Can't read huh? It was a 3-year bid! Each school bid on all three years!
Thread Follower wrote:
Sounds like Louisville was giving the bid without a NCAA caliber course. So did ISU Not want the event this year?
Can't read huh? It was a 3-year bid! Each school bid on all three years!
Thread Follower wrote:
Sounds like Louisville was giving the bid without a NCAA caliber course. So did ISU Not want the event this year?
Dateline wrote:
Can't read huh? It was a 3-year bid! Each school bid on all three years!
Thread Follower wrote:Sounds like Louisville was giving the bid without a NCAA caliber course. So did ISU Not want the event this year?
Please enlighten us Chris. I don't follow your response.
The World Cross at Franklin in 92 started on the adjacent golf course and then moved on to what we currently know as the Franklin Park cross country course for several circuits. They would probably have to do the same for NCAAs to be there because the start of the current course significantly narrows and takes a hard right turn over a knoll only a few hundred meters into the race, which can't possibly fit NCAA specifications.
However, they did run US nationals at Franklin in 91 and 95 without the golf course start -- this was when there was a single national meet in November that was hugely attended by elites and club runners alike (US cross country nationals used to be fantastic when they did it like this, but that's another topic). The start still managed to work, as it did with several enormous IC4A meets there during the same time frame. Franklin would be great for NCAAs, but the NCAA would probably require some sort of alternate start like at World Cross.
How many people remember that one of the reasons for the NCAA Div. 1 Champs being on Monday was so that the top 6 finishers at Div. 2 Meet and top 4 finishers at Div. 3 Meet on Saturday could then run in Div. 1 Meet two days later?? Or that plenty of Div. 2 and 3 runners managed to double back and place in the top 10-20 at Div 1 meet? (Wheaton's Dan Henderson, Cal Poly's Jim Schankel, others come to mind).
Also, how many folks remember that ALL THREE NCAA men's meets used to be shown in their entirety by ESPN?? Cross Country and Track used to be televised regularly on several channels, alas these meets have lost out in popularity to auto racing, competitive eating contests, poker, etc.
Franklin Park hosted the third New Englands XC Championships in 1914 and continued to host the meet through 2011. The FP course I ran in the 70s was in a different park of the park from the current course which dates from the 90s.
The NCAA should designate San Diego as the permanent location for all three XC champs.
US nationals were also at Franklin Park in 1984.
Is Lawrence a better option? wrote:
How come the NCs have never returned to Rim Rock farm at University of Kansas? they were held there in 1998.
Good question!! I've wondered that many times.
But with that said, I have to totally absolutely agree with .truth who said, It should stay in Terre Haute. Its a great course and its nice to be able to compare times year after year.
Every coach is going to tell their athletes the exact same message "get out fast" and everyone and their dog will run the first quarter in 60 seconds
how this thing goes wrote:
Every coach is going to tell their athletes the exact same message "get out fast" and everyone and their dog will run the first quarter in 60 seconds
They allow dogs on the course in Louisville.
terre haute is so, not really cross country. . . but like a convict running along a fence-line. . .
franklin park has 76 turns greater than 60 degrees over 10km.
van cortlandt is now. . . well its paved.
rim rock farm is just . . . really cool.
ok, rim rock every year.
egun wrote:
terre haute is so, not really cross country. . . but like a convict running along a fence-line. . .
franklin park has 76 turns greater than 60 degrees over 10km.
van cortlandt is now. . . well its paved.
rim rock farm is just . . . really cool.
ok, rim rock every year.
I recall waiting in line about a mile away from the course in Kansas. I don't think they were prepared for the crowd that showed. Many fans just left their vehicles and ran to the course. Great course though!
CC Course Inspector wrote:
Franklin Park is a nice venue for a meet. I'm hoping and guessing Louisville is a nice place for a meet. Sites like Iowa State, Wisconsin, and Indiana State have dedicated cross country courses. Yet, it seems if only the course in Terre Haute has all of the NCAA requirements at this time.
Can you elaborate? What requirements do Iowa State and Wisconsin not currently meet? It has not been that long since they ran at Iowa State; have they changed the requirements since then and/or has the course been altered?
As for Wisconsin, given the numerous videos of the races there can you indicate where they are lacking. Clearly, the start has the width necessary and the first real turn is not until 800 meters and the course is quite wide until probably 700 meters. The rest of the way the course is plenty wide enough.
I ran the course a couple of hours after the race and mainly ran on the sections that were not tramped down by 30-35 teams reviewing and racing the course and most places had pretty untrampled ground so course width is unlikely to be a problem.
They do not run high school meets there so the course is not trampled and muddied. Rather, a geographer helped lay out the course to help with issues such as drainage, ability to dry out, course orientation to light and shade, etc (things lacking at Terre Haute because it is on a clay cap of a dump rather than on natural soil left by the limit of the glacial advance (the National Ice Age Trial runs about 100m north and east of the finish).
As for parking, given that NCAAs are in mid-November, some of the surrounding fields might be available for parking plus other locales close to the course would be available for shuttles for a Saturday date.
San Diego, of course, has the problem that ninety percent of the schools are at least a thousand miles away (even Oregon and Washington are outside driving distance, as are Colorado and the rest of the country). Thus, having it there other than once in a long while seems like an extremely unlikely arrangement. Contrast the November NCAA meet with December Footlocker. The month difference in time constrains the potential venues for Footlocker more substantially than for NCAA. NCAA has six times as many runners as Footlocker races with 31 teams of seven more athletes than Footlocker's contestants, so travel is a much bigger issue and there is not a corporate sponsor paying for all the costs.
I was told that preference would go to courses that are fenced and would allow for gate admission to be charged.
From the video of the L-Ville course it looks like the NCAA selection commitee overlooked this criteria along with the minimum course width(10m) criteria.
how this thing goes wrote:
Every coach is going to tell their athletes the exact same message "get out fast" and everyone and their dog will run the first quarter in 60 seconds
If you think that this is the case then just go out in 70-75, avoid the bottleneck 10 seconds ahead of you, and then on the back half pass all the jokers that went out too fast.
Also, I like how Franklin Park is a considered a hard course next the these quasi-road courses. I ran Franklin Park every year in college and it was always the fastest course of the season.
might be wejo wrote:
If you think that this is the case then just go out in 70-75, avoid the bottleneck 10 seconds ahead of you, and then on the back half pass all the jokers that went out too fast.
Also, I like how Franklin Park is a considered a hard course next the these quasi-road courses. I ran Franklin Park every year in college and it was always the fastest course of the season.
That's probably cause Franklin Park is short.
The "go out slow" thing is the reason to have complaints about a narrow course. The plan you suggested is feasible at Terre Haute. But if a course is too narrow and has too many people, it just won't work. You can't move past all the bodies. So we'll see whether those strategies pay off in Louisville, but I think it's risky.
nother bostonian wrote:
might be wejo wrote:If you think that this is the case then just go out in 70-75, avoid the bottleneck 10 seconds ahead of you, and then on the back half pass all the jokers that went out too fast.
Also, I like how Franklin Park is a considered a hard course next the these quasi-road courses. I ran Franklin Park every year in college and it was always the fastest course of the season.
That's probably cause Franklin Park is short.
The "go out slow" thing is the reason to have complaints about a narrow course. The plan you suggested is feasible at Terre Haute. But if a course is too narrow and has too many people, it just won't work. You can't move past all the bodies. So we'll see whether those strategies pay off in Louisville, but I think it's risky.
So is the course too narrow? I heard much of the course has hard packed dirt/gravel roads.
When will teams begin to arrive and checkout the course?
Hopefully we can get some of athletes to share their opinion of the course after they check it out in the next few days. Best of luck to all of the qualifiers!
I heard the course is as flat as a pancake, true?
I heard NCAA partnered with Tough Mudder and is adding obstacles this year!