Idaho XC 2025

watchout86 wrote:

tiers wrote:

There's a major part of what I said that you didn't answer. Which of those teams do the majority of their runs on the actual NXR course? The one major invitational that Rocky runs is the course they train on, which is also the NXR course.

All of those schools are running more than one big meet, and one of those is a meet they travel to. The only team you mentioned that has the opportunity to train on the course is The Woodlands and that's not the case anymore.

What you are arguing is simply a matter of location, as I said in my original reply to this point of yours. I would also question whether running the majority of their runs on the NXR course really has that much more impact than simply racing on the course 2-3 times a year (NXR, an Invitational, and possibly the state meet).

What big meets are those teams I listed traveling to? Again, it's been a while since I paid much attention to the sport, but from my recollection, from what used to be the top boys programs in the nation:

American Fork UT: never traveled far.
North Central WA: only traveled to Bob Firman.
Fayetteville-Manlius NY: only traveled to Manhattan
CBA NJ: only traveled to Great American
The Woodlands TX: traveled to 1 meet a year (e.g. Woodbridge)
York IL: never traveled far.

And Wayzata MN, which never traveled far.

And Loudoun Valley VA, which had a shorter run at the top, but again only really traveled once a year IIRC.

Rocky Mountain has a big meet they go to. It just happened to be in their back yard. That's not a slight on their program building strategy, that's just a benefit to their reality. Does going to additional meets far away give them a better chance to succeed? That's debatable, but other teams have faced similar questions and responded similarly to RM with similar (or even much better in the cases above) results.

watchout86 wrote:

Continue? wrote:

Should that continue happening on the boys side?

Boys CA teams went 11, 15, 17. Not the greatest

Does that always happen, and were there other eligible teams that would have done better?

Part of the issue there is that teams are selected from a modified "merge" of results from the California State meet rather than an actual regional race. That has two problems: first, you are comparing many more teams and makes it easier to have a team or two close to the top 2 teams, and also comparing different races on the same day means that it isn't a head-to-head comparison and one race might have simply been faster than another due to circumstances (e.g. heat, wind, pacing/crowded course, mud or torn up ground if it was raining, etc.). Was Glendora really the third best team that year or even that day? That's probably pretty debatable.

The other part is whether 17th is really worse than what others might have done if given the chance.

Glendora soundly beat AQ teams from New York and Heartland regions.

Glendora was roughly on par with an AQ team from the Northwest (Jesuit), Southeast (St. Albans DC) and South (Bridgeland TX).

That suggests the only regions that MIGHT have had clearly better teams were the Southwest, Northeast and Midwest. The Southwest already had 2 At-Large bids so they weren't eligible for more. So the question would be Glendora vs. Ridgefield CT and Plainfield North IL. Just looking at the results and assuming conditions were good and the courses haven't changed much in the last few years, I would assume Glendora's CA State race was better than either of those teams. A team time of 77:12 at Woodward Park should be somewhere around a 77:45-78:00 at La Verne Gibson (NXR Midwest) and around a 81:10 at Bowdoin (NXR Northeast). Ridgefield CT ran about 83:00 and Plainsfield North IL ran 79:10.

Just going off of NXN results and the NXR results of those 3 teams, it doesn't seem like Glendora's At-Large selection was that off. Of course, not everyone ran well at NXN and the NXR courses might not have all been in good condition or might have changed a little in the last few years, but it doesn't look unreasonable to me.

tiers wrote:

watchout86 wrote:

What you are arguing is simply a matter of location, as I said in my original reply to this point of yours. I would also question whether running the majority of their runs on the NXR course really has that much more impact than simply racing on the course 2-3 times a year (NXR, an Invitational, and possibly the state meet).

What big meets are those teams I listed traveling to? Again, it's been a while since I paid much attention to the sport, but from my recollection, from what used to be the top boys programs in the nation:

American Fork UT: never traveled far.
North Central WA: only traveled to Bob Firman.
Fayetteville-Manlius NY: only traveled to Manhattan
CBA NJ: only traveled to Great American
The Woodlands TX: traveled to 1 meet a year (e.g. Woodbridge)
York IL: never traveled far.

And Wayzata MN, which never traveled far.

And Loudoun Valley VA, which had a shorter run at the top, but again only really traveled once a year IIRC.

Rocky Mountain has a big meet they go to. It just happened to be in their back yard. That's not a slight on their program building strategy, that's just a benefit to their reality. Does going to additional meets far away give them a better chance to succeed? That's debatable, but other teams have faced similar questions and responded similarly to RM with similar (or even much better in the cases above) results.

Why waste a travel trip on previewing the state course then? Surely the benefit of running it once is even smaller than training on a course every day.

Rocky bills Eagle Island as "The Fortress." They sleep in their own beds, eat home cooked food, and have zero travel on their legs leading into their biggest meets. That has a huge impact vs the teams that actually have to travel to the meets. If you can't recognize that, you're a homer.

When they lose to teams at Bob Firman and then get 4th at NXR, they should shut up about getting screwed out of an NXR spot, especially when the staff has an absolute refusal to remove the biggest criticism of their team's resume. Even when they get 3rd, they either beat nobody during the season (2022) or they get 3rd because a sub 4 minute miler is sick and finishes outside of the top 200 (2024).

BTW, their most impressive result at NXR is their 4th place finish in 2023. No ringer transfers, all homegrown talent, and nobody could say that they had an off day.

Continue? wrote:

watchout86 wrote:

Does that always happen, and were there other eligible teams that would have done better?

Part of the issue there is that teams are selected from a modified "merge" of results from the California State meet rather than an actual regional race. That has two problems: first, you are comparing many more teams and makes it easier to have a team or two close to the top 2 teams, and also comparing different races on the same day means that it isn't a head-to-head comparison and one race might have simply been faster than another due to circumstances (e.g. heat, wind, pacing/crowded course, mud or torn up ground if it was raining, etc.). Was Glendora really the third best team that year or even that day? That's probably pretty debatable.

The other part is whether 17th is really worse than what others might have done if given the chance.

Glendora soundly beat AQ teams from New York and Heartland regions.

Glendora was roughly on par with an AQ team from the Northwest (Jesuit), Southeast (St. Albans DC) and South (Bridgeland TX).

That suggests the only regions that MIGHT have had clearly better teams were the Southwest, Northeast and Midwest. The Southwest already had 2 At-Large bids so they weren't eligible for more. So the question would be Glendora vs. Ridgefield CT and Plainfield North IL. Just looking at the results and assuming conditions were good and the courses haven't changed much in the last few years, I would assume Glendora's CA State race was better than either of those teams. A team time of 77:12 at Woodward Park should be somewhere around a 77:45-78:00 at La Verne Gibson (NXR Midwest) and around a 81:10 at Bowdoin (NXR Northeast). Ridgefield CT ran about 83:00 and Plainsfield North IL ran 79:10.

Just going off of NXN results and the NXR results of those 3 teams, it doesn't seem like Glendora's At-Large selection was that off. Of course, not everyone ran well at NXN and the NXR courses might not have all been in good condition or might have changed a little in the last few years, but it doesn't look unreasonable to me.

Last year someone mentioned that Ridgefield would have gotten top 10 at NXN based on NXR speed ratings.

The reason why they weren’t selected is because they beat no autoqualifying teams. And at the one big meet outside of their region (Great American) they got 6th, where they were missing their best runner (Lovett).

2012 was the last time a NE boys team had an at large.

Glendora was selected because they beat autoqualifier Menlo at Clovis.

Continue? wrote:

watchout86 wrote:

Does that always happen, and were there other eligible teams that would have done better?

Part of the issue there is that teams are selected from a modified "merge" of results from the California State meet rather than an actual regional race. That has two problems: first, you are comparing many more teams and makes it easier to have a team or two close to the top 2 teams, and also comparing different races on the same day means that it isn't a head-to-head comparison and one race might have simply been faster than another due to circumstances (e.g. heat, wind, pacing/crowded course, mud or torn up ground if it was raining, etc.). Was Glendora really the third best team that year or even that day? That's probably pretty debatable.

The other part is whether 17th is really worse than what others might have done if given the chance.

Glendora soundly beat AQ teams from New York and Heartland regions.

Glendora was roughly on par with an AQ team from the Northwest (Jesuit), Southeast (St. Albans DC) and South (Bridgeland TX).

That suggests the only regions that MIGHT have had clearly better teams were the Southwest, Northeast and Midwest. The Southwest already had 2 At-Large bids so they weren't eligible for more. So the question would be Glendora vs. Ridgefield CT and Plainfield North IL. Just looking at the results and assuming conditions were good and the courses haven't changed much in the last few years, I would assume Glendora's CA State race was better than either of those teams. A team time of 77:12 at Woodward Park should be somewhere around a 77:45-78:00 at La Verne Gibson (NXR Midwest) and around a 81:10 at Bowdoin (NXR Northeast). Ridgefield CT ran about 83:00 and Plainsfield North IL ran 79:10.

Just going off of NXN results and the NXR results of those 3 teams, it doesn't seem like Glendora's At-Large selection was that off. Of course, not everyone ran well at NXN and the NXR courses might not have all been in good condition or might have changed a little in the last few years, but it doesn't look unreasonable to me.

Last year someone mentioned that Ridgefield would have gotten top 10 at NXN based on NXR speed ratings.

The reason why they weren’t selected is because they beat no autoqualifying teams. And at the one big meet outside of their region (Great American) they got 6th, where they were missing their best runner (Lovett).

2012 was the last time a NE boys team had an at large.

Glendora was selected because they beat autoqualifier Menlo at Clovis.