NAIA Rankings 10/25

Surveyor wrote:

With the NAIA national meet being held in Louisville the California schools do have an advantage for two major reasons.

1. The courses in California are generally much flatter than courses elsewhere in the country (except for the SW). The course in Louisville is virtually a grass track and is completely without a single hill. As a result, the strength that is developed by other teams that frequently run on hills has no effect.

2. Weather. When the race was held in Wisconsin the west coast and warm weather schools typically ran like crap. They would be highly ranked all year and then tank at the national meet. Louisville provides a weather pattern that is much more conducive to the west coast schools.

I don't think you have ever run at nationals because you are off the mark on both accounts.

he's right man.

an earlier post was commenting on how VI runs courses rated upwards of 5 and west coast courses are all 1-2... saying that louisville seems easy for the east coast teams and hard for the west coast teams

that's like saying: with my 10k training a mile will seem so easy because it's way shorter...

you can't make comments like that.

(don't defend the comment with anything scientific here... i'm purely using another blatently incorrect example to fight fire with fire)

Where can you find these grades for courses?

You are correct Mr Txn. I have only been to the last 13 championships so I am clearly speaking without any real knowledge. Thank you for straightening me out.

amen

Well then you missed a couple of hills that are run twice which equals four hills, not major gut renching hills but hills none the less. and the weather, especially the past two years, has been nothing nice for the west coast teams, solid mud two years ago and temps in the 20s last year.

You say the temperature was WHAT last year? Not the day of the meet it wasn't.

As for the hills you speak of, please let me know on what part of the course these "hills" are located. I have run the course and cannot recall any. The fact that you call them hills at all may just prove my point.

Well in the fourth mile on that part of the course you only do once there is a fairly short but steep hill, and then there is that hill that you do twice after you make the first sharp turn left, about 3/4 mile into the race.

Surveyor wrote:

You say the temperature was WHAT last year? Not the day of the meet it wasn't.

As for the hills you speak of, please let me know on what part of the course these "hills" are located. I have run the course and cannot recall any. The fact that you call them hills at all may just prove my point.

yeah, i agree. i find it funny that the guy claiming his east coast is so tough ( i love the east coast, but don't think it's much tougher than the west), is the only one who seems to think there are hills on the national course.

The only part that really even goes up hill is right before you hit the model airplane field, on that first loop that is run twice, and the uphill is preceeded by a big downhill, and if you have any idea of how to run your momentum carries you 3/4 of the way up that tiny hill. Trust me, the west coast has plenty of hills bigger than that. that won't be breaking annnnyone.

Take a look at this website.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/lmk/php/print_localdata.php?loc=climate&data=lex//normal/normal_lex_nov.txt

It would appear that the temperature the day of the meet last year was a high of 53 (1 degree below normal) and a low of 36 (1 degree below normal). I didn't see any twenties and by all indications, the weather was quite normal.

GSAC schools have some great teams. rarely do they rely on talent from overseas. Rono is an exception, Keino was from AIU, not a GSAC school, but region II nonetheless, but it was a school of international students.

what i want to know is why schools from back east and the midwest don't come out here and run. i'd like to see some of these schools that think their courses are so tough run the La Mirada course, where GSAC was held last year (2005). Let's put it this way: Brian Baker of Biola barely broke 26 minutes on that course, but ran under 25 at NAIA a few weeks later back in 2004.

my school traveled to Kentucky, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Stanford and Oregon during the years I was there (not all in the same season though). why don't we see some schools run Aztec Invite, Fresno St Invite, or something along those lines?

i'll tell you why: your ratings will drop, b/c of the network of raters who scratch each others backs every 5 seconds. when they see a midwest or east coast school get smashed by a west coast team on a west coast course, that team will lose all credibility for the rest of the year. it's not due to money, because your schools (read: Doane, Malone, VIC, etc) all get a ton of money for XC. GSAC schools barely get anything, but do a lot of fundraising.

ummm, do you realize that Concordia (CA) is located about 1/4 mile from where the national high school girls mile record holder went to high school and about 1/3 of a mile from where Steve Scott went to college?

The area is pretty much the ideal place to live if you didn't have to worry about paying rent. They got plenty of dirt flat trails or hilly trails and the weather is great year round.

OBU OBU OBU!!!

Why doubt Simmons? He seemed to be able make things click on that day (nats) for four years now. The guy doesnt need foreigners either. At Minot he had all ND white boys and a canuk here and their but their basically american boys anyways. You have to give respect where its due.

Um actually he does need foreigners. With out David Chermoi VIC does not have a chance.

stop talking about VI, who cares.

well I guess we know who is running the NAIA website now.

holy rediculous

A quick question. At NAIA nationals, top 30 finishers get All-American honors. Was it ever the case that All-American awards were only presented to Americans and not non-US citizen foreigner? (so the top 25 or 30 true Americans or whatever it was got the award. Or maybe they just gave it to only Americans, so the # of people receiving it varried depending on how many American runners finished in the top30. I thought I heard that. Is that true? Or was that one of the NCAA divisions. Thanks.