JENNA MF HUTCHINS - Runs 15:58 - 1st US HS Girl To Break 16:00 in XC!!

I think the layout of this course have been enumerated in great detail. So you have a first mile down hill, some gentle rollers in the second mile that never exceed 25 feet in rise, a long diwnhill leadinf to a short 200m rise, followed by a longer downhill to the final turn. The course is exactly as described. Blazingly fast. Whether fair or unfair, time will certainly tell.

Why is there hate for a course designed to be fast? Ask any HS kid whether they would run a course with mud, hills, and haybales or a FAST course and I guarantee they pick the fast course.

I would rephrase that as "a course designed to be competitive with any historically popular course at gathering national level events from the high school to the collegiate level and possibly beyond". The impetus was not to have a course that Letsrun posters and Instagram kids lose their minds over; rather it was to make a course that could bring the best together and create incredible excitement throughout the local, regional, and national running communities at the prep, collegiate, and recreational levels by virtue of top-notch events. John Hunt Park happened to be very fortunate on the weather this year. Had the weather been as in some years past, athletes would be 5-10 seconds slower per mile and the thread would be 20 posts long rather than 10 times that amount. That's the nature of the beast in late season XC.

If Jenna Hutchins would legally change her first name to "Katelyn," would that make Astro at least partially happy? =)

He will be very unhappy when these girls break Tuohy's track records. They won't be as impressive because they pushed each other.

Speed ratings suggest this course was actually slower than the Desert Twilight course Hutchins ran last year. Her 16:38.97 was rated a 150. Her 167 rating at Huntsville would be equivalent to about 15:48 in that race. In the boys race it would have been equivalent to 15:46.

A lot of PRs have been set at Desert Twilight. I don't remember this level of complaints about that course being too fast. By the way the XC record Tuohy broke was a 16:23 by Katie Rainsberger at Desert Twilight in 2015. That 16:23 was rated a 156.

Interesting. There were several guys who ran slower here than at Desert Twilight.

I'm a push over. Go out and set a record on a certified track without help or assistance, without multiple pacers or team trial formations, and I will applaud.

Keep the name, follow the example. :)

The 1000m loop behind Lockheed

When will you be compiling your full list of restrictions:

Shoes?

Attire?

Track surface?

Level of competition?

Weather conditions?

Time of year?

Altitude?

Fans at the track?

Timing system?

Video proof?

Other?

Because it seems safe to say you’ll nitpick *something* if a record goes down.

Not creative enough.

Like I said, get on the track in a race, start running, no assistance, break a record. Not that hard to try.

westsouthrunner wrote:

The 1000m loop behind Lockheed

nice /flex on your knowledge of Huntsvegas. But do you remember when it was a mile?

Man this thread is something! Guys, we have a great system to compare cross country performances. Speed ratings are really accurate

It was a 167 speed rating. Why would anybody celebrate that as some historic achievement

If you want to celebrate Hutchins is over all year go for it, wouldn't argue with that

Hutchins is having a really good year. From what I know probably the third best ever. definitely top 5 or 10

But seriously what's the thinking that just because someone runs on a course and then gets a time that that has to be celebrated as some moment of History

If she did it with the speed rating in high 170 s or above then yeah but she's already had a 171 earlier this year and a bunch of runs slightly better than this 168 xcetera

Anyway all the back and forth and endless on and on about the course, that's why we have speed ratings, 2 compare performances on courses that it would take forever to argue bout...

There's tons of courses short, long, easy hard....

Anyway there's a guy with Decades of experience who takes tons of time to figure this all out with some seriously legit math. If anyone wants to take the time and do the graphs and show why it should have been rated higher go for it

But I guarantee you there's no way that it's more than a couple points off.

We are celebrating that she broke the record. Colleges maintain records by time. High schools maintain records by time. States maintain records by time. She broke the record. Very few people have ever even heard of speed ratings and they are subjective. Her record is legitimate. Go away if you don't like the system that we have. Invent your own sport but don't ruin ours.

Speed Rating is probably the stupidest metric out there.

Don't worry. They will.

If anyone is interested this is a virtual walkthrough of the course. Adds context:

https://www.huntsvilleal.gov/environment/parks-recreation/recreation/sports-complexes/cross-country-course/

It is pretty much as described already. The first mile is on a downward slope or ramp, the course is wide, the turns are gradual and not designed to slow momentum, it has a uniform surface and to the extent that there are hills they are very gentle, and the last 3rd is on another, discernible downward slope. So yes it is a very fast, user friendly course and competitors can hammer it.

I guess we check back in a few years after a race history develops.