Trotter 180 vs Tuohy 177 vs Cook 165!!! Speed Ratings!!! Historical accuracy???

This list of two mile times is incorrect. T&F News keeps a master list for 2M/3200/3000:

Combined 3000/3200/2M list (expressed as 2M):
9:38.68i
*Cain
2013
9:43.38+i
*Efraimson
2014
9:43.87+
Rainsberger
2016
9:44.44i
Cook
2022
9:45.16+i
*Tuohy
2019
9:47.95i
Thorvaldson
2021
9:50.70
Frias
2022
9:50.72
*Riggs
2022
9:50.92+i
Starliper
2020
9:51.00i
Brown
2021

Not even close tbh. Sunken Meadow is not 30+ seconds slower than Holmdel, thats ridiculous, and ive run all 3 courses. VCP is a 4K so it gets less weight from me.

To put Tuohy's 16:21 at Holmdel in perspective, the second fastest girl's time at Holmdel is Angelina Perez's 17:07, which Perez ran just a few weeks before she finished only 4 seconds behind Natalie Cook at Balboa Park. And Natalie Cook had just run 16:02 at RunningLane the week before.

When I first saw Tuohy's time at Holmdel I thought it was a typo. Tuohy's 16:21 is in a league of it's own.

She clearly cut the course

Tuohy cut Holmdel? No she didn't. Your statement shows that you obviously don't know the Holmdel course very well.

What's the time of the second fastest girl ever at Sunken Meadow?

I grew up 10 miles from the course and ran it hundreds of times. I likely know it better than anyone here. I was sort of joking but it is very easy to cut at the start of the prairie or around the bowl.

And there is 10th place finisher, Sadie Engelhardt, who is faster than both of them on the track.

I think the second fastest time in SM was Aisling Cuffe. If I recall it was about 50 seconds slower.

Anybody can cut anything but getting away with it is a whole different thing. Touhy couldn't cut Holmdel and get away with it.

its thorough (as always) but his basic point is that Trotter blew away the rest of the field that included future world class runners to a level no one had done before. and that her performance is almost off a chart of some of the very best performances ever (as of 2015 of course). So this whole argument is a little pedantic (arguing over a few points here or there that dont actually mean anything anyway. you get no prizes from speed ratings) and ignores the great positive impact Meylan has had on the sport (especially if you coach).

Just something to make people question my sanity even more ...

I was asked to classify Katelyn Tuohy's 16:21 performance at Holmdel in terms people could understand (e.g. forget the stupid speed ratings).

Well, RunningLane with Newbury Park and Natalie Cook in 2021 seems to be something track people use as a gold standard (and add in Jenna Hutchins from 2020) ... so I'll use that.

In 2021, 25 runners who ran the New Jersey MOC shortly before the RunningLane Championships also ran in the RunningLane Gold race ... At the NJ MOC, the Union Catholic Boys ran the 2nd fastest team average time in Holmdel Park history (16:01 ... the fastest is 15:52 by CBA in 2013, and CBA finished 2nd at NXN Nationals that year).

At RunningLane, the Union Catholic Boys finished 4th to Newbury Park (14:41 team average) with a team average of 15:02 ... So based on team average alone, RunningLane ran 59 seconds faster than Holmdel Park with respect to the Union Catholic top 5 guys.

Holmdel Park ran very fast at the NJ MOC (many good individual times) ... and in my assessment, Holmdel ran faster at that race than the day Katelyn Tuohy ran 16:21, but I'm excluding that entirely to leave this evaluation to just times so track people can understand it.

Other New Jersey runners (both boys & girls) ran at RunningLane and ran decently ... combining them with the Union Catholic guys gives 25 NJ Holmdel runners to compare RunningLane versus Holmdel Park only two weeks apart in race results.

Of the 25 runners, a few could be excluded as outliers ... But both excluding and not excluding outliers, the median difference between the two races falls between 47 and 49 seconds with an average of about 49 seconds faster at RunningLane.

So ..... Using that 49 seconds as a "ball-park" estimate, Katelyn Tuohy's 16:21 at Holmdel minus 49 seconds yields 15:32 at RunningLane.

Also note that 16:21 would have been Union Catholic's #4 scorer at Holdmel ... That's right Katelyn Tuohy would have been the #4 runner for the team that ran the 2nd fastest team average in Holmdel history ... UC times at MOC were 15:22.0, 15:35.0, 16:10.0, 16:27.0, 16:34.0, 17:11.0 and 17:50.0.

Please remember ... This was Katelyn Tuohy at her very best ... As I have noted previously, Jenna Hutchins' 15:58 was not her best XC performance (I believe another performance was 12+ seconds superior in relation to other runners and equal to her track 5K of 15:34).

Tuohy's performances her junior before she started dealing with injuries were historic. She would not regain and then surpass that level until Spring of her sophomore year of college.

Tuohy's Holmdel performance remains as the single greatest cross country race I have ever seen. I don't think people understand it enough just how absurd her time was, so thank you for this analysis. What struck me even more was when she said she could have gone faster if she ran it again because it was the first time she raced at the Holmdel course when she ran 16:21. I could still remember how Tuohy closed the last meters of that race, just sheer power and speed. Never seen anything like it, then she was mobbed by fans after the race.

It is one of the top female high school XC races ever if that is what you meant.

Bill with all due respect, because overall your work is solid... Tuohy at nxn 2017 is better than trotters 180!!!

She beat the girls in her race, who were way better in comparison, by a bigger margin!!! Clearly!!!

And while trotter is slightly better compared to the boys! Like 5 seconds!!!! But tuohy ran the course after a huge boys race!!!

Trotter ran first!!!

Boys easily had 15 seconds if not 20 or 25 edge over girls results, by running first!!!

If u factor that in it's clear that nxn2017 was a more dominant performance by tuohy!!!

But no biggie u do a great job in general!

Speed ratings especially in XC are bull IMO.