Real All-Americans

I don't think the fact that we are honored for being one of the top 30 Americans is something to be ashamed of at all. Just like one is honored as "all-state" for being one of the best runners in his respective state regardless of how competitive he is relative to the rest of the country. However, we all have to realize that being top 15 at the ncaa cross meet doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things and that however good we are in the US, we would get our asses handed to us in a lot of other countries. I think people should worry less about being All-Something and more about the black and white track times, or your actual place at something like the world cross meet (or getting there to begin with).

"However, we all have to realize that being top 15 at the ncaa cross meet doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things and that however good we are in the US, we would get our asses handed to us in a lot of other countries."

Hopeful,

I agree with the above comment, yet I'm troubled with your quick reflection pertaining to the race "doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things..." OK, if you're an athlete who merely wishes to compete in the event and become an "All American", you should be proud of accomplishing that goal regardless of whether they intend on competing in other countries or against other nationally ranked runners from different countries.

The real question here is whether runners should be proud of accomplishing a task that the majority of his/her teammates were unable to accomplish. For that, I would say be proud of your accomplishments. There's no need to boast about it or hang the certificate up on your wall. The peace of mind is what it's all about. The start of something better?...maybe. The cumulation of a long and arduous season....maybe.

I would have the decency to accept the flack for being "just an All-American"! Wouldn't you?

Remember, It is not the athletes fault that the standards are set like they are. They should gladly accept the award and feel however they must in their own mind. They should also be humble and appreciative when addressing the subject regardless of how they intrinsically feel about it. If you want a real issue, try qualifying standards for the Olympic Trials in the marathon. They accept the 100th best time from the previous year to set the standard. Not only is this incredibly weak, but it tarnishes things for the real athletes. The track standards are set with intentions of 12-24 qualifying. The results are are a lot of average runners (compared with the track athletes) walking around bragging about being olympic trials qualifiers. Go 100 deep in the track events for comparison and you will see how weak this 'honor' is. How about 4:13+ for a mile, etc. So, here is your issue if you want ot bring up the subject of hollow honors.

I think the women's marathon had over 200 qualifiers, has that standard been changed for 2004?

Jimmy 6, Yes, I believe the womens standards have been tightened, but only minimally. I believe they dropped from 2:52 to 2:50. So now a woman must run a phenominal 6:30 pace to be considered 'elite' by most of the joggers standards while a 2:05/4:37/16:00/33:50 women & men's 1:48/3:59/13:51/28:40 are not. How pathetic! Again, this is not the athlete's fault and I realize the nature of a road race (marathon) being able to accommodate more runners, but for these people to portray that they are elite is a vast stretch.

To clarify, my team is almost half foreign and half american, and the guys get along really well, but the problem is that the award seems hollow because for my teamates to get it they must for sure be in the top 25, and for me, an american, I can be as high as, like, 43rd (one year) and still call myself an all american. So it seems like we are placing a higher standard on the foriegn athletes, which makes them try just a little harder, and possibly maybe want it a little more...just a thought.

The Truth

Why are they giving even 25? The 10,000 on the track gives what: 6 or 8? Top 10 is plenty, beyond that they are all cheap in purists minds.

Saying they only give 8 in the 10k is missleading as they also give at least 8 in the 5k, steeple and 1500. Which adds up to at least 32 "american" all-americans not counting the foreign athletes that also recieve the award.

Are you saying that the 100th best mile time in the US is >4:13? That sounds really hard to believe (impossible, I think, if you include 1500m equivalents (3:55)). It's very common to see collegiate dual meets with several guys under 4:14/3:56. And this happens multiple times per week.

That said, I agree that the marathon standard is alot softer than the track standards. But, why not? It's easy enough to fit 100 skinny guys on a road.

6-8 All-American awards are given to the 10K in track. This is not misleading in that X-C is 10K. To truly include 1500, 5K, 800 runners, the X-C distance should be somewhere in the middle, not the farthest distance of all. Maybe a 3 mile? To answer for realist, the 200th best time (marathon oly. trials standard) is much slower than you would think. Go to USATF and count names. The 800 ends with about 85 people under 1:50, thus the 200th time must be 1:52-1:53 or a very average time. The mile is much slower interms of depth than you think. 4:13? I don't know, but will look.

The 53rd time listed by USATF was 4:04.91. The 56th 1500 was 3:44+ (4:02-4:03), so 4:13 would be a bit slow for 200th place. Probably more like 4:08-4:09 which still seems pretty average to be deemed 'elite' or 'olympic trials' caliber. Also keep in mind that there is a much larger pool in the shorter distances which also makes it much deeper.

Ok, I had a little fun with numbers here. For data, I used the comprehensive lists for 1500m and mile for US men in 2002. I used the 1.079 conversion to convert everything to mile equivalents. Using some basic statistical techniques, I came up with the following equation relating mile time and rank:

miletime (in seconds) = 234 + 1.05*squareroot(rank)

This equation predicts that the 200th fastest US men's mile time should be around 4:08.85. The 1000th fastest should be 4:27.2, and the 10,000th fastest 5:39.

I'll need to look at this a little more carefully to get a better idea of how good a model this is.

Ryan, That is cool that you are that in tune with numbers. I simply counted down the list which was boring to say the least, and I have enough of a life that I won't count to 1000. The time you came up with sounds about right. Be sure that you do not count repeat times by the same runner. for instance, using a world list El G's times can only be counted once. Again, neat formula that looks right. How does it apply to other distance events such as 800, 5 & 10K for comparison's sake?

Using similar techniques, I found the following equations:

800m time = 104.126 + 0.72729*squareroot(rank)

5000m time = 790.422 + 6.5656*squareroot(rank)

10,000m time = 1662.9 + 13.1693*squareroot(rank)

Note: times are in seconds, and apply to American men only.

These equations estimate that for the 800m, 200th = 1:54.41, 1000th = 2:07.12, and 10,000th = 2:56.86.

For the 5000m, 200th = 14:43.27, 1000th = 16:38.04, and 10,000th = 24:06.98.

For the 10,000m, 200th = 30:49.14, 1000th = 34:39.35, and 10,000th = 49:39.83.

The estimates for 200th and 100th seem pretty good, but they seem too slow for 10,000th. There have got to be more than 10,000 American men under 49:40 for 10k I think. This is probably due to the fact that my data consist of only the top ranked men, making the formula less useful for non-competitive runners.

I may play around with this a bit. Given some serious fine tuning, it could produce some fun algorithms to play with.

Just think, if the 200th fastest 800m guy in the US runs a 1:54, that's actually not too bad. So a fast high schooler, or a mediocre college runner can say, "hey, I'm not elite, but I'm 200th out of 250,000,000 people in the USA for my event". Kinda a stretch, I know, since not everyone runs track and field, but to say that only 199 people out of every 250,000,000 can beat you (and its "only" 1:54) is pretty cool, I think. Same goes for the 200th place mile times, 5k, 10k etc...

Everybody on this board thinks that times like 1:54, 14:43 blah blah blah aren't that good, but you gotta remember that it's all relative. Just trying to put a positive spin and different perspective on things here so guys who aren't elite, but good runners nonetheless can feel good about their accomplishments. Ok I'm done.

ryan_s, I am sorry but after the 200th place, your predictive model does not hold. This year, in a D3 conference (MIAC) with only ten schools, 40 guys ran under 16:20,

http://www.raceberryjam.com/indexod.html

and by my estimation, at least 10 to 20 more ran under 16:40. You can imagine that if this is true for a small D3 conference, there are far more than 1000 American men that can run 16:38 when you include D2,D1 high school, and post collegiate runners. (1000 is only 20 per state)

Same is true for the 800m, there were 40 under 2:02 in the MIAC, and again at least 10 more under the standard of 2:07 which you set. You grossly underestimate with your model. Good try though. Try using the natural log.

Sorry, I meant to link to this:

http://www.raceberryjam.com/miacodmenperf.html

You make a good point. Since my model is based on data strictly from very fast runners, the farther out we attempt to extrapolate, the less valid it will be.

I would be very interested to find data regarding super-deep rankings to (a) improve the model and (b) test the model.

Also, the conference you mention sounds pretty strong for d3 -- that's an average of 4 guys per team under 16:20.

When I originally tried the natural log, it yielded a less accurate model than the square root did. But it may be better for extrapolative purposes.

Hardcore bump.

They have extended the AA certs even further back now, 21 years after this post. What is it. top 40? Is that too easy? Could an American now be, like +50th place and get an AA cert? At least those guys had to be belowish 40th?!?