower at Kenosha.

4. Traditionally, top Illinois runners get blown away at Footlocker. They've had a few good runners in the past 10 years but Illinois has never won the state team competition outside the presence of the Torres brothers.

Excellent call... it'll be a hell of a race.

IL Runner-

1. So you or somebody you know has a wheel and measured the course - I'll be sure to go back and add the 63m worth of time to my time from HS. In fact, I just did it and according to your official measurement I just lost 12.31 seconds. Damnit!

2. The Illinois course is only "flat as a pancake" if you make your pancakes slightly slanted. It's a big reason that people come through the half in the low 2 minute range - that first 1/2 mile is downhill. And guess what? What goes down, comes back up on the way back. ".05%?" 5 % of 1 percent? I don't think so - maybe 3-4% grade, I'm not sure. No one would notice that type of blip. And not .5% either. It's certainly not a hill (nor did I ever say that it was) - but one can accurately call it an incline/decline.

3. "You simply cannot compare Detweiller times against other courses across the nation. Top Illinois runners consistently run about a minute slower at Kenosha." What a ridiculous statement. There's courses around the country easier, similar, and harder than Illinois, and I never tried to say that the Illinois course WAS hard. And then to say how much slower the runners run at Kenosha is hilarious. That course is WAY hillier and tougher overall. Of course they're gonna run slower there.

4. Illinois HS runners (probably because of some of the ridiculous restrictions put on them from the IHSA) don't seem to run that well (or even run) in many regional/national competitions. This doesn't take away from:

a) How good of a distance running state it is. Look at the XC AND track performances in both quality & depth. It's typically one of the better states in the US.

b) How good the performances are AT the state meets (not how they may later do at Kenosha).

c) How well several runners have gone on to perform collegiately/post collegiately - I'll start a VERY incomplete & small list:

Jorge & Ed Torres, Marius Bakken, Don Sage, Robert Gary, Tim Broe, Jim Spivey, Craig Virgin, Ken Popejoy, Rick Wolhuter, Tom Graves...

Oh, and it's always nice when you can just exclude the runners from Illinois who don't fit your argument ("outside the presence of the Torres brothers").

PLUS - my whole damn point was trying to talk about how a lot of states water down their state competitions which does not, in my opinion, happen in Illinois. There's only 2 levels (A & AA), and you have to go through regionals and sectionals to get there.

So there.

BDG

BDG is pretty much right on all accounts. However, a few years ago Mark Pilja's dad measured the course using a surveyor wheel (he is an engineer) and it did come up short of 3 miles, if my memory serves me right. And it is a fairly flat course for a state xc course- but it does have some modest inclines, including the last 400m. There is no real meaningful way to compare it to the Parkside course- look at the first 600m of that course, for pete's sake. What is that, like a 4-5% uphill grade? You can sled down that incline. The course is also a lot twistier and narrower than Detwiler. IL has several disadvantages when compared to other states- runners can't compete in meets not IHSA approved (so only rarely do runners get to run against teams from another state), there are only 2 classes (for example, IA, which has many fewer high schools overall, has 4 classes, I do believe). Still, regardless of the exact distance, a 15-minute run will likely put you around 25-30th place at best at state.

The Illinois course is debated, it is eiteher listed at 2.97-2.99. The last half mile is also up a steady incline and if you say that doesnt have a positve or negative affect you have never watched some people fall apart over that stretch.

I think how the discussion has switched on this thread brings up a good discussion about comparing courses within and between states in the sport of cross country.

The best reason for paying attention to times on a XC course are to compare performances on the SAME course from year to year (assuming they don't tinker with the course). Because even that is hard enough due to different weather and footing situations.

It's cross country - while I like to know roughly how far I'm running before I line up, the exact distance doesn't matter. I always laugh when I read about PRs and school records in XC. Course records - yes. School records - NO!!

Leave those type of things where they belong - track (not to slam track as I've always enjoyed it, but track and XC are 2 different sports).

BDG

I find all these high school times amazing really.

As bad as it was in Ohio in the mid 80s there are SO many runners who killed 16:40 for 5,000 meters that never got even close to being a state champion (including me). But at the same time, overall times are faster NOW.

I guess Ohio is just one tough state to be a distance runner in.

Not knocking your 16:40 - that's still a decent time, especially for someone who wasn't a senior yet, but man that's a bit amazing that a time like that could win a state championship. Holy cow!!

ben true owns all