2019 girls Foot Locker predictions and discussion!

Nope. Wrong answer.

Judging by what she did in her own race yesterday, she probably would've led this race from start to finish.

Everyone else would've battled for second, third, fourth.

But, yeah, these girls (top two, especially) ran brilliantly, so KT might only have beaten them by, say, 15 seconds yesterday.

I'm not trying to start an argument. SRs are a nice tool when you have enough data points. But huge leaps in SR numbers after you have a season's worth of data would make any statistician sit up an notice. You don't go from 159-60 to 169 at the end of a season after we have had a ton of data including all out regional races where the participants went full throttle.

Starliper had some nice races this year. But let's face it that she got a 162 at the FL regional based on her time gap over Masciarelli where Sydney was simply not the same runner this year and showed it all season. Baloga is a very promising freshman, but she ran the late season just like a worn out freshman would.

Looking at the historcal data my theory is that Balboa Park runs very fast in dry conditions and the reporting leading up to the 2019 race is that it was as dry as a bone. What little grass there was was brown and the dirt and stone were as hard as a track. If anyone is interested, the fastest Balboa times correspond to dry and drought periods. That would explain the numbers and the cluster of sub-17s in the mid 1980s. That would explain Fairchild's 1990 race which happened in a period of drought. And that would explain Trotter's 2001 time. As an article stated, "The 2001–02 rain season in Southern California was the driest since records began in 1877."

I'm not saying these are not good athletes, but this is the type of data that needs to supplement stats.

Since I dug into it Cuffe's sub-17 came on the tail end of a three year drought in Southern California.

Fl was in fla for several years including 2001

Yep. I was just about to amend it. But that means that we have to compare the 2001 time to the other Orlando times.

So the fastest boys and girls FL times were both set at Orlando. Apparently a flat course. Would be interested to know the course records.

No I know you're just making good points

Yeah I hear you I think you've got some good observations

Like I said there's always a margin of error

Maybe bill didn't take into account that it was super dry super fast conditions this year

But like I said if you basically knock it down two points and knock some of those other races up to point you really don't have much open unreasonable thing happening

You should graph it out and compare some of the historical Trends with weather conditions in the course running faster

I added a chart showing the FL Orlando times at a 167 SR vs year (similar to the chart that was there for Balboa Park).

I've got no idea what would have happened if KT had been in the race so i'll not weigh in on that. (Nor do I even care about that.)

I will however mention that it has not been 'bone dry' here over the last couple weeks. While we haven't had torrential down pours here we've certainly had rain..both the week of the CA State meet and last week. Remember they ran the rain course at the FL west regional... and while that is north of us ,we still got rain here.

Ground was normal,not muddy, not excessively dry either... it was pretty standard for this course... the girls ran fast this year because that's just how this race went... run it next week or the following week and results ( especially times) would be different. It's XC not a track.

Who are you to label Karrie Baloga as a worn out freshman? ... Karrie had a great late season string of races including 3rd at Foot Locker Northeast and 11th at Foot Locker (making her an All-American) ... She was very pleased with her Foot Locker race (listen to her post-race interview) ... I don't know her personally, but you need to pick on somebody else as an example ..... You couldn't be more wrong if you are suggesting her Foot Locker speed rating of 151 is too high.

This year's field of girl runners entered Foot Locker as somewhat better than last year's field ... 4 girls with a 160 speed rating or higher (only 1 last year), 8 girls with a 155 speed rating or higher (6 last year) ..... Reflected nicely in the results - 11 girls this year had Foot Locker speed ratings of 150 or higher while last year there were 9 girls that had a speed rating of 150 or higher.

Drought conditions used the criticize speed ratings ... Good grief.

This year's girl's race was faster than last year's race in terms of absolute time ... BUT absolute times alone never have and never will determine the race adjustment used to calculate speed ratings ... When will people criticizing speed ratings ever understand the difference between absolute and relative times? ... Relative means runner-to-runner comparison and time differences between runners ... Believe or not, one race is often faster than another in absolute terms, but equal in relative terms (just like Foot Locker 2019 versus 2018) ... The boys this year were close to being equal in absolute and relative terms.

Melody Fairchild's 1990 Balboa course record (16:39.2 and 177.9 speed rating) ... she won by nearly a minute, and only 7 girls broke 18:00 ... In relative terms, that alone suggests a very high speed rating.

astro wrote:

I'm not trying to start an argument. SRs are a nice tool when you have enough data points. But huge leaps in SR numbers after you have a season's worth of data would make any statistician sit up an notice. You don't go from 159-60 to 169 at the end of a season after we have had a ton of data including all out regional races where the participants went full throttle.

Except they were not going "full throttle" at the regionals. Ewert has said she trains through the regionals and tapers for the nationals. Hart's coach said that at NXR Hart ran with the lead pack and then worked on her sprint. When Hart is going for a win against top competition she pushes the early pace. The top four at NXR/MW ran together and then Dudek and Hart had a full throttle sprint battle with Ewert showing no interest in joining in.

At FLN Hart went for the win by pushing the early pace and pulled the field along. This faster pace caused Masciarelli and Ewert to fall back and finally broke Hart herself but launched the top 3 to an exceptional day.

By the way Vanderkooi was found to have an iron deficiency after her state meet and was getting treatment for it. So her times prior to that were not indicative of her maximum performance. I suspected her recovery would lead to an even faster time after regionals and indeed it did. This is just one of many ways that results can vary. These girls are not machines that give top performance every time.

Then I guess everyone was holding back all year. Strategy.

So SRs do not account for whether a course is running fast or slow? OK. Good to know.

It's not really a strategy of holding back, it's a combination of setting up your training to peak for championship season and getting into races with better runners.

It's no secret that runners like Methner, Morris and Ewert, Tuohy would set up their training plan, base building, strength work, speed work and sharpening, and eventually a taper to have peak fitness and performance at the championship meets. I pick these 4 as you can see a steady progression of their performances and speed ratings as they move from league to district to state to national meets.

Similarly as you move on in competition you run into better athletes. The whole idea of national meets was to answer the natural human question of whose better "the kid from Ohio" or "the phenom from Nevada". The combination of max training with the excitement, adrenalin, nerves, competition of national races against an often unknown competitor is exactly what creates the cauldron that spits out lifetime bests (or chokes).

This is exactly why kids go to Arcadia, Simplot, Drake, Penn Relays, NBN, Brooks PR etc. is to get in one of these magical races, test yourself against the best, and hopefully get dragged along to a great time, or even win.

The boys Foot Locker race was good. Methner was clearly the best runner. He ran away from the field and posted a solid time for a winner. Solomon and Anderson were pulled to those magical lifetime bests, and Morris had his best race of the year.

The girls race, however, was really excellent with 3 of the top 10 times ever on the course. Both Dudek and Starliper had lifetime best races and dragged VanderKooi along for the ride. Hart ran well, but it was not her best ever performance. She paid at the end for taking the lead through the first 2 miles.

It does not shock me at all that a lifetime best performance can be 8-9 speed points higher, or 24-27 seconds faster over 3.1 miles, as that's exactly what is supposed to happen when you bring kids from around the country and put them together in a championship race.

Watch how many All American wore Nike 4%

https://www.temposports.org/high-school-scene-results/high-school-scene-2019-foot-locker-cc-nationals

Can you just tell us, how many?

I’m interested in the Kentucky Derby analogy. When was last time NXN or FL Champion was won by a 50:1 - type runner? I know we don’t have these odds or betting, but you do have the relative ratings going into the race, as you said.

runnerdave wrote:

Respectful in NY wrote:

I respect her decision. There is no path to get her to Footlocker. But had she been able to run both, she would lose tomorrow.

Look, didn't I tell you to go to bed? Now, go to your room, you little brat!

Lol

Mine That Bird wrote:

I’m interested in the Kentucky Derby analogy. When was last time NXN or FL Champion was won by a 50:1 - type runner? I know we don’t have these odds or betting, but you do have the relative ratings going into the race, as you said.

Good question!

As far as I know it has never happened and is very unlikely to happen... here's why...

People are much more predictable than horses

Horses don't have the degree of understanding and the degree of identity

So there's much more variability with a horse.

You're not going to get a 50 to 1 shot Runner winning unless the other top 15 Runners all went to the same restaurant and had a bad outcome

Yeah anyway I just think it's unlikely because in a sport like running where people are really training and really focused and diligence it's just going to be very unlikely for all the better Runners to have super bad days Andy 50 to 1 shot to have the race of their life