The course was laughable. These pros had better courses during their NCAA careers. The effort was made by the promoters, but they missed the mark on elevating the sport.
The course was laughable. These pros had better courses during their NCAA careers. The effort was made by the promoters, but they missed the mark on elevating the sport.
I get everyone's hate with the course. Manicured courses are pretty. But I think the promoters intended the course to be "rough" as a throwback to "real" cross country. They were making fun of golf course cross country courses.
Maybe there should have been a herd of feral cats as an additional obstacle to drive the point home.
I was there and really enjoyed it as a spectator. i think more courses should do a setup like this. Starting base can be a football field or even just an open area and do lots of loops off of that so spectators see them a lot.
Making a zig-zagging course around parts of the school I thought was creative. Sure it was narrow at times and crossing sidewalks I don't like but it's cross country. I think a lot of people might see that area and think you need to run people off in the woods where no one will see them.
This course looks gross. Totally high school dual meet or local running club slap together a no frills race kind of course. And they're calling this a national championship, embarassing.
Well it seems that the pros and their coaches had no problem with it otherwise they would have not started. Sorry it was not the smooth carpet that most Americans like to run on, it was true cross country.
To be fair, there were only two women's teams that fielded teams and only 26 female runners, four of whom failed to break 31 minutes for 8k.
Men came out for it, but outside half a dozen women, they really didn't seem interested.
Yeah I agree with the overall sentiment here, it didn't seem like a particularly rewarding race to have a good performance, but a relatively easy one to make excuses about having a poor performance. Maybe someone with a stake in the event could convince those of us who might consider running it in the future why they should, provided that OAC is out there goofing off in their T-shirts, the course looks super bush league and unmotivating, and it just doesn't seem to mean much who beats who... there's always that asterisk of it being a 'bleh' event. I feel you can kind of escape that 'bleh'-ness at a goofy track meet, there is always the backdrop of the times / uniformity, but cross country just has a higher bar for what it takes for a good performance to have real meaning...
Well it seems that the pros and their coaches had no problem with it otherwise they would have not started. Sorry it was not the smooth carpet that most Americans like to run on, it was true cross country.
The OAC boys said on their podcast this week that Ritzenhein said when he saw the course that if he'd known how bad it was before hand they never would have done it but since they were there already it was up to the athletes if they wanted to race.
Also said that if they were to do it again the course would have to be different.
Wasn't about it being fast or slow, just awkward and dangerous. Said coaches were going through the course pre race and chucking rocks of the course
Well it seems that the pros and their coaches had no problem with it otherwise they would have not started. Sorry it was not the smooth carpet that most Americans like to run on, it was true cross country.
The OAC boys said on their podcast this week that Ritzenhein said when he saw the course that if he'd known how bad it was before hand they never would have done it but since they were there already it was up to the athletes if they wanted to race.
Also said that if they were to do it again the course would have to be different.
Wasn't about it being fast or slow, just awkward and dangerous. Said coaches were going through the course pre race and chucking rocks of the course
They also said they felt awful for the athletes who paid out of pocket to race there only to roll an ankle on an unsafe course.