Arcadia 3200 was the biggest let down of all time

This is so real, it is NOT that deep

This race at Arcadia was a major letdown, no doubt about it. Hopefully, next year, someone will step up with the confidence and determination to give it a true guts run!!!!

Maybe the boys acknowledge that 3200m is beyond stupid as a distance for a track race

So these massive, XC-like fields are in some respects certainly a spectacle, but man, surely you have to have a pacemaker in there to get the fields going right? Not just for your best kids but also safety - some of those front on shots with kids constantly stumbling and being spat out sideways were crazy. Almost a miracle nobody went down.

And when you have a group of kids at that level, this will always happen because nobody wants to sacrifice their chances to win - totally different to Hedengren who was so much better than the field and was going to win by a mile even if she wasn't at 100%.

Correct me if I am wrong but didn't the earlier 3000m race have a pacer? Pretty sure I remember the commentry calling one out. How can you have that for a slower heat and not the best race? Or is that some sort of traditional thing?

On the contrary, I thought it was a far more exciting race than last year. The 2024 2 miles were time trials with only 2 or 3 athletes racing up front, the rest were content to be towed along. Field of 30 plus are ridiculous. Powell for instance went from about 15th to 10th place over the race and did have a spectacular time of 8:41

With 800 or so to go there were a dozen or more runners in striking distance. Powell ran a phenomenal 3:03ish last 1200, and PR'd by 2 seconds! I think a number of kids learned a great racing lessons from that race.

Simmons didn't touch the lead until after 2K in either year.

Led about 2200 COMBINED.

Woudlnt say "he made the race" at all.

2024 was actuallly tactical, 4:22-4:12. He probably would have broken the record if he had the balls to take it.

Why do people say things that are just objectively wrong?

A). It wasn't a time trial, a big negative split in fact, 4:22-4:12.

B) 2 or 3 up front? There were 9 guys within 1.3 seconds at the bell. 2nd with 800 left finished in 9th. 9th with 800 left finished in 2nd. That's not exciting to you?

Now that i reflect on it. I think the expectations I and many others put on this race and it's competitors are unreasonable. These are high school kids. The number 1 and most important thing is that they had a good time and are happy. It's their choice on how what they want to do with the race. It's their race and not ours. It's their decision.

Arcadia 3200 should not be front and center of American track distance running. First of all, it started out as a regular invitational. Yet the expectation and talent that coming in now are through the roof. Back before Newbury Park, it was actually quite common for the race to be won in this fashion. It was just California, Washington, Utah and a some competitors from other states.... that was it! And it worked great because everyone was really happy to compete there. There wasn't this huge expectation on the race. They were happy to race in a top level race without the expectations.

But now? It's turned into something completely different. The fastest kids in the country and around the world are flying in. People are coming in from New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom. They are literally spending $$$$. And they are expecting a fast race that will produce fast times. And if they don't get that? They will rightfully be disappointed at the race. A normal traditional race isn't going to cut it anymore. To match expectations, Arcadia would need to have a pacer. Yet that is not allowed because of NFHS rules.

So what's next? Hopefully people can go somewhere else and shift their attention away from Arcadia. Arcadia was never meant to be this big national race. It was fundamentally a larger invitational and that made people "happy."

I feel like I am going CRAZY here with everyone saying NFHS doesn’t allow pacers. As long as the kid is an eligible HS runner, and the meet director puts them on the start list, they can be in the front of the race running at whatever speed they want! They can also drop out of the race at any time :)

Call it whatever you want, it’s not against the rules.

I wanted to share something interesting I heard about Arcadia. It seems like the hype around it might die down soon. There's a rumor going around that a well-known coach is planning to organize a meet on the same weekend as Arcadia next year. It seems like they have some funding to sponsor travel expenses for top athletes, which might draw some of them away from Arcadia. I just thought you should know about this before it becomes official news. Rich is likely not going to be too happy about this development.