Official Idaho HS XC 2023 Thread

I'd say this is closer to what would happen (If all teams went to Woodbridge and soaked up the sea level, turf, no adversity type environment in a 7 team race)

Boise 40s

Rocky 70s

Timberline/Thunder Ridge 80s

Eagle/Owyhee 100s

Mt View 120s

Isn’t the exact idea of speed ratings that it accounts for all of these things?

Yes, but early season speed ratings are admittedly uncertain. My sense had been that South and East Idaho races were underscored by 6pts or so.

It’s just one data point, but Ringert jumped over 8pts from his two prior Idaho races to Woodbridge.

all speed ratings are low early season that includes woodbridge, I mean look at the times they are running noonan ran equivalent to 13:35 3 mile which is a new national 3 mile record and only got a 194. Speed ratings go up mid-season when people start racing established courses.

look at last years speed ratings on early non established courses, then look at what teams are running later in the season its 5+

The Eagle girls improved from 16 to 30pts from Caldwell to Woodbridge. I double checked the math. I don’t have any idea what to to make of such a massive jump in two weeks. Only part of that could be explained by a different scale between the races. We’re they sick or running a tempo at Caldwell?

Their boys team also compressed their spacing. Since Ringert was in the sweepstakes, counting their 2-5 and 2-6 at each meet because those are the same runners.

Caldwell- 2-6: 1:00 2-5: 49 seconds 3-5: 34 seconds 3-6: 45 seconds
Woodbridge: 1-5: 58 seconds 1-4: 41 seconds 2-4: 5 seconds 2-5: 21 seconds

Probably one thing to note is that their #5 boy at Caldwell was their #3 overall at Woodbridge and appears to be related to their #3 girl. Those 2 saw the biggest improvements. Very easily could be that they were both sick.

I think a good part of that is fitness. These aren't college kids. Even good high school kids will sometimes come into the season out of shape and have to race into fitness. They will have a bigger curve in speed ratings than other runners. Speed ratings account some for fitness bc the entire field should see improvements over the season. You definitely don't want to see your speed ratings remain consistent the entire season. My guess is that you would see course records a good deal faster on a lot of courses if they were run in October vs early September.

Not the teams and individuals at woodbridge invite, they are prepared are very fit. Same goes for all the other early big invitational they are in the same boat. i'm just saying expect these speed ratings for everyone on all these early courses to go way down when compared to west regionals / nxn / established courses in the mid-season / state meets. If you want a good example go look at last years top 20 at woodbridge and check their speed ratings at national meets

Go look at the girls the Eagle team ran around...

#1 girl: finished 1 second behind a girl that has run 5:12/11:06, beat a girl by 20 seconds that has run 11:34.
#2 girl: finished 1 second behind a girl that has run 5:20 and 19:20... at 5300'. Also finished 1 second behind a girl that has run 5:11 at sea level.
#3 girl was 3 seconds back of #2 girl.
#4 girl: finished in front of a 5:16/11:50 girl.
#5 girl: finished just in front of a 5:36/12:03 girl, girl behind her ran 5:39 last track season.

They beat good girls. Either they suddenly got way more fit, they raced poorly at Caldwell and well at Woodbridge, they were sick at Caldwell, or some combination of those.

Also:

I'm surprised that this is up for debate on if they are possibly a good team. If they win their section at a meet and would be high up in the 2nd best section against a bunch of teams from Colorado, Texas, California, Utah, Oregon, Arizona, and Washington... stands to reason that they are probably pretty good on a state level. If they are the 5th or 6th best team in 5A, then Idaho teams really should go to Woodbridge and put Idaho on the map. The team that finished 6th in the rated race returned girls that have run: 5:05/10:49, 5:17, 5:23, 5:24, 5:34, 5:35, 5:38. The team that finished 5th returned girls that have run: 5:17/11:38, 5:19/11:31, 5:21/11:46, 5:24/11:54, 5:30/11:55. The teams in the section above them that they were around on times are very good teams. We would expect those girls (and
the girls they actually beat or narrowly lost to) to have similar speed ratings to what the Eagle girls ran.

The team that people were asking if they would dethrone Boise returned: 5:24/11:34, 5:29/11:56, 5:43, a 2:19 girl, and added a girl that ran 5:06. Timberline had the good fortune of finding their current #2 in their sprinter group, so they are stronger in some ways and weaker in others. Rocky returned 2:17/4:57, 5:09/11:12, 2:20/5:24, 5:30/11:41, and 2:29/5:32. If either of the teams that Eagle raced equivalent to at Woodbridge were in Idaho, we would be talking about them in the same category as Timberline and Rocky.

Would have been nice for the 5 or 6 Idaho schools that are apparently better than Eagle if they were in the rated race. I don’t think they’ll have official speed scores and will probably fly under the radar bc of that, so it won’t help Boise. If Boise beats them soundly here on out and looks like they would have been top 15 or top 20 at Woodbridge, that would be a nice resume addition to have. With Eagle not getting any positive coverage, it’s just lost in the shuffle.

I would push that if I were Aaron Olswanger and Jeff Howard. It can only be good for their teams. If they beat them soundly, their girls look awesome. If they win narrowly, Eagle is a really good team. If Boise and Rocky can reload next year, next fall could be fun. Eagle and Timberline return their entire top 5 girls. Rocky looks like they should be able to… 5 girls under 20:30 at Caldwell, but a big gap after that.

I think Nike Portland might be the meet for him to do it. Lots of good competition coupled with a seemingly fast flat grass course. Will also be interesting to see Luke Athay and Charlie Goss race each other again (assuming BK enters in the championship race) and how the rest of those two teams stack up in a more competitive meet.

For AJ to break 15*

I would say runninglane is the best place to do it

Look at their strava stuff. The workouts seem to go from various fartlek style workouts and tempo (progressive, or reps, it looks like) in early to late August to adding in race pace stuff on September 5th, so a few days after Caldwell. The workout yesterday looks like it was long reps at I assume close to 5k pace (Ringert was running around 6:15 for 2000m reps) with 400m jog recovery and 400s at mile pace (or faster). That's pretty different than what they were running in August. Unless he didn't record a bunch of stuff, Ringert also ran way less mileage the week of Caldwell. Maybe he was sick that week. It just looks like the focus shifted on what they were doing to me. The big jump could be just getting more comfortable running at faster speeds without much change in fitness actually happening and racing better.

Is he running runninglane? He didn't do any post season stuff last cross season. He ran pretty well at Firman so you would think he would run it if it's in his backyard.

What's the longest streak of girls titles for the largest classification? I would think Boise either has it or will get it this year. The consensus is that nobody else has the horses to beat Boise (barring a really bad day for Boise), right?

Boise is the favorite until proven otherwise. Smith making an appearance for them makes them huge favorites.

Barring the fact that the speed ratings where "uncertain", both the Boise boys and to a lesser extent, the girls, seem to be weaker than people are saying.

Boise boys: 175, 173, 171, 161, 158, 157

They are deep through 6 though, so they will probably do better later season as one or both of those 150's guys could jump into the 170s (one of them is a freshman)