Does your high school team have any time cuts?

14 minutes for 3200 on the track. We have a large team and it is very hard to hold workouts with so many groups at different speeds when doing tempo runs or repeats in a park.

we don't have enough kids to cut, and if we did, im not sure we would cut anybody who didn't distract the rest of the team.

the thing with cross is that it is not hard to adapt what you are doing so that everybody can participate. Kids can do shorter reps, sit out every other rep, they can do a 20 minute jog/walk while the more competent kids are doing whatever they are doing.

I will often do workout days with one group, while the other group is out for a run. Of course, the better performing groups are prioritized when it comes to laying out an ideal schedule.

What?

Why not get rid of cuts for other teams too then. Just put some kids that suck at basketball on the basketball team. This doesn't make any sense.

We typically have 5 guys run sub 16 and another 10 go sub 17. I am guessing that your team is not very good.

tycobb wrote:

I don't think high school cross should just be for fast kids but at what point is a kid too slow? If they are walking during practice and a boy slower than 10 minute pace in a race? I worry about a few of the middle school kids next year. It is a safety issue when you have limited coaches and go different places to run where they could get lost. I can't use limited coaching resources to make sure a kid who runs over 30 minutes in a 5K is doing what he is suppose to at practice.

On days you take the faster kids off-campus, can you just have the run laps on the track or a loop around the school?

Newkirk wrote:

We typically have 5 guys run sub 16 and another 10 go sub 17. I am guessing that your team is not very good.

do you not understand that the poor runners don't have to do the same thing as the good runners? there are plenty of really good teams that have 30-35 minute type runners.

Mounty Pylon wrote:

What?

Why not get rid of cuts for other teams too then. Just put some kids that suck at basketball on the basketball team. This doesn't make any sense.

you can cut people if you want, but do not pretend our sport is the same as basketball where there is limited space and limited spots on the court.

No cuts. I cut kids for attendance etc though so that usually helps with numbers especially in track.

250 boys and girls on the track doing a workout does have space implications. Doing runs around town is a safety issue with 250 kids. Uniforms cost money busing costs money. Coaches cost money. Our conference meet has a 25 minute time requirement How many kids are on the NP team? How many sub 16 kids do most of you have in a given year? The more kids, the less time a coach has to spend with each kid. A large part of being fast is mental and much of it comes from one-on-one time.

I personally believe 30 minutes for a CC 5K should be the cutoff, for both girls and boys.

Practice safety is the biggest issue, but delaying meets is also a huge issue. Why are we pushing back the schedule for hundreds of kids because we have a small handful of kids running (walking) 40 minute 5Ks still out on the course?

No, we range from a 15:20 sophomore to a ~35 minute junior. Most teams, including ours, don't have the numbers to cut.

It is absolutely ridiculous to hold large meets with 3000 kids competing across 3 hours when the meet could take 2 hours if about 25 kids had been cut.

Even with a middle to upper middle class enrollment exceeding 3000, there are not enough kids interested in XC at my local high school to warrant cuts.

Our middle and high school track teams don't cut, but we do have a trials week in which we evaluate and eventually separate the teams into varsity and JV squads based on the results of the trials. We usually have about 60 kids participating in our high school program and about 40 in our middle school program. Most of the meets we are involved in have limited entries (3 or 4 participants) so we have to rank our athletes and then only travel with the kids who are participating. We make sure to schedule a couple of dual meets and JV only meets so everybody on the team gets a chance to compete. We move kids up from JV based on practices and JV meet performances.

We are fortunate to have the numbers we have. We typically get a handful of athletes, ones who wouldn't make our team if we did cuts, that develop and eventually get moved into our varsity program. One of my throwers last year went from throwing 21 feet in the shot in our preseason JV meet, to 37 feet at our district meet to score.

I know my high school had time cuts. I didn't run xc but I think the time trial was 1.5 miles but I'm not sure of the time. We're in the larger school brackets so, during track season, we easily had around 150 kids at the start of the season. Standards were 31.00 in the 200 for guys, 34 for girls, 2:40 in the 800, and 3:00 for girls I believe. It's been a few years so I don't know if things have changed.

Nah, we don't cut anybody. The football team doesn't cut anybody either.

Unless there are real size issues (more kids than coaching staff can manage to keep in line), I don't think there should be cuts as long as the kids are willing to try. I've seen multiple kids transform from 28-32 min 5k XC runners as freshman to solid contributing 18-19 min runners by junior year. This would never have happened if the kids were cut and not given decent guidance. As a HS or earlier coach, leading these kids to put in the work and make huge gains should be considered your true triumph, far more than squeezing 10 more seconds out of the super-talented kid who is a star from day one.

There are fine solutions to all the issues mentioned, like only taking varsity kids off-site to run. Someone mentioned slow kids holding up a meet - is the extra 15 minutes at the end of one JV race really that big of an issue that you won't give kids a chance to be part of a team experience, or a chance to improve themselves?

This isn't a sport like basketball where the number of courts or number of players who can get into a game is a limiting factor.

I've coach top 50 teams in the county and never felt the need to cut a single player because of times. Disciplines yes but not times. We average 100 kids a year on the team and many years have 150 kids. I have 0 issues working out space for athletes to do workouts. I've had athletes who couldn't break 30 in 5k, break 16:00 by their senior year. To give up on them as a freshman because they aren't fast enough is a really strange concept for a sport that has room for so many to participate in at the same time.

I have had athletes at all levels but with that said I have had to cut a few too. If you have athletes that aren't willing to try to run, aren't interesting in trying to run, aren't interesting in putting in any kind of effort then I say cut them because it's better for them and for you. They are probably there because someone forced them to be.

I was at a High School meet a few weeks ago where a couple of girls didn't attempt to run at all from the start until the last 100 meters. They just wanted almost the entire thing. That isn't the sport of XC, I would cut those loose for everyone's benefit.