The course is a trail. It hasn't changed. It's practically impossible for it to change... duh[/quote]
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'"The Times Of Our Lives"
An 'altered' Mt. SAC course purges classic records
Ryan Hall and Amber Trotter have etched their names on the all-time lists for California distance running.... but is Hall really faster than the national record holder at 2 miles (Jeff Nelson)? Is Trotter really 39 seconds faster than former prep All-American phenom Julia Stamps? Read on.
WALNUT -- Newsflash! October of 2000: Glendale Hoover High's Anita Siraki stuns the national prep cross country scene when she smashes the Mt. San Antonio College girls course record by a stunning 17 seconds.
Newsflash! November of 2000: Big Bear High's Ryan Hall tears through the very same layout, slicing four seconds off a revered Jeff Nelson course record for boys that went unchallenged for nearly a quarter century.
Newsflash! November of 2000: Don Lugo High's Erick Maldonado breaks the sophomore boys course record as five of the six fastest boys 10th-grade course times in history are achieved. All told, a whopping 39 revisions are made to the all-time grade lists.
Newsflash! October of 2001: Ukiah High's Amber Trotter does the unfathomable, ripping Siraki's course record to shreds with a mind-boggling 16:16 performance that leaves pundits on the national scene in utter disbelief.
Newsflash! October of 2001: Within a matter of 16 hours, three different runners take turns at claiming the No. 8 spot on the boys' all-time lists. Additionally, five boys dip under 15 minutes in the same year for the first time in the history of the famous course. They do it within a span of just 16 hours!
Newsflash: October of 2001: The 54th annual Mt. SAC Invitational is completed, with another harrowing assessment of the assault on the all-time lists. Not only does the all-time course standard for girls fall, but the junior- and sophomore-class boys course records are toppled as well.
Oddly enough, these standout runners have enjoyed ample success on the Southland trails before and since, but not quite to the degree achieved recently along the revered 2.95-mile Mt. SAC course.
Why? Well, maybe it's because that course is no longer 2.95 miles. Oh, and there are other contributing changes, too.
Mt. SAC women's cross country coach Doug Todd has confirmed in three separate interviews since last November that the traditional course had indeed been altered over the last few years, once also stating that it had been shortened. Safety concerns and course 'upgrades' were among the reasons that Todd and Mt. SAC men's cross country coach Mike Goff stated were responsible for the change.
"We struggled not to make the changes because the Mt. SAC course and the meet are so steeped in history," said Todd, who oversaw last weekend's conclusion of the 54th annual Mt. SAC Invitational, an event which mushroomed to an all-time high of 10,423 high school finishers -- 506 more than a year ago.
"Some (course) changes were unavoidable," conceded Todd, "but it doesn't make accepting the changes any easier."
The most notable change was reconfiguring a portion of the first mile's 'Valley Loop' in concern over safety. With the number of entrants continually swelling to match the meet's growth in popularity, maneuvering along the original course's sharp, jutting turn surrounding a concrete-encased drain roughly a minute into the race created some logistical problems.
Mt. SAC staff attended to the problem by changing it to a more sweeping and easier-to-navigate path, which Todd estimated cut about five seconds off each loop -- or 10 seconds per runner on the double loop. If his estimate is accurate, that translates roughly to a 50-second team-time improvement from the "pre-renovation" years.
That revelation alone somewhat helps to explain this fact: In the three years prior to the change, there were six (6) revisions to the all-time by-grade lists. In the two-and-half years since? A whopping eighty-two (82) revisions to those lists, or 40% of the record book!
"No comment," quipped Todd when told of the numbers in a Sunday morning phone conversation the day after this year's invitational.
It hasn't been an easy ride for Todd lately. Despite continually improving on the most prized cross country meet in the nation in recent years, there are some from various generations that will complain of the course changes.
Todd originally discounted the concerns of anyone suspicious of the fast course times in recent years, citing it as just a case of runners getting faster and faster. But the data is getting harder and harder to dispute. Course records are falling with great frequency, and this type of rampant time success is not happening to similar degrees at other longstanding invitational courses.
"It's definitely out of whack," said CalTrack.com's Doug Speck, a longtime cross country historian and the one credited with helping to devise the all-time course lists for the Mt. SAC people decades ago.
"It used to be that Mt. SAC was a great predictor of track times and a time of 15:10 usually meant 4:10/9:05 ability (for 1600/3200 in track)," Speck explained. "As you can see nowadays, it's certainly anything but."
Yong-Sung Leal, who topped the recent weekend's field with a sensational 14:43 mark, has run the 3200-meter equivalent time to a 9-minute two-mile. Of course, he was 27 seconds under the 15:10 barrier Speck speaks of. No other of the current athletes has been at nine minutes in track. And of those near the 15:10 range, must are 3,200-meter runners in the 9:20's range.
One by one, "very good runners" on the Golden State scene have captured "legendary" status with their recent times at Mt. SAC. On other courses, their times were very notable, but hardly eye-popping efforts (with the exception of Trotter).
It even got the the point in August of this year that Todd said he would "go back over the results and create two all-time lists: one for the old course and one for the 'altered course'." Additionally, Todd expressed a desire to use the necessary funds in trying to get the course back to its original condition, if that's what the schools and runners wanted.
Since then, Todd has softened the offer about reviving the previous course, realizing it is smartest to keep safety as the primary concern. As for his suggestion to revamp the record book, Todd has also rethought that issue and asked on Sunday for everyone to wait for a few days while he thinks about what is best to do.
Even Siraki's coach (Greg Switzer) and a second coach who's team is capable of smashing many records here this fall were both reported to have been stating that the course had indeed been measured shorter in recent years.
Longtime reported via word-of-mouth as a three-mile course over the years, it was actually a 2.95-mile layout for some time. When measured recently, however, the course has been figured out to 2.91 miles on three occasions (2.92 on another instance; probably the difference stemming because the instrument used and the tangential path used per course certification standards is misunderstood by some, it should be noted).
But it doesn't just end there.
Heavy rains a few years back eroded certain patches of the course, Todd said, which also had a minimal effect on the integrity of the course. As with almost any cross country course, that's a part of nature that even the storied Mt. SAC course is not immune to. Additionally, 'beautification upgrades' have been undertaken, resulting in Mt. SAC becoming one of the best-kept layouts in the state. At the same time, however, these upgrades made it progressively faster.
It used to be that the Mt. SAC course was a dustpatch of loosely-strewn dirt along the steepest stretches of Switchback Hill and Poopout Hill. Nowadays, however, one can actually see the limestone rock surface where dirt used to be clumped. As one expert observer put it, "the course went from a challenging, tough-footing sandy layout, to one that has about as much grip difficulty as an all-weather track."
So why did it take so long for the word to get out? Well, we were aware for some time, but people didn't really listen to us without any proof. Mt. SAC Invite meet director Jim Polite said he was unaware of any change and Todd had initially indicated that the cosmetic changes didn't really affect performances (but his notion of a five-second change per lap on the Valley Loop is one we consider enough of an effect).
The first red flag in our minds went flailing up a few years ago, when a number of teams rocketed to some impressive "against our charts" team times at Mt. SAC. We say against our charts because we'd have actual team-time indicators projected for each team heading into Mt. SAC. These formulations were based on a team's performances at other various long-standing courses. These indicators were usually highly accurate, with teams usually ending up running within five (5) or so seconds of that team time prediction.
The mystery continued for another Mt. SAC meet, and then another. We kept asking, but could never find the answer to the riddle. Teams and individuals just kept running faster and faster. Last year, a slew of schools reported they set team time records. Best we could tell, teams were running approximately 80-90 seconds faster than we were projecting under the old charts, but pretty much right on with newer charts, which factored in a 15-to-18-second improvement from what was projected off showings at other courses (yes, that's our estimate of the effect).
But it wasn't until the days AFTER last year's CIF-SS Finals at Mt. SAC that Goff and Todd talked of the changes, resulting from the tail end of another conversation. Todd initially disagreed with our views, then asked if we thought Ryan Hall or Anita Siraki would follow up their course records at Mt. SAC with ones at the CIF-State Championships at Woodward Park in Fresno a few days later. Hall and Siraki are gifted and competitive, but we assured Todd those course records would not fall. Under our new conversions at Mt. SAC, we were highly confident that even though both would run well, the course records at Woodward Park would not fall (Woodward Park, by the way, has also undergone a change of its own here and there over the years). Those records did not fall.
Todd's confirmation of a time difference for the altered course and the other factors helped account for the time difference in the conversion charts. For this reason, performance marks at Mt. SAC these days need to be treated differently.
Yes, the course is clearly faster these days, but it's also better, safer and has a more beautiful appearance. Spectators coming to Mt. SAC are now, more than ever, treated to a first-rate course ideal for competition and improved for viewing.
Goff, the one entrusted in maintaining the course to useable standards, has confirmed that ample landscaping has improved the course's footing, making it "safer and with better traction" for runners of all abilities. The path has been widened at parts, fencing has been installed, trees planted in formation along the route.
"We try to respect history and tradition, yet safety becomes a factor, too... a much more important factor," said Goff in an interview last November. "If historians have a problem with it, I understand. At the same time, if we can improve the course to maximal conditions for runners, that's great too. Bottom line, the best teams and runners still win."
The only lasting drawback now is that the ever-popular notion of being able to compare times from one generation to the next (you know, those father-son/mother-daughter bragging rights comparisons) has -- whether people wish to admit it or not -- gone by the wayside. Todd's own admission of the effect of course alterations on a runner's final time support that.
Gone are the realities of when runners from decades ago could run into a runner from today's era and ask: "What's your best time at Mt. SAC?" and know the query was a comparable one.
Regardless, the course remains the most traveled, most popular and most famous one West of the Mississippi.
Even so, as Goff will tell you, you can't please all the people all of the time.
"I've heard it all... Well, Mt. SAC's been too hot, too dusty, too slow, too crowded, too hard," rattled off Goff, echoing some course critics over the years. "And now... they say it's too fast. THAT'S a new one!"
So what now?
Running IS getting better in the Golden State... More media outlets, more sponsorship dollars, better coaching, quality peer clinics, the publicity of running Websites and the like have helped in reviving our sport. Oh yeah, the popularity of Alan Webb and Dathan Ritzenhein have had something to do with it as well.
But that's only part of the reason for fast times. Those factors have had a minimal effect on improvements of times and rewriting of the record books at other popular courses in California. Mt. SAC has had a slew of them, for the reasons cited as the topic of this story.
Hall and Trotter are unquestionably among California's finest runners. But is Hall clearly faster than the national recordholder in the 3200 (nearly 20 seconds at that distance than Hall)? Is Trotter really 39 seconds swifter than the amazing Julia Stamps was as a prepster? The Maldonados, Spikers (imagine if he was healthy for CIF his senior year!), Nelsons, Dukes, Sirakis, Pasciutos and Haddans of the California scene are outstanding runners. It remains tpo be seen if they truly are among the very best ever.
Are they talented? Undoubtedly. Are they quick? Very. Are they running on a quicker course than their predecessors? Unfortunately, yes they are.
We implore Mt. SAC to follow up on its own earlier suggestion and devise two sets of all-time lists: One for before the changes and one for after.