We need to put the X in XC

That is too much for me, but I would like it to be more difficult. XC races currently aren't that much different from track races. I'd like to see courses with logs you have to jump over, creeks you have to cross, etc., and with no opportunity to inspect the course beforehand. Maybe have a race course from one hilltop to another with no trail, you just have to figure out your own path.

I have some ideas about how to make it even more extreme

Hahahah

Just make cross country what it is, cross country and not the equivalent of a road race. Minimum of 100m elevation per race, ankle height grass, water hazard or through thick mud. They are not meant to be a time trial in road shoes

Have fun with that. There are now hundreds of dedicated courses that colleges have spent millions of dollars to construct. But the three of you who want those races can organize one and see that nobody will show up. Try one of those Spartan races if you want something silly to do.

UltraDude wrote:

That is too much for me, but I would like it to be more difficult. XC races currently aren't that much different from track races. I'd like to see courses with logs you have to jump over, creeks you have to cross, etc., and with no opportunity to inspect the course beforehand. Maybe have a race course from one hilltop to another with no trail, you just have to figure out your own path.

In the States.... in Europe not so much. The races there are real

its only 5k wrote:

Just make cross country what it is, cross country and not the equivalent of a road race. Minimum of 100m elevation per race, ankle height grass, water hazard or through thick mud. They are not meant to be a time trial in road shoes

I like this idea. I have no interest in the warrior type races but real/traditional cross country is what I'd like to see. In HS, most of our courses were just running around the school so the only obstacles were jumping up from the street to the sidewalk. Some of the invitational races were good courses but that was only a couple times a season.

As far as what OP said, we need to think about whether we want XC (and T&F for that matter) to be niche sports or do we want some level of public interest. It certainly can't be as popular as the NFL but running used to be relatively much more popular to watch than now. Maybe that was in the 70s? There's no way we're going to continue to survive if we only have events like Michael Wardian running around his neighborhood for 24 hours or the guys on the treadmill until the death like at the beginning of stay at home.

I'm guessing people here are from the States? I've definitely had to jump my fair share of logs, traverse through thick mud etc. over the years. Finished a couple of races with no shoes on as they were lost in the mud. Once did a XC where there was a fence on the course and we were queing up to climb the little steps to get over it. Have hurdled streams too.

American XC is basically road racing. I am seeing more and more high school courses that are 90% asphalt/concrete and 10% grass. It doesn't need to be extreme but, it should be held exclusively on soft surfaces and contain a few features like hay bales, water crossings, sand pits, and the like to make it a strength runner's event again.

Uk too, my cross country club races are up and down some brute hills, in mud, wadding through streams, jumping rocks hazards or through thick grass with the occasional swing gate, that if you are not at the front you wait or hurdle/jump the fence/barbwire.

All I see is the super fast times in vaporfly as cross country is flat, sweeped clear golf course fairway. Hint if you are complaining rich kids have 4% for cross country it’s a run race and that ok but it’s not cross country.

Make it want it should be, a run through somewhere that isn’t maintained by humans or equivalent of.

I'm from California and yes most of our courses are around a school or in local parks. My school though has one race that has 300+ feet of elevation and single track running up hillsides. The course record is slow af and it's a brutal race from start to finish, and it has to be the most fun race of the year. You can be a mediocre runner and take down a guy who's 30 seconds faster than you in the 5k becuase you are better at hills. It definitely makes XC more interesting.

X stands for extreme wrote:

And when I say X I mean EXTREME. Thoughts:

Have runners do that DX WWE thing they use to do. Implement fire, bobwire, fireworks, hot women dressed liked at Monster Energy drink events with those signs, and most importantly alcholol and betting. Also make the courses more EXTREME, no more golf courses.

(1) Isn't this already a thing?

(2) What is bobwire?

As an aside, someone should make an EXTREME golf course

Contact zones- after each mile marker for 100 meters, you can tackle, punch and kick etc. without penalty.

We could set this EXTREME cross country in Antarctica. There are no laws! Anything goes! So you can be a law-abiding citizen and still compete to the fullest. Offer a million to the first person to cross the line, livestream it.

That has been going on for a while (Tough Mudder, Spartan Races, etc.) but I think the fad is over.

alright hear me out, there is no course, just a start and a finish line 10k, and in between is a barely trekable jungle. Every runner must make their own path through said jungle as long as they end anywhere along the finish line. There are tigers and rapids along a river that crosses the whole course.

ienjoyracing wrote:

alright hear me out, there is no course, just a start and a finish line 10k, and in between is a barely trekable jungle. Every runner must make their own path through said jungle as long as they end anywhere along the finish line. There are tigers and rapids along a river that crosses the whole course.

What schools do you think this bodes well for? I like LSU, Mizzou, and Arkansas. Ole Miss is borderline but these schools should bode better in the physical/self defense aspect.

I don't think the courses need to be extreme, but they should be "cross" country. Meaning not road races, nor manicured golf course - though, of course, you might need to cross a road or golf course.

Let's not underestimate, though, even what you would call "easy" courses. I was a good track runner (Primarily 1500, but I could go up in distance), and I was a pretty decent road runner. I was terrible at XC and I ran on a lot of golf course like course. Or those which combined trail and road.

Something like 80% of my XC races where what I'd consider sub-optimal. Where only 25-30% of my road races were, and only 10% of my track races.

IMO, it was the soft surfaces which did me in. Just having the course have 20-30% soft grass or trails does a lot of people like me in.

Still, if you are the grinder type, you still need more advantages over the runner who can run a good golf course, but not a mudder course - and there are plenty of them as well.

You guys should check out orienteering racing. It's essentially everyone finding whatever route they want between a series of points. Inov8 has a whole line of shoes dedicated to it.

its only 5k wrote:

with the occasional swing gate, that if you are not at the front you wait or hurdle/jump the fence/barbwire.

thats ballsy/insane