It rains in CA. Much, much more than in states like Utah or Colorado. The conditions today were as impactful for many of the kids outside of CA as they were for many of the kids from CA. It’s a complete fallacy to assume automatically that they suffered more than kids from other states.
when you live in socal and it's cold/wet at NXN you're gonna struggle for two primary reasons
1. your body has not been exposed to high 30s low 40s temps, especially with moisture. the lighter the runner is the more this weather will have an effect. pretty simple physiology.
2. runners in CA are not allowed to wear spikes during the regular season, so here they are at the national champs, biggest race for them of the year, and they are wearing shoes they haven't worn all season and running on a surface that realistically is not available for them to train on - nearly every large stretch of grass in socal is a privately owned golf course
that being said, courses like this are a huge part of why we all love XC - it's everything that track can never be
But your first point, which you limit to only a specific part of CA, applies to many kids, not just Californians. That’s my point. Jane Hendegren, for example, doesn’t have extensive experience racing in cold, wet conditions because it doesn’t rain that much in Utah during XC season (certainly much less than it rains in SoCal during the same period). Californians are not singular in suffering from the conditions. The weather alone does not explain their miserable results in the girls’ race.
when you live in socal and it's cold/wet at NXN you're gonna struggle for two primary reasons
1. your body has not been exposed to high 30s low 40s temps, especially with moisture. the lighter the runner is the more this weather will have an effect. pretty simple physiology.
2. runners in CA are not allowed to wear spikes during the regular season, so here they are at the national champs, biggest race for them of the year, and they are wearing shoes they haven't worn all season and running on a surface that realistically is not available for them to train on - nearly every large stretch of grass in socal is a privately owned golf course
that being said, courses like this are a huge part of why we all love XC - it's everything that track can never be
But your first point, which you limit to only a specific part of CA, applies to many kids, not just Californians. That’s my point. Jane Hendegren, for example, doesn’t have extensive experience racing in cold, wet conditions because it doesn’t rain that much in Utah during XC season (certainly much less than it rains in SoCal during the same period). Californians are not singular in suffering from the conditions. The weather alone does not explain their miserable results in the girls’ race.
stop it
Today in Provo, UT where Jane is from the high is 43F and the low 26F
Today in Ventura, CA where Sadie is from the high is 75F and the low is 49F
be real, this isn't just about rain, it's about how cold the body is relative to what it's used to
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