Zen Miler is Wisconsin boys cross country's superfan. Good that we have people who actually care about the sport and keeping the state in check.
“Zen” was good at what he did. He was also great at stirring up beef and drama with the kids and coaches. The middle 2010s were peak soap opera entertainment on the Wisconsin tracktalk.
Avg time difference between the D2 Deerfield Sectional and The Ridges Golf Course is at 66.8s for boys and 65.4s for girls. There's no way the Deerfield Sectional course is more than 3 miles.
Tre Dammen 12 Monroe 15:15.6 16:37.2 81.6
Elijah Judd 12 Stoughton 15:28.7 15:57.9 29.2
( . . . )
I don't think anyone seriously claims Deerfield's course is 5K. It's not certified; most HS XC courses are not certified.
I can say that folks have wheeled it out this year and last year. Depending on the wheeler, I've heard anywhere from 2.95 to 3.05, and in-between. Most common is right about 3 miles, give or take a yard or two.
Then again, I don't think the Ridges is accurate.
A couple of the Night Fall courses were registered LONG by a number of teams and coaches with wheels.
Someone on here thinks the state course is long by exactly 47 meters, or so I read. Ha.
Folks, XC courses are . . . XC courses. That's why over in Europe you don't even have standard distances most of the time. It's often like 9.3km or 6.7km or some random set of numbers.
I'm not saying I don't like certified courses as a club runner. It's nice to know you ran a certified course.
Then again, hell, a lot of road races are not certified and are short.
If you really *care* about certified courses, then you go find and run them. (Why do so many schools hit up the St. Cats invite, eh? Certified course is one reason a couple of coaches told me.)
But, yeah, geez . . . I think we've tenderized the horse flesh enough for cooking now.
So much anger on here. I like running, track, and XC . . . but, man, I am glad my life and my kiddos' lives don't revolve around it.
Zen Miler is Wisconsin boys cross country's superfan. Good that we have people who actually care about the sport and keeping the state in check.
“Zen” was good at what he did. He was also great at stirring up beef and drama with the kids and coaches. The middle 2010s were peak soap opera entertainment on the Wisconsin tracktalk.
It was very active for Minnesota (and maybe some other states) in mid-2010s as well
One team that performed better than expected was Oconomowoc. They took 8th at the state meet last year and lost 4 of their top 7. But they returned 3 of their top 5, and had a junior and freshman step up and do well at 4th and 5th positions, and the team ended up taking 6th at state.
Homestead did a lot better than last year. Last year they didn’t even make state, and then they returned everyone this year and took 2nd.
Tanner looks pretty disappointed he's 6th, then SF Lincoln's top runners says, something to him, probably along the lines of "my team should win so you can make nationals still". Check it out at 17:55
Lucas Tanner of DeFo Runny Boys and Girls A, the Wisconsin state runner-up, finished sixth and qualified for Nike Cross Nationals on Sunday at NXR Heartland with a finish time of 15:14.3.
Zen Miler is Wisconsin boys cross country's superfan. Good that we have people who actually care about the sport and keeping the state in check.
“Zen” was good at what he did. He was also great at stirring up beef and drama with the kids and coaches. The middle 2010s were peak soap opera entertainment on the Wisconsin tracktalk.
To set the scene in 2015, Marcy Thurwachter of the WIAA, who had a generally done a nice job administering high school track and cross country for almost a couple decades, was retiring from her post. This made for a lot of uncertainty about how things were going to be administered by the next person who was not guaranteed to be as supportive of forward thinking as Marcy.
In April of 2015, there were complaints from several Milwaukee area coaches aimed at WISTCA president Mark Hoffman regarding the lack of coverage of track & field that spring. Zen, with a strong history of providing for track and cross country in Wisconsin, had declined working with the WISTCA organization in January of that year citing their lack of preparedness, professionalism and funding.
When Hoffman was confronted at an indoor meet -- Lake Michigan Invitational -- by one coach in particular, Eric Lueck, Hoffman responded with ambiguous statements that deflected personal responsibility and stake in the lack of coverage. Among those grumblings, Hoffman made a statement about the girl's honor roll website creator, Dave Figi's helper, Richard Small, who had maintained a piecemeal PDF honor roll file for the boys during indoor that year. This statement was later misinterpreted by Eric Lueck. After that, like a bad game of telephone, several more subordinate coaches engaged in extremely toxic behavior both on and off-line making false accusations that late 20s / 30-something Zen pretended to be then 53-year old Richard Small on the girls website.
These were, as Zen put it, a majority of "non-educator" coaches.
Zen was on a business trip in Atlanta when the accusations surfaced and became extremely annoyed that people could not tell the difference between a PDF file effort by Richard Small, a collection of 360 top performances, and the dynamic, data driven websites Zen provided through wisconsinxc and wisconsintrack over the years providing accurate season date for tens of thousands of student-athletes (the general consensus as much better than milesplit or athletic.net in the modern day).
When Zen returned home to Wisconsin he proceeded to kick a lot of the coaches involved in this fiasco out of TrackTalk almost overnight which is when the height of the drama occurred.
Zen continued to call out the WCCCA as a whole for its lack of leadership after the legendary Shorewood coach, Dominic Newman, stepped down after his term. People who were not qualified self-appointed themselves into leadership positions of the organization without a proper election taking place and several of them just so happened to be the same non-educator group that made false accusations against Zen.
Zen also called out Eric Lueck for piggy backing the WCCCA / WISTCA clinic events as a platform to promote his Wisco Mile meets and then not paying any dues back to the organization. He then called out the active WCCCA organization members, again, for essentially allowing Eric Lueck to do this (in choice words).
Zen, fed up with behavior from overlapping junior members of WCCCA / WISTCA, proceeded to call out WISTCA again for wasting tens of thousands of dollars on hors d'oeuvres and alcohol over the years at the clinic -- held at a Madison area hotel -- versus investing money into more practical long-term things, like a digitized platform to bridge coverage of WCCCA and WISTCA sports.
At the subsequent WISTCA meetings, discussions took place advocating for lowering hotel expenses and possibly changing venues to save money. Not sure if anything changed but the hotel did not like hosting the coaches. The following year, spring of 2016, Zen did one final season of wisconsintrack and experimented with a paywall. Despite converting a moderate number of visitors to subscribers in 2016, Zen chose not to do wisconsintrack in 2017, citing the moral dilemma of charging high school athletes to see their athletic times and career commitments.
Zen announced in March 2024 that it would be the last season for TrackTalk. The server went down in April before resurfacing, Zen citing his frustrations with managing work commitments and apologizing for the down time. Then, in August 2024, Zen closed TrackTalk down after 15 years on the web.
Zen announced in March 2024 that it would be the last season for TrackTalk. The server went down in April before resurfacing, Zen citing his frustrations with managing work commitments and apologizing for the down time. Then, in August 2024, Zen closed TrackTalk down after 15 years on the web.
August? Not even … it was earlier than that. I think it was in July.
Looking for competitive meets (see D1 or top D2 teams) for both genders. Traveling from central/south-central WI. Open to 2-2.5 hours drive if competition and course are good.
What do you suggest? (PS-preferably meets that are accepting teams for 2026 but willing to listen to all)
Thanks for the insight. I’m not aware of the full details as I’ve never had an interaction with any of the parties rumored to have been in the tea. I was an unbiased former tracktalk user (and dyestat user from back in the day). Whatever happened was immature and resulted in a good number of us getting kicked out of tracktalk for the dumbest reasons. Ultimately, it was his site, so I didn’t argue. But I don’t think many people who saw the tantrums that went down would say that they were professional.
How in tf did Verona not get it done and qualify? 3rd at Midwest in a loaded field over some really solid teams. Won their conference meet last week. They qualify 3 individuals but not the team. Crazy loaded sectional which makes no sense when you look at neighboring sectionals and who qualified. WIAA did them no favors but are they the best team to not qualify in the last 10 years while having all their top guys running?
At least Verona won their section last year. First time in 17 years
Thanks for the insight. I’m not aware of the full details as I’ve never had an interaction with any of the parties rumored to have been in the tea. I was an unbiased former tracktalk user (and dyestat user from back in the day).
Did you also whistle and sing gayly to this disclaimer while you posted? Purely astonishing to observe such authentic genuity and pure innocence here in the funneling anonymous cesspool of letsrun.
