Bill Meylan has been doing speed ratings for 25 years lol. People read way more into it than what was intended. It's useful tool to compare tiers of runners who have never raced each other if you know how to think about it and adjust for things like altitude.
Speed ratings are as useful as passer ratings were to Bill Belichick when he coached for NE and won 6 Superbowls. Who cares?
Doug Soles has said he looks at speed ratings with a few of his own adjustments to help him figure out how his team stacks up at nationals.
Anybody who looks at it as gospel of who is faster than who is obviously wrong. That doesn't mean it can't be a helpful tool if used properly.
Am I that out of the loop? wtf is a "speed rating"?
Cross country speed ratings come from the site www.tullyrunners.com. Since different high school xc courses have different lengths and different levels of difficulty, speed ratings were developed as a way to compare high school xc runners who run on different xc courses against each other.
Developed over many years, the man who runs the speed ratings site eventually figured out that (assuming the weather is the same) if runner X runs 16:00 on Course A then he should run 16:20 on Course B and he should run 16:45 on Course C. So those various times would all get the same speed rating. (The speed ratings guy has figured out speed ratings for races on at least a hundred xc courses and for tens of thousands of runners, so he has a lot of data and a lot of experience.)
So using the example above, and assuming that the weather was good for both races, if Runner X ran 16:00 on Course A, and Runner Y ran 16:30 on Course C, then Runner Y actually did 15 seconds better than Runner X, because even though Runner Y ran 30 seconds slower, Runner Y's course was 45 seconds harder. And since speed rating points are 1 point for every 3 seconds, Runner Y would get a speed rating for that race of 5 points better than Runner X. (I'm purposely over simplifying the formula he uses, in order to make it more easily understandable.)
Because the weather isn't always great, speed ratings also adjust for weather conditions on the day of the race, based on how much worse the runners do collectively vs how their speed ratings from previous races predicted that they would have done collectively if the weather was good.
Despite some uninformed people complaining about speed ratings or incorrectly claiming that they don't work well, speed ratings are actually fairly accurate, and they can be used to compare xc runners who never compete against each other, or to predict how they will do when running against each other for the first time, such as at NXN or Foot Locker/Brooks XC National Championships.
Speed ratings can't predict the results for an upcoming particular race with 100% accuracy, because some runners have off days. Also, some runners run great on flat courses, but don't run well on difficult courses that have mud (like NXN) or hills (like Foot Locker/Brooks). Or vice versa. But when you look at someone's best speed rating for the year vs someone else's best speed rating for the year, it's a good indication of which runner is better.
In the case of Katy Zang, her best speed rating for the fall 2025 season was 147, which she ran at RunningLane on December 6. That made her the girl with the 72nd best speed rating in the country this past fall.
Zang's speed ratings at the end of her xc season are consistent with her claim that she started eating better, sleeping better, and training harder between her next to last race (NXR on Nov 16) and her last race (RunningLane on Dec 6).
Nov 16 speed rating - 142 - (NXR, where she finished only 13th.)
Dec 6 speed rating - 147 - (That's a 5 point improvement, which is a 15 second improvement.)
As far as how Katy Zang's 147 speed rating compares to the top girls, 8 girls had a fall 2025 speed rating of 160 or higher:
Each speed rating point is 3 seconds. This is how much faster girls with the following speed ratings would be on a 5k xc course compared to Katy Zang's 147 speed rating:
So as you can see, Katy Zang was waaaay behind the top xc runners this past xc season. And yet just 3 months later, she is running faster in the 2 mile than all of them. No high school distance runner in US history has ever improved that much, that quickly.
I couldn’t properly put into words what she looked like running out there; gliding, rolling? Her mechanics, what she was producing, just looked…somebody said “effortless”.
I couldn’t properly put into words what she looked like running out there; gliding, rolling? Her mechanics, what she was producing, just looked…somebody said “effortless”.
I agree. I can't think of another high school girl distance runner who looks that smooth.
While they don't have the exact same running mechanics, one runner who comes to mind as someone who also runs very smoothly is Letesenbet Gidey.
I couldn’t properly put into words what she looked like running out there; gliding, rolling? Her mechanics, what she was producing, just looked…somebody said “effortless”.
I agree. I can't think of another high school girl distance runner who looks that smooth.
While they don't have the exact same running mechanics, one runner who comes to mind as someone who also runs very smoothly is Letesenbet Gidey.
SMOOTH! That’s it!
It is subtle, but she seems to pop off the track. Anything those shoes are returning seems to be a bit exaggerated. She has a high power-to-weight ratio in her legs.
I agree. I can't think of another high school girl distance runner who looks that smooth.
While they don't have the exact same running mechanics, one runner who comes to mind as someone who also runs very smoothly is Letesenbet Gidey.
SMOOTH! That’s it!
It is subtle, but she seems to pop off the track. Anything those shoes are returning seems to be a bit exaggerated. She has a high power-to-weight ratio in her legs.
And it is not just power-to-weight ratio, although that is huge. But to be smooth and efficient requires excellent neuromuscular synchronicity.
But 10:17 to 9:42... crazy. A bit back on her TikTok she indicates that she's been eating more and trying to recover her period. Maybe more proper fueling?
She seems to cross train a lot. Talks enthusiastically about how much she likes cross training and how she recommends it to all struggling runners. Seems like she gets in great efforts on there; she posted a 60 minute session at 172 bpm. Interested in more of what she does in cross training.
172bmp for an hour?? On what apparatus? If her MaxHr is ~202bpm, that’s a solid threshold 85%MaxHR effort!
So then, we find out from the following interview that she used the elliptical exclusively, and by cross-training so hard “she broke three ellipticals”, totaling the one at her high school! 😮
Zang came through 3000 in about 8:58.5 yesterday. I am curious to see where that would place her in today's NCAA meet.
I would have to assume last. Unless they jog the first 4 or 5 laps. 8:48 was the cutoff to get into the meet
NCAA distance running has changed a lot over the past few years with the influx of 25 year old "freshmen" from other countries. But a championship race isn't a time trial, so the winning time isn't always that fast.
2021 women's winning indoor 3k time - 9:01
2022 women's winning indoor 3k time - 8:58
2023 women's winning indoor 3k time - 9:10 (at altitude)
2024 women's winning indoor 3k time - 8:41
2025 women's winning indoor 3k time - 9:01
Katy Zang probably couldn't kick with the best college women over the last 200 meters, but she might be able to hang with the pack until the start of the last lap.
So then, we find out from the following interview that she used the elliptical exclusively, and by cross-training so hard “she broke three ellipticals”, totaling the one at her high school! 😮
She’s not that big; how could she break an elliptical?! The bearings must have gotten hot!🥵
Ellipticals at a gym are usually well made, and they aren't easy to break. I don't think that Zang would be able to break one of those. But a cheaper made elliptical at someone's home or at someone's school might not be that well made.
I think the debut on that banked track, those plated shoes, and her efficient mechanics just all came together. She was efficiently running around that track.
I can’t tell what brand of spikes she was in last week. Is that the Puma logo on them?
She is in the championship heat of the 1 mile. Her 2 mile was impressive but rules are rules. Not sure how a 5:02 or in the 1600 landed her a top seed in the championship. Bad look New Balance.
