High School Coaches/Runner- Post your state and how/if you are holding cross country meets

Pennsylvania

Yes, we are hosting meets and invitationals.

No restrictions other than coaches need to wear masks at all times and the kids are wearing masks at warm-up in groups before the race starts at the line warming-up and wearing while post-race walking around. We hand out awards to coaches.

Oklahoma is hosting meets like there isn’t a pandemic. I think some meets have limited spectators, and I believe there is an expectation to wear a mask if you’re not racing, but other than that it’s business as usual.

Michigan

Meets are limited to 12 schools or less, total. Each race must have 70 or less participants (unless in a dual meet with large teams.) Many big invitationals were canceled, others are run in "sessions" of 5-10 teams at a time that will race and then clear out of the area before the next session and sets of teams come in. We personally have cancelled participation in several invitationals that limited our entries and instead added some smaller dual/tri meets with local schools.

Coaches and spectators must be masked at all times while at a competition. Athletes must be masked too, but they can remove masks while actively warming up and cooling down, and don't need to race while masked. For almost a week HS runners were told they needed to be masked while racing cross-country, until the governor clarified her executive order.

Courses are to be set up so the finish line is free of close spectators and there isn't to be congestion after the race. Many meets only allow 2 spectators per athlete, but some have had no spectators.

No pull tags at the finish. No high-fiving, many meets don't allow team tents, and athletes are expected to stay in their assigned team area unless warming up on the course.

The whole state finals process, and advancement to the next level, is currently up in the air. Speculation is there will be an extra round of elimination - instead of regionals and then finals, it will be districts, regionals, then finals, with finals having significantly fewer runners than in a normal year.

Massachusetts

Divided the states into geographical "pods" and you can only compete against each team in your pod, no going against other teams. Dual meets with every team in the pod and a possible league meet. Masks at all times except when actually running. Can only take 20 kids to away meets, as many as you want to home meets.

North Carolina. Yes there are meets, the bigger ones have wave starts (~20 runners per wave, separated by ~3mins). Masks worn until warm up. Smaller meets often have less restrictions, and no wave starts.

Texas

Meets are limited to eight teams per race. Varsity and JV are separated by at least an hour so the format goes somewhat like this.

730 varsity girls run, 8 AM varsity boys run

Immediately after their race teams must depart race site.

9 AM junior varsity girls run, 9:30 AM junior varsity boys room. Immediately after their race teams must depart the site

They have been authorized to allow 10 athletes per team, but normal scoring as always.

Some meets do not allow spectators on the course, and our first meet they didn’t even allow the kids to walk/jog the course.

Some of the races create a spectator area, all spectators must wear facemask, most races are not even allowing team camps.

What some mates have done is had two separate junior varsity races in two separate varsity races boys and girls to allow more teams to compete but at different times.

All Covid protocols are in place and people have been following them pretty well.

NY

No state championship , no sectionals , no invitationals . Each league decides if they have meets and/ or a league championship. Very low key. Seems like 1/3 of leagues aren’t running cross country

call me coach , punk wrote:

NY

No state championship , no sectionals , no invitationals . Each league decides if they have meets and/ or a league championship. Very low key. Seems like 1/3 of leagues aren’t running cross country

I am in New York State. We are doing sectionals (state qualifier) but without getting to go on to states, obviously.

No invites. Meets are to have 5 teams or less, 12 runners per team. 60 kids total per race. If more than that, run in waves.

We have 15 teams in our league, so we are going to run 3 separate 5 team meets for our league championship, and merge the times. This is not going to produce fair results, but it's better than nothing.

Sectionals are a big question mark right now. WE have 4 classes. A, B, C, & D. They will each run at separate times or days. Class C is our biggest with 21 teams. I do not know if they will all run in one race, or if they will split and merge.

we are to wear masks until 30 seconds before gun. Coaches wear masks at all times.

Florida-

Most big meets running as normal (1,000 runners/spectators). Everyone supposed to wear a mask except when warming up, racing, warming down. Some counties won't allow schools to compete outside of county, but most get around it by competing in "club" division. Meet directors have added this race because so many schools in this situation.

Tennessee-

Full steam ahead. Meets have mask protocols, beyond that bigger meets have more restrictions and smaller meets are pretty close to normal. We're having a lot of meets split into more divisions or waves; the invitational I'm running in tomorrow has moved to high school races on Friday and Saturday instead of just Saturday this year to limit field size. As for state, it is expected to go on as normal with the different divisions race times spread out over two days. The course was moved out of Nashville city limits I assume to avoid stricter gathering rules. Very thankful we're having a mostly normal season.

Wisconsin Runner

I've raced 4 times this year:

First was a wave start of 4 teams. We had to wear masks to the line and carry them during the race. Limited spectators. We had to put them back on right after catching our breaths after the race.

Second race was all one race but teams were called to the line seperately. No masks when racing but they had to be on at all other times when not running. Limited spectators

Third race was a really small race of like five teams. No real restrictions (at least that were enforced)

Fourth was a pretty large invite of like 13 teams. We wore masks for the first 200 meters then got to take them off/throw them at our coaches.

Minnesota

Regular season:

Maximum of 3 teams per race

Section meets (the meets that are used to determine who qualified for state)

https://www.mshsl.org/sites/default/files/2020-09/section-tournament-cross-country.pdf

Washington:

No meets are happening.

Miami-Dade is not allowing Cross Country racing right now. Biggest county in Florida. Many of the best kids in the state won't be at the State meet. Florida Governor sucks.

coachkritter wrote:

Florida-

Most big meets running as normal (1,000 runners/spectators). Everyone supposed to wear a mask except when warming up, racing, warming down. Some counties won't allow schools to compete outside of county, but most get around it by competing in "club" division. Meet directors have added this race because so many schools in this situation.

Check athletic.net and sort state by state, that will give you a pretty good idea.

Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho are all running. The biggest meets are canceled and Wyoming is limited to 4 schools per meet.

It is also district by district though, so just because a state is running, there are still schools that aren’t running or are starting late.

Iowa is running as usual other than some mask wearing and some meets splitting races in half.

There were a few cancellations in Utah, but most meets are still happening. We have had to limit spectators at some meets and others have had more JV heats to keep heat sizes small. Mask wearing is also required at most meets. The rules vary county by county, so some meets have more restrictions than others.

CT - private school league in Fairfield County CT/Westchester County NY

Dual meets only, no restrictions on #of runners

Masks worn to start line, no masks while racing.

No spectators

No ‘official scoring’, but times recorded.

First meet is 10/1, last meet is 11/7. No championships