Mt. Sac Invite Discussion

Wrong! Newbury Park ran the Mt SAC course while Brosnan was there.

If you're going to complain about something you should at least be accurate and not make things up.

Brosnan never brought his teams to the Mt. SAC invite after then first year. He was very vocal about not agreeing with the Mt. SAC course.

Can you elaborate on what Brosnan's criticisms were? I remember being pretty disappointed that his loaded squads never did the invite and then would tempo their way through SS pre-lims and finals. Based on Woodward times he would've had 5 guys who could've knocked down Austin Tamagno's course record but evidently he had no interest in that. Maybe I am just one of those nostalgic people but, to me, having an historic course record like Mt. SAC is way cooler than running low 14 on the Running Lane course that is now effectively defunct. It's also weird to me that the kids wouldn't care about that. I know people can consider a "course record" in xc kind of stupid but when there's names on the list like Ryan Hall and Jeff Nelson, I think it's pretty cool to say you were on that list too.

i dont know what Brosnan disliked but ive always found it strange how much of the course is run on the airstrip. Makes the start and finish feel like a road race rather than XC.

He didn't like the start (too narrow) and the down hills (too hard to recover from).

I was there most of Saturday morning (kid was running in sweeps race). Course is still difficult and the finish is more spectator friendly b/c of the big screen in the stadium and drone footage. I can understand those who pass b/c it's a beating on the legs and we are only a few weeks away from league and CIF meets, but the races went off like clockwork and the vibe is still legit. I think the times on the old course @ 2.93 miles are comparable to the new course times @ 3.0. If I'm gonna drive to the cesspool that is LA County and make a day of it, it might as well be for this meet. Seems like a lot of unwarranted hate here but that's nothing new I guess.

Mt. Sac was run flawlessly. Awesome experience and great setup. My one criticism of the competition is that the talent was spread across too many division races.

Friday night, Ortiz, Clippinger-Zimmerman, Josiah Bowman and Liam Miller ran in the low 15's in the D3,4,5 individual sweeps while the Team Sweeps leaders ran similar times. They were slightly faster than the D1,2 individual times on Saturday (hotter temps?), until Trey Caldwell put on a show. Bottom line is taht all of those top runners should have battled it out in the same race, like Clovis.

The top girls were also split into different races on Friday and Saturday. Chiara Dailey, Abby Arrington, and Maya Debrouwer raced Friday night, while Braelyn Combe basically ran alone on Saturday as a lot of top girls sat out. Would bring a lot more excitement to consolidate the top runners and teams into ONE sweepstakes race, regardless of division.

Mt. SAC continues to be an awful race for anyone who cares about their season. I’m glad to see Rylee and Sadie passing on a JV at best race.

When Brosnan coached Newbury Park he did the absolute right thing choosing to skip Mt. SAC. It looks like now coaches and athletes are following his footsteps and are realizing Mt. SAC has no benefit

I don’t agree with Brosnan on a lot of things, but this we agree on. Mt. SAC is nothing more than a race that coaches and athletes evolved away from. Things change and if Mt. SAC went away today no one would miss it but maybe some old timers that brag about running 100 mile weeks in high school.

Follow the $. The more races they have, the more $ they generate? Think of how much revenue they lose without Friday.

Although #s (not $) is the deciding factor in Fresno in a few weeks, the same complaint will be made. Kids split up into multiple Divisions does not = a true state champ.

4 of the top 50 girls in the US were there, so it was far from JV.

It’s a glorified JV race now. Top athletes stayed home for good reason. The course set up and timing is really bad. The excitement has been gone for years.
It’s funny how Brosnan got ridiculed at Newbury Park for skipping this race every year and now the current coaches are getting smarter following his lead.
Mt. SAC keeps trying to be relevant and the charm has faded away.

What t does is "doublespeak." Please look it up, but this is what it means:

Doublespeak is a language that is intended to deceive or confuse people. It can take the form of euphemisms, unsupported generalizations, or deliberate ambiguity. The goal of doublespeak is to distort reality and corrupt thought. The term "doublespeak" is based on the compounds Newspeak and Doublethink in George Orwell's novel 1984.

The dust would get in his hair gel.

you mean the pavement landing strip , single file start line, road race that they call a cross county course

I was out in California years back and went to Footlocker west. That set up is one of the worst courses I’ve ever seen. And the Foorlocker course actually has a wide start line. Unlike the invite course. The entire set up is embarrassing and trust me coaches and athletes that see it know this place is a joke.

A few years back Sound Running tried to host a cross country meet at Mt SAC and half the pros ran the course the day before and opted not to race the next day. It just shows you WTF are the California high school coaches thinking racing there.

You can criticize the timing of the invite and make an argument for coaches skipping it but I will not accept Mt. SAC course slander! The course is great. Yes, there is asphalt but I'm not sure why that is a knock on this when pretty much every other CA course has some paved section (Woodward sure does). But you're only on the airstrip for like the first quarter mile and then you're into the valley loops and up the switchbacks and don't hit asphalt until you cross back over at about the halfway point. Then on the old course you'd have your gut check moment at Poopout and try to regain your legs through the two mile mark before mentally preparing yourself for Reservoir. Reservoir was sneaky because there's a little false peak before you actually crest the hill, so you have to keep pushing. But once you do, then you've got a solid half mile of nothing but downhill and pavement before you're home. So get those legs spinning and ready that kick! It was awesome! It's about as legit a course as you can get in Southern California.

I've seen a lot of the invitationals I used to run in the area go away or change their names/courses but it would be pretty sad to me if Mt SAC goes away. One of my teammates described it to me as "the Coachella of running" because of how many people were there and just the overall vibe of the invite. We'd go Friday and it would be packed, with races going off like clockwork, and a sweet Robeks stand for postrace refreshments. Only once I was truly drinking the running nerd Kool Aid did I get an extra appreciation for the history of the course. I don't really know what more kids want from a cross country race now. If you want to run a fast 3 mile/5k there's Woodbridge or you could just hop on the track. When kids look back on high school cross country I don't think they'll really care how fast they ran but I remember how many awesome times I had with friends wandering through the mass of tents setup near the gauntlet, cheering people to the finish, and hearing cowbells rattling. That is high school cross country to me. If kids are finding that fun experience elsewhere then that's great but Mt. SAC, to me, still has a lot to offer.

This year Mt. SAC had a JV type atmosphere and it’s been getting worse every year. I believe the course holds no value and the venue continues to fail on the cross country course and the track