OP would have a fit if they ever looked at a trail race, especially an ultra, but then trail runners know that the distance is just a guess.
OP would have a fit if they ever looked at a trail race, especially an ultra, but then trail runners know that the distance is just a guess.
Pelican86 wrote:
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.
It's not an either/or thing. You can tell people that you finished 5th in a half marathon in 1:25. And neither of those things tell me everything about the kind of runner you are without knowing more about that half marathon and its field. And of course having a time goal is good for all of the kids you're coaching. But having a racing goal can help get their time goal. The kid who is mostly your 22nd man can have a goal of cracking the top 20 which obviously will mean running faster.