Ritz is the best US HS xc runner in the past 20 years. possibly ever. he would have destroyed Sahlman. No shame in that.
Ritz is the best US HS xc runner in the past 20 years. possibly ever. he would have destroyed Sahlman. No shame in that.
I don't think it's pointless to compare cross times over different courses. It's obvious they are never a 1:1 comparison, but when you are talking fastest time ever, it's worth noting. Don't call it a record. Call it the fastest time ever.
What's going to happen is this will change cross country moving forward. over time, we will see more courses like this, leading to more times like that.
high school xc coach wrote:
Ritz is the best US HS xc runner in the past 20 years. possibly ever. he would have destroyed Sahlman. No shame in that.
Not anymore. And no way he would've outkicked sahlmam, or gotten enough of a gap on him.
yes. and it would have been easy.
But it is a record unless you change the English language.
Look at the results from smaller races on this course. They're fast because it's a fast course, but they aren't unbelievable. When you take hundreds of the best runners in the country and give them perfect conditions on a very fast course and create a championship environment, kids will run fast times. GPS and wheeling data corroborates that it is a true 5k. Of course nothing is 100% accurate, but when you combine the body of evidence, it becomes clear that the course is a true 5k. There is not a single piece of evidence to dispute this claim with the exception of this joker who claims he wheeled the course 75 meters short. Hutchins and Wachtel both ran much faster 5000m times on a track 3 weeks after RunningLane last year. Sahlman and the Youngs ran very similar converted times at Woodbridge to their RunningLane times. The sport is growing, and there will be athletes who accomplish the previously unthinkable . The course is a true 5k, and to convince yourself otherwise is to deny facts in favor of preconceived notions of what is possible.
Or maybe the course is just designed to be superfast and is simply much faster than other courses. 79 boys ran sub-15. 20 girls ran sub-17. Allegedly historic times run two years in a row with good but not great speed ratings.
The times are not allegedly historic. They were run yesterday and are on the timing site so they are now historic by definition. Hutchins all time fastest time was run here last year knocking Tuohy off of the top.
chips ahoy timing company wrote:
Wait are you actually claiming that Ritz was a superior junior cross country runner than Jakob Ingerbritsen? You must be joking. One placement at one meet that was far less competitive in the early 2000s is not a justification for comparison. That’s like saying that Cheptegei isn’t as good as Billy Mills because Cheptegei got 2nd in Tokyo and Mills won.
Ritz never ran an equivalent performance to Sahlmans 14:03 and that is easy compare as we have lots of data from both meets. Could Ritz have won yesterday hypothetically? Maybe so, but if he did, it would have been his best achievement of his prep career.
Also I would be interested to see how 2019 Nico Young would have compared on this course considering his margin of victory at NXN over such an amazing class that year.
Another tangent about speed ratings. Nico got a 205 for nxn, probably not even top 20 all time. How was what he did not a top 20 performance? It was top 5 easily.
- Set a course record by 7 seconds in abysmal conditions with rain and mud.
- Beat maybe one of the deepest fields ever by minimum 14 seconds. We can talk all we want about ritz beating hall and Webb, who had fantastic careers but its not like they had crazy hsxc resumes.
Nico beat:
Josh Methner--FL Champion, 3-mile AT number 2 at the time (set on a course run multiple times by Virgin and LV) by 14 seconds.
Cole Sprout--8:40 3200, 4:04 mile, 3rd at NXN as a junior, 14:16 5k AT number 4 at the time by 18 seconds
Ryan Schoppe--14:14 5k AT number 2 at the time by 28 seconds
Also Nico got docked like 10 points for being 4 seconds behind German in a not all-out effort because Woodward park is "running faster"
Course is wheeled and measured exactly 5km. The NCAA D1 South Regional was also held on this exact course. It's 5k
Well two years in a row of 15:58 and 16:03 with 166 and 165 SRs speaks for itself. Time always tells.
bruce dentons gold medal wrote:
high school bum wrote:
They were literally steamrolling the course yesterday.
I saw that on their Instagram. Really pulling out all the stops for the fast times they ended up getting.
That's kinda cool. Steamrollers are neat machinery; I have friends who run them in ODOT.
how do speed ratings work wrote:
high school xc coach wrote:
I am a huge believer in speed ratings. I am a new york guy, so every race my kids run goes in the database. I look at the ratings every week, and after awhile you can pretty much guess a speed rating before he posts them just by looking at the times of all the kids in the race. This is if you are familiar with what those kids typically run. Kids will always have up and down days, but you find that the majority finish where they should compared to their competitors.
The trotter situation is a one of a kind outlier over a 20 year period.
I will add, they generally seem very good from an outsiders perspective. Some apparent discrepancies here and there but mostly very accurate
Any Ohio XC coaches here? What do we do? I know they moved Ohio from Scioto Downs to Hebron National Raceway. I'm a car guy so I thought that was cool--are those courses accurate? It was at Scioto Downs (just south of Columbus) for ages.
first timers club wrote:
This has to be it. No one has ever really tried in XC on a flat course before yesterday. Kids were finally actually inspired to give it their all.
I'm hoping a race like this inspires more kids to join XC, try harder at it, and more adults to want to volunteer/coach/assist with their teams.
It's nice to see more coverage of XC; even a few non-runner friends mentioned the Newbury Park thing recently--they had heard about the team and asked me about it.
nprunner74 wrote:
For what it is worth my son has run this course 4 times this season. It was not his “PR” course. Today he PRd by over 30 seconds. He was not in the gold race, but there still was a different kind of energy out there today and great conditions. That is where all the fast times are coming from.
Were the kids inspired by earlier races and this record-breaking one? Like did they set the record-breaking one early and then the later races had kids running the times of their lives after witnessing history? Or was the legendary race at the end and the other kids in the other races just felt particularly strong today?
ppigg wrote:
The NCAA D1 South Regional was also held on this exact course.
What does this have to do with anything??? We are talking about the length of the course. The meets that have been held on the course have nothing to do with the length of the course. Especially meets that run distances that are completely different than the meet in question. SMH.
EASTBAYWHO? wrote:
For all the folks who didn't come to Huntsville who would like to question legitimacy, I hope you find the description below useful. I will admit, I never thought I'd see Ritzenhein's record go down in my life time... but when you see Newbury Park run what they did for a 3 mile early season and then expand it out to 5k weeks later in a championship environment in peak form, It was not out of the ordinary.
From the race website...
Course Construction
Building on the foundations of the old municipal golf course, the City of Huntsville began construction of the Championship Cross Country Course in 2018. Bostick Landscape Architects led the design process with contributions from a cohort of cross-country coaches from the NCAA, USATF, and NFHS levels. The City of Huntsville has a record of constructing world class athletic venues to accommodate regional and national championships, recently displayed in the 2019 opening for the $3.7 million Sand Volleyball Complex at John Hunt Park and the $22 million 2017 renovation of the Huntsville Aquatic Center.
Facility Features
Found in the 428-acre athletic facility of John Hunt Park, the Championship Cross Country Course balances groves of trees and sculpted ponds with an open viewing experience for spectators and recreational community members. The course itself is composed of Bermuda grass and trimmed to optimal competition height during cross country season, and is flanked by signs for 5k, 6k, 8k, and 10k routes. Looping around the course is 2.1 mile of an 8-foot wide rubber path for all-weather recreational use. The spectator experience is unparalleled, featuring unimpeded hillside viewing areas throughout the competition venue. Adjoining the starting area are team tent and vendor areas, with nearby restroom facilities. To ensure that measurements remain stable through seasons and various competition markings, Geodetic Survey GPS signaling datums are used throughout the course. At the finish and key timing locations along the routes, electrical and fiber sources are permanently incorporated into the venue. Since its opening in September 2019, the John Hunt Championship Cross Country facility has hosted major competitions including the 2021 South Regional Championship (NCAA Division I) and the 2020 Gulf South Conference Championships (NCAA Division II), along with the ACAA State Championships since 2019.
Course Detail
The starting line is 100m wide. From the start, the course is straight for 650m, with the first 250m being 1% downgrade, flattening out for 100m then up at 1% for 300m to the first turn. The course does not narrow to 10m in width until 650m. The first turn is a gradual sweeping right with a downhill grade of 3%, and flattens as you cross the 1K mark. The course remains flat for the next 400m and then takes a sweeping right turn around a pond towards the 1 Mile mark. The next 400+m are flat with slight bends until a left turn takes you uphill at a 2% grade over a 150m stretch. just past the 2K mark is a left over a slight downhill into a sweeping right turn. The next stretch of 400m begins with a 2% uphill grade for 100m. The course then takes a wide 180-degree left turn before straightening prior to the 3K mark. The next 300m are straight and flat as it crosses the 2 Mile mark and leads to a 2% downhill grade for 100m. A sweeping right turn covering 75m leads to a 250m stretch at 6% uphill grade. Upon cresting the hill the grade goes downward at a 2% grade for 250m, then flat for 25m before crossing the 4K mark, where it doglegs left. The course stays straight for 250m and then makes a 150m long sweeping right turn over a 1% uphill grade before straightening out and declining at 3% over 200m. This stretch continues flat for 150m until the 4750m mark, where it makes a gradual right turn over 100m, with the final 150m being straight to the finish line.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jWXGuXCApMZ-8ODHOD8ehm2sG-q52cn5bkIruauPQ20/edit
After this race is over, will it be used as a running trail for the public, and then next December, be used as the XC course again? I have friends in 'Bama and that would be a good place to train.
True 5k wrote:
Look at the results from smaller races on this course. They're fast because it's a fast course, but they aren't unbelievable. When you take hundreds of the best runners in the country and give them perfect conditions on a very fast course and create a championship environment, kids will run fast times. GPS and wheeling data corroborates that it is a true 5k. Of course nothing is 100% accurate, but when you combine the body of evidence, it becomes clear that the course is a true 5k. There is not a single piece of evidence to dispute this claim with the exception of this joker who claims he wheeled the course 75 meters short. Hutchins and Wachtel both ran much faster 5000m times on a track 3 weeks after RunningLane last year. Sahlman and the Youngs ran very similar converted times at Woodbridge to their RunningLane times. The sport is growing, and there will be athletes who accomplish the previously unthinkable . The course is a true 5k, and to convince yourself otherwise is to deny facts in favor of preconceived notions of what is possible.
When you have thousands of people and spectators, it's a good sign...it made me feel good knowing XC is a sport that's here to stay. Football is still king but XC's popularity, esp. with the Olympics and Molly (!) this year, will inspire kids as well. I know kids (mixed) who are HS runners now because of groups like Tinman and stories like Molly Seidel's bronze.
red flag wrote:
Heard a report of a coach there who wheeled it as 75 meters short. Whatever the distance, can we just stop with the emphasis on times in xc already???
Milesplit has really pushed that angle. They just kept hammering it home that Jenna Hutchins "beat" Katelyn Touhy as #1 last year. This is a relevant conversation because it has allowed the illusion that Jenna Hutchins belongs in the same conversation as three year undefeated and national #1Katelyn Touhy. No knock on Jenna, but this just isn't an accurate representation. At all. I will back this up by noting that even Gatorade didn't gush over the "record" as they gave the National Runner of the Year award to Sydney Thorvaldson. Cross country is about grit and competition. Milesplit has pushed times in cross country as the metric for comparison.
For those who think that Running Lane will dissolve once Nike comes back, consider that they now have a niche. The "all time" record on both sides are on this course. Whether it is short, firm, downhill, or whatever - it is easier than the typical cross country course, and those who want to challenge as the "all time" best time will probably have to do it on this course to have a chance at breaking these records.
Milesplit + Running Lane = much less interesting high school cross country
That is just my opinion.
jecht wrote:
first timers club wrote:
This has to be it. No one has ever really tried in XC on a flat course before yesterday. Kids were finally actually inspired to give it their all.
I'm hoping a race like this inspires more kids to join XC, try harder at it, and more adults to want to volunteer/coach/assist with their teams.
It's nice to see more coverage of XC; even a few non-runner friends mentioned the Newbury Park thing recently--they had heard about the team and asked me about it.
What? Kids don't try hard if there are hills ?
I bet 90% of the high school cross country coaches outside of California couldn't tell you a thing about Newbury Park.
I predict a bunch of upset kids next fall when they don't PR until coming back to this course.
I’m a D2 female runner. Our coach explicitly told us not to visit LetsRun forums.
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