Is The RunningLane Course 5K? Or Is It Short?

Ok - sure, but first you have to establish an accepted protocol & methodology for measuring xc courses....which doesn't necessarily exists for all levels (HS, College, Open)

This would be great to do but it doesn't help with past performances where it may be difficult to recreate the course. I would be more then happy to help establish a basic protocol for the measurement procedure.

D.Katz wrote:

Ok - sure, but first you have to establish an accepted protocol & methodology for measuring xc courses....which doesn't necessarily exists for all levels (HS, College, Open)

This would be great to do but it doesn't help with past performances where it may be difficult to recreate the course. I would be more then happy to help establish a basic protocol for the measurement procedure.

I'm glad to hear you say that because I was just about to pull out the marathon argument:

Me: Do you accept the marathon world record?

You: yes

Me: Why?

You: certified course length

Me :Then why can't we have the same thing for high school XC?

You: Because we don't have an accepted methodology to accurately measure a course.

Me: Yes we do, and we can thank John Tucker of On Course Rating Systems for showing the way.

All we need to do is codify the tape measurement procedure and publish it under the NFHS heading. Done.

I can help with that process ( I create nifty graphics!) and maybe you have the contacts at NFHS to make it official. I would want to contact John Tucker and bring him on board, because I like to give credit where credit is due.

Great, but you would also need to get the other Federations on board who use the same courses....if they even care!

Then you would need to get all of the venue managers on board as well.

FYI - the established rules and protocols for road course measurements took years before they where adopted by races in this country and later - around the world.

Any measurement of an historical course would have to come with a big asterisk.

Some courses have steep hills and many turns that always make them slow. Sometimes courses have mushy ground or bad traction. Just because some course was designed to be very fast, should not make it 'premier' or worthy of press. Is this course short? It shouldn't matter because the other factors can make a bigger difference in time.

D.Katz wrote:

Great, but you would also need to get the other Federations on board who use the same courses....if they even care!

Then you would need to get all of the venue managers on board as well.

FYI - the established rules and protocols for road course measurements took years before they where adopted by races in this country and later - around the world.

I'm patient.

It sounds like I'm talking to the right guy. Where do I start? Who do I talk to at NFHS? I think I can find the name of the Hunt course manager on my own. If they are going to brag about how wonderful and fast their course is, then they probably don't want people going around saying it's short.

Only Rupp can certify.

DiscoGary wrote:

D.Katz wrote:

Great, but you would also need to get the other Federations on board who use the same courses....if they even care!

Then you would need to get all of the venue managers on board as well.

FYI - the established rules and protocols for road course measurements took years before they where adopted by races in this country and later - around the world.

I'm patient.

It sounds like I'm talking to the right guy. Where do I start? Who do I talk to at NFHS? I think I can find the name of the Hunt course manager on my own. If they are going to brag about how wonderful and fast their course is, then they probably don't want people going around saying it's short.

DiscoGary-

I just called and left a message for my contact at NFHS. I'm guessing she is at lunch and hoping she will return the call this afternoon. In addition to coming up with language on course measuring, I think there should also be a process put in place to to make a fair starting line so everyone runs "approximately" the same distance to the first turn. I say "approximately" because I have seen plenty of course where there are low and high spots and getting all courses from all starting boxes 100% perfect seems unattainable, and that also assumes kids would run good tangents to the first turn which rarely is the case.

lucy the unbanned wrote:

Only Rupp can certify.

That would be a good post pro running career for Galen. A Cross Country Course Certifier...

Now you're getting into course layout requirements, and that's completely different than creating a course measurement standard. For our purposes we only care about measuring the SPR correctly. But to your point, you will find that the "extra" distance run by those who start on the ends of a straight line start is usually <<1m, and gets smaller as the straight to the first turn gets longer. The measurement standard would have to include something about selecting the closest point on the starting line to the first turn.

Let me know if you make any contact. I pinged RunningLane and I'm trying to get in touch with Sean Allen.

There are thousands of cross country meets held around the country. If the NFHS requires some type of standard measuring method, that will add a bunch of time and cost to the sport. I am fine with something as simple as saying that it must be the shortest possible route within 1 foot of boundaries. Tape is preferred. Wheel or GPS are sufficient. If GPS, readings must be taken forward and backward and the shortest measurement will be used.

Nike is knocking wrote:

There are thousands of cross country meets held around the country. If the NFHS requires some type of standard measuring method, that will add a bunch of time and cost to the sport. I am fine with something as simple as saying that it must be the shortest possible route within 1 foot of boundaries. Tape is preferred. Wheel or GPS are sufficient. If GPS, readings must be taken forward and backward and the shortest measurement will be used.

Not all road races are certified. There is no "requirement" to make them certified but if you are holding some type of championship race then you have to certify. Something similar could occur for XC.

National meets are not governed by nfhs but the states are.

Nike is knocking wrote:

There are thousands of cross country meets held around the country. If the NFHS requires some type of standard measuring method, that will add a bunch of time and cost to the sport. I am fine with something as simple as saying that it must be the shortest possible route within 1 foot of boundaries. Tape is preferred. Wheel or GPS are sufficient. If GPS, readings must be taken forward and backward and the shortest measurement will be used.

We're not talking about making it mandatory, at least I'm not. It would be an optional certification to a specific standard so that there could be some expectation that the course length was as advertised. It wouldn't take long for any discussion of a national record to require that a course be "certified", which can be done after the fact. But as Dr. Katz pointed out, we're a loooong way away from that right now! I want to convince the RunningLane people to measure their course with a tape first. Then we can work on NFHS over the long term.

And any time someone types 'national record', it should come with a note that times on one XC course cannot reasonably be compared directly to times on any other course. Which actually makes it all seem rather meaningless.

blue man wrote:

National meets are not governed by nfhs but the states are.

Similar to road races. They aren't all governed by anyone but many of them certify because they want more serious runners.

lucy the unbanned wrote:

And any time someone types 'national record', it should come with a note that times on one XC course cannot reasonably be compared directly to times on any other course. Which actually makes it all seem rather meaningless.

Me: Do you accept the marathon world record as "meaningful"?

You: ...

Replies above in bold

Yes it sort of makes it even more preferable to design a course that is flat and fast and certified which would ultimately hurt the sport. And how much pavement? How much drop? I would design a course that absolutely takes full advantage of every rule and get it certified and they will come like field of dreams.