Explain how cross country courses end up short

i would suggest that nearly ALL cross country courses are off by a significant amount, that is before gps.

go ahead and measure for yourself off google maps, and pay attention to boundary, tangents.

letsrun could do a piece on this.

gault is smart enough to get it right.

Yes i see

Yes, I misremembered my metrology class from engineering school. The correct answer is that 5 (1 significant figure) implies +/- .5, so between 4.5 and 5.5.

5.0km implies +/- 50m, and 5.00 implies +/- 5m, and 5000m implies +/- 50cm

XC is head-to-head racing. Hills, surfaces, and corners are all different from course to course. Surfaces can change from the morning to the afternoon with rain, mud, spikes tearing up turf. Hence, times cannot be compared and exact distance does not matter.

Much like another poster said if it’s all because americans value the 5k too much instead of having the races be whatever makes sense for that course. It’s likely due to the high school state athletic department wanting something universal while also making it easy to recruit for college coaches. Maybe now with the help of ChatGPT coaches can now figure out what 13:50 for 4640m equals.

I’ve always thought the European system would be so good for the US HS kids but who knows. A lot of the time a majority of kids are being churned and burned. Also over racing 5k every week. I’d be much more interested in seeing a variety of distances such as 2k 3.5k 4k all that. Could be really exciting.

Over here in Europe, we don’t care about distance. For example, I needed to run a 2:38 marathon to qualify for London, so I just found one that was 39k instead of the normal 42.

It is frustrating when courses are way off an advertised distance, because then people get a false sense of fitness.

But the truth of it is, times don't mean diddly. Not sure why everyone was flipping their lids over Hedengren running fast and comparing it to another course. She's fast but xc is about competition. The only way to make any comparisons is looking back on the history of a course and seeing how runners compare to the past. Otherwise, just look at how you compete.

I get where people are coming from in saying "It's cross country, the distance doesn't matter." It's probably not going to change the result if we run 2.7 miles or 3.2 miles. The scores are about place, not time. But I do think that distances should be measured and recorded accurately.

However, most runners aren't challenging for an individual or team win. I ran one year of cross country in 8th grade. I don't think I was ever in my team's top 7. But we raced on the same two courses all year (one was definitely faster than the other) and we got to see our times come down as the season went on. If I had raced a different length course every single week, I wouldn't have been able to see my progress--it's not as if the same runners were there every week, and who cares about the difference between 65th and 66th place anyway.

The simple fact is that times are what we talk about. If I told you that I finished 5th in a half marathon yesterday, would it tell you anything useful? Not really. But if I told you I ran 1:25, you'd have some idea what kind of runner I am. It's the same thing in cross country. I coach HS, and some of the kids know they're probably never going to make our top 7. But if they have a time goal we can go after and they can achieve that, that's still a great accomplishment. Now, they can certainly set those time goals for a course that we run on a regular basis, whether it's 2.85 miles or 3.05 or whatever. But I think it helps somewhat if things are a little more standardized, or at least accurate to whatever the claimed distance is, even if it's not exactly 3 miles or 5K.

Permanent courses that are run around natural boundaries that are not trees get shorter over time due to widening of trails and erosion. Most of the famous California xc courses have gotten shorter over time, Crystal Springs being the most obvious. The start and mile marker at Crystal Springs have been in the same place since at least 1987 but the long sweeping 180 degree turn at the half mile has been dramatically shortened. Also, I think the weaving straight away back to the start is a little bit shorter because it has been straightlined due to trail widening over the years.

What's a "short" cross country course? Hasn't the sport in the US been bastardized enough already?

I would say the actual distance shouldn't matter - XC is about the competition. I do think race directors should post the actual distance. If it's 7690m instead of 8km, post that.

For championships that have a standard distance, make it mandatory that the course falls +/- 5% of the goal distance.

it took 3 pages for someone to actually try to answer the question instead of "it doesn't matter/nobody cares"

I would add that many courses are on a limited amount of land and have to loop around it lots of times, so the architect says "ok 2.8 miles is enough."

But in any case I don't believe they are accurately measured, particularly if done with a wheel. A wheel rolled over rough, uneven ground should result in a number well above the distance traveled by the runner.

For example, a meter with a 10cm "hill" in the middle would measure 1.02m along the curve. 2% off. 10cm is the width of a hand, not so noticeable.

Wheel isn't consistent. GPS isn't consistent. Heck you can wear a watch in lane 1 for 8k and get close to .15 difference by wearing it on your left wrist and the next time on your right wrist.

Roads and xc courses should use a laser measuring tangents.

My college's course was measured at the start of every cross country season and each time it was a different distance than it had been with the previous measurement.

I won our local Mile Run three years in a row, every year they said it was short!

0/10

Maybe somebody shrunk it:

Tell that to the kid who wont even get looked at by the College they want to attend because to even be considered they have a time standard of 16:00 for 5k...College coaches put time standards on XC to be considered for college scholarships, so when a course is long and because of that the kid misses the time, there is going to be frustration.

This shouldn't be the case. Im with ya, its Cross Country...Its amazing XC is competed on soccer complexes in places in this country, its just a grass track at that point. 15:30 is ENTIRELY different in the Dakota's then it is in Southern CA. You cant even compare times nationally in XC due to such drastic differences, but colleges coaches made the standards...thats why times and course accuracy started to matter

This is ridiculous thinking...we have 2 colleges that put on races early every fall in the Dakotas and they are notoriously short. Then kids think it was an actual 5k and are trying to figure out 2 months later why they cant run that fast again...