Idaho XC 2025

Since apparently it needs to be said: I have no connection with Rocky Mountain. My background is that for many years I was a national analyst and grew up in western Washington, so I am familiar with the Northwest and Washington State specifically.

Now, read that again and tell me where I said there was NO advantage.

What I DID say was that running it a bunch of times isn't going to give them a massive advantage over teams that run it a handful of times. If the athletes and coaches have experience running on the course, and are running in the same race as the Rocky Mountain kids, there isn't any huge benefit for the Rocky Mountain kids. They'll have a slightly better understanding of the course, but those other athletes are able to react to whatever the Rocky Mountain kids do. They are able to train in similar conditions (they are capable of running up hills in other parts of the state, for example) and can process the concept of a narrow pathway and sharp turns when coming up with racing strategies. Where is this MASSIVE advantage that Rocky Mountain apparently gets from running the course 30-40-50 times a year instead of 2-3 when they are all racing in the same race and reacting to eachother's moves?

How many times do you think you need to run a course to understand where the stress points are, and how many times do you think coaches need to be at the course to understand those same principles?

New York is not strong on the boys side. I really don't think FM's schedule was generally any more difficult than Rocky Mountain's. They are similar.

CBA being able to compete so well at NXN despite not needing to go to more than 1-2 big meets much is the point I was making. It works for them, and it works (to a lesser degree) for RM.

Wayzata's travel restrictions hasn't effected their ability to qualify for and compete well at NXN. The fact that they are restricted rather than doing it by choice makes no difference: they end up doing the same thing.

Yes, The Woodlands faced SLC and Flower Mound at Nike South. Rocky Mountain faces elite Utah teams at Bob Firman. How are those two things different?

If it's only a couple of points by each kid that can be the difference between going and not, I think it's a huge advantage. Training on a course constantly absolutely can be worth 10 points over a team that races it once a year, like Jesuit, Crater, Franklin, or most years CDA.

Of course, we don't know how Rocky Mountain races in big meets with a lot of kids that isn't Eagle Island. That's the missing data point. Every other school that is pushing for a spot has decided that they should show that at least once how they race on not their home course.

I agree. The Southwest has always been ridiculously deep and elite at the top (go figure, living and training at altitude helps to become better distance runners - and it probably doesn't hurt that they have had some great coaches in the region as well). California might not always have the third best At-Large team available, but the way the system is set up IMO they have a notable advantage to at minimum looking like they do. That does make it difficult for teams from other regions to break in when both of those factors are combined.

I didn't see whatever arguments there were last year from whoever from wherever.

That being said: Rocky Mountain was third at NXR Northwest. Crater was fourth. That means Rocky Mountain necessarily is ahead of Crater. The question is whether Rocky Mountain was one of the 4 best At-Large candidates. It seems to me that there is plenty of room to suggest they deserved consideration to be among those 4, and that the inclusion of Glendora was maybe not wrong but questionable.

NY boys have never been as good as their girls but back when FM and Saratoga were winning everything under the sun they were pretty good.

CBA has 0 competition in their region. RM has meets in Washington or Utah they could go to(long travel but still). CBA would have to travel from NJ to NC to have real competition.

Wayzata cant face any good out of state teams(except at the Griak) but they have the advantage of having several teams that have historically been extremely good in their immediate area(took 4th at their section meet and 14th at NXN in 2015 for example).

You're right about Woodlands. I retract that.

Sure, they had that argument.

Do you think that there's the possibility that their 3rd place finish was entirely dismissed because of what happened with Josiah? I think that's the likely answer.

They lost by 66 points to Taylorsville, who was 4th at NXR SW and only 14 points out of 6th. Their biggest win that didn't have a huge asterisk was Great Oak, who was only 6th in Division 1.

I do think that if Rocky had gone to a meet like Clovis and been anywhere near Glendora, they would have gotten in.

Glendora was a pretty bad pick. Ridgefield CT would have been a decent choice. And as another poster out we(and more importantly the committee) don't know how RM will fare against top competition outside of Eagle Island. Someone was saying there is a massive advantage to training on that course which I don't entirely agree with but it definitely helps.

Ok, play this out for me:

Runner X, Y and Z are all capable of running within half a second of eachother at their best.

Runner X has run on the course only once ever before, Runner Y has run on the course 2 times that year, and Runner Z has run on the course 30 times that year.

Runner Z knows when he wants to make a move. He starts pushing going down the hill heading into "Poplar Lane'. Runner X and Y, having been running alongside him thus far, follow suit. Runner Y knew the move was coming at some point, but Runner X may not have. Runner X is caught off guard but Runner Y isn't and matches the move instantly.

How much advantage does Runner Z have over Runner Y in being able to finish ahead? Simply because he made the move first instead of reacting. Runner Z certainly has an edge over Runner X, but the edge over Runner Y isn't very significant.

This is complicated further by the fact that there are large groups of runners and not everyone is going to be running the exact route they want along the course. There will be runners in the way, there will be a need to weave between where you want to go and where other runners are at infront of or next to you. Runner Z and Runner Y both have enough experience to know this and will account for it. Runner X will probably have the experience of running in packs to understand the general concept but just not no where the most critical points of the course is.

I'll grant you that in this scenario Runner Z's knowledge might be the difference of a fraction of a second compared to Runner Y. Maybe even a full second if we are stretching it, but IMO that is really stretching it (in Runner Y's case, but would agree about Runner X). Runner Y still knows the course well enough to know when you generally want to make a move and reaction time isn't going to create an insurmountable full second gap.

FM boys were FAR better than the rest of the NY boys almost every year. There were definitely years where FM was a legitimate top 10 contender and the next best boys team wouldn't qualify out of an average region. And that was my point: they were a good program while having a similar strategy (stay local and don't go out to seek additional competition more than once a year). They didn't get to that point because the NY boys they were competing against were good.

I see your point that CBA needs to travel to get competition, but I'm not sure how that is different from Rocky Mountain. The point was that CBA was one of the best programs in the nation despite only going to 1 big meet far away (plus Manhattan next door).

Wayzata is indeed in a pretty solid local area. But I don't think their schedule is any more challenging than Rocky Mountain's to any real degree, and yet they have success despite not traveling.

And at Clovis (the time Glendora beat Menlo), Menlo wasn’t even at their full strength there. They were missing their #4 guy (Saal), and their regular 5th man (freshman Olbekson) was much further back than expected, and Menlo was only a 5-deep team.

I wasn't on the committee that year, so I can't say whether or not Rocky Mountain were merely "dismissed" because Crater wasn't at full strength at NXR. If so, I would suggest that was a MASSIVE AND UTTER FAILURE by the NXN Selection Committee and not at all living up to their job. I have enough respect for enough of the people on the committee to believe that was NOT the case, despite what you may think is likely or not.

The Southwest is always incredibly good and deep. That's why they get 2 at large invites most years. Taylorsville also didn't run poorly at NXN: they finished 10th and far ahead of the one at-large team (Glendora) that is being debated.

Again, as I have already stated, I don't necessarily think Glendora was a bad selection (though I do, as I have already showed, question the logic being brought up as to why they deserved the spot). I was pointing out that Glendora wasn't a slam dunk and that Rocky Mountain had reason to be considered.

Fractions of a second would have been enough to move them back to 4th last year.

Eagle Island is a technical course. Knowing how to pick your lines, where to push on the course, and practicing that is worth more than just fractions of a second, especially for inexperienced high school kids. In a vacuum, maybe it doesn't have that much of an impact because hypothetically, everyone is going to respond to all of the moves that they should. Except we know that isn't the case. Having a little bit more confidence and not hesitating to make a move because you have practiced that move a bunch does matter when there are that many bodies around you.

and I just don't think you need to run a course more than a handful of times to understand those points.

My only push back would be that it still simply comes down to 5-7 boys from a HS showing up and being solid on the day, regardless of if Rocky has ran in that park for practice all season, that day in November you still have to show up and be dialed in, but realistically with HS aged kids, there will be wild variation in all teams (sickness, slight injuries, mindset after State, the list goes on and on). I have to appreciate Rocky's consistency on NXR weekend the past few years, albeit with yes an advantage at Eagle Island, BUT in the coming years with a new NXR course coming, we will find out if it was all a fluke like you and yay marxism would like it to be. Crater had 2 borderline professional athletes on their team and finished 4th last fall at NXR due to sickness, the sport can be cruel and unpredictable sometimes.

Sure, and Crater, Jesuit, Franklin, Helena, Seattle Prep, and CDA have run it a grand total of twice outside of NXR in the last two years. Those are the other teams that have been top 5 at NXR in the last two seasons.

How much do you think sleeping in your own bed and not having to travel is worth? Surely more than just 1 second, right?

I don't think it was a fluke. They are a good team and I think they have a massive advantage that they have capitalized on.

I'm not sure how you listing all those teams not often running at Eagle Island is supposed to back up your point or counter mine...

I'm not sure how much sleeping in your own bed is worth. How would you even go about quantifying that? How is that the same as considering the difference between understanding a course intimately due to training there constantly vs. understanding the course very well due to racing there a few times - when considering the context that everyone is running in the same race at the same time?

No top Illinois teams travel ‘far’ other than Plainfield South. DGN and Plainfield North did not leave the state last year. Plainfield North has left once during the regular season, and DGN has never.