Wejo's comment on Foot Locker West

mobile9 wrote:

Isn't there a bit of a conflict, given that FL West is the same day?

Not any more of a conflict than in the Northeast, where FL Northeast is the same day as NTN Northeast.

Remember that old movie on the Kinney xc race? They showed parts of the West regional and I was surprised to see all the pavement that was part of the course.

There was some rain the night of the 84 championships and there was talk of re-routing the course to run down the street because it was feared the downhill would be too treacherous.

Ridiculous.

We do run in the rain here in CA.

http://www.dyestatcal.com/statemeet/3xc/SacJoaquin/SectionFinals/Album2/pages/28GreatCecilyLemmonRunner-UpEffort_jpg.htm

We even fall down

http://www.dyestatcal.com/statemeet/3xc/SacJoaquin/SectionFinals/Album8/pages/18SectionTitlesAreGreatPainkillers_JPG.htm

However, I want you all to remember the movie ghost, the scene with the pottery clay. That is what happens to the dirt around much of the state when the rains fall.

Occasionally, even some of our superstars have to get muddy

http://www.dyestatcal.com/statemeet/3xc/SacJoaquin/SectionFinals/Album1/pages/11SchuylerBurkhardtWilliamsKosinski_jpg.htm

First off it wasn't my comment it was Roberts but someone emailed me and basically said the course wasn't walkable. If that's the case then you have to come up with an alternative. Shocked to learn there aren't any other courses nearby that would be runnable but a road race is the next best alternative.

I'm also really surprised you can't wear spikes in California. I thought that is what XC running was.

I just can't buy the "it wasn't runnable" argument.

d3 nationals 2006 - won in 26 something i believe because of the conditions

NESCACs 2006 - in a hurricane with mud, where half the race picked up a parasite from the water

Thetford Academy - any number of high school races/ New englands

Vanny

Sorry, it was runnable. I don't need to see it. Maybe the times would be 3 minutes slow. Maybe it would've been shitty, but it was runnable.

Having a road race for cross is despicable as well. You run in the conditions present. Period. The exception, of course, being lightning.

RealXCRunning wrote:

SoCal Pete,

I think the "real reason" the race was held on a "a fast flat hard surface like a road" was to make sure "German" was going to be in the finals!...that's what I think!

RealXCRunning,

Any reason you put German's name between quotation marks repeatedly (in multiple posts)? It is actually his name.

WilfordBrimley wrote:

I just can't buy the "it wasn't runnable" argument.

d3 nationals 2006 - won in 26 something i believe because of the conditions

NESCACs 2006 - in a hurricane with mud, where half the race picked up a parasite from the water

Thetford Academy - any number of high school races/ New englands

Vanny

Sorry, it was runnable. I don't need to see it. Maybe the times would be 3 minutes slow. Maybe it would've been shitty, but it was runnable.

Having a road race for cross is despicable as well. You run in the conditions present. Period. The exception, of course, being lightning.

Good job. Next time I see a tornado, I will lace up the spikes.

ha, sorry, forgot to mention twisters.

WilfordBrimley wrote:

I just can't buy the "it wasn't runnable" argument.

d3 nationals 2006 - won in 26 something i believe because of the conditions

NESCACs 2006 - in a hurricane with mud, where half the race picked up a parasite from the water

Thetford Academy - any number of high school races/ New englands

Vanny

Sorry, it was runnable. I don't need to see it. Maybe the times would be 3 minutes slow. Maybe it would've been shitty, but it was runnable.

Having a road race for cross is despicable as well. You run in the conditions present. Period. The exception, of course, being lightning.

Great. Next time a Katrina style storm comes in we can schedule a race for you. After all it really isn't about developing athletes for the future, we have to "toughen" them up so we can send them to Iraq and Afghanistan(sarcasm strongly intended). Dude, get a grip on reality.

NY represent wrote:

Yeah, you placed second in bad conditions to an EAST COAST team. And it wasn't even close. HAHAHA!!! Thanks for playing.

How did the boys from NY "represent" at NTN? Looks like some teams from more mild climates did just fine... New Mexico, Texas, and California all had teams finish higher than NY's best boys team.

Quit acting like a 7th grader and try to understand the situations in California at the time. As a clarification, I'm not from CA and actually prefer muddy XC races, but knowing the Mt. SAC course and it's clay soil, I understand the unfortunate decision they had to make. Next time southern CA gets that much rain in a short period of time, why don't you fly out to CA and do a time trial on the Mt. SAC course?

real xc wrote:

It sounds like you're describing real xc conditions. Those sort of conditions are simply standard protocol in New England and the Northwest. What's with you California guys?

This is incorrect. I'm originally from New England and now live in Cali. When it rains, trails that are clay are simply not runnable.

WilfordBrimley wrote:

I just can't buy the "it wasn't runnable" argument.

d3 nationals 2006 - won in 26 something i believe because of the conditions

NESCACs 2006 - in a hurricane with mud, where half the race picked up a parasite from the water

Thetford Academy - any number of high school races/ New englands

Vanny

Sorry, it was runnable. I don't need to see it. Maybe the times would be 3 minutes slow. Maybe it would've been shitty, but it was runnable.

Having a road race for cross is despicable as well. You run in the conditions present. Period. The exception, of course, being lightning.

Another person talking tough about things they don't know about. d3 nationals was in mud. Mud is fine for cross country. Clay is not. You can't run in it.

SoCal Pete wrote:

Though, for the record, the top elevation of the Ozarks qualify as "foothills" around here. Good grief, the Baldy race starts at 6000 feet!

There is a difference between total elevation and elevation difference over the course of a run. You can go for a flat run at 6000 feet.

Ever hear the Ozarks saying "our mountains aint very high but our valleys sure are deep."

mud and clay do the same damn thing. stop beijng pussys

I love peeps wrote:

someone put up the hardest courses in the country-

Some of those are so steep you have to climb on all fours.

Please, the idiots in California think anything that isn't a track is hard. In fact, a small bump on a track is a 'tough' incline. Poor babies. Momma's there, dun' worry.

I can take u to a couple courses we used to compete on in CA that were pretty hard. quarter mile long inclines followed by another quarter mile of switchbacks, lots of steep hills. I ran on flat courses where you had to run through ankle deep standing water around a lake edge for most of the first mile. Of course the ground was just mud & sucked up everyones shoes. That was fun

In the state meet we ran on a mud soaked course, where they ran the small schools first, then the women, By the time, most of us had to run through waist deep weeds out of bounds because the "hills"(one of which was a 45 degree 50 foot embankment)we unrunable and guys were stuck on them.

In the City HS championships which my school usually won, we lost the varsity race my senior year because the 5th man was shoved off the switchbacks down the embankment.

CA courses used to be as hard as anywhere in the country

and a hell of alot harder than the golf courses i have seen other states use.

Just to clarify what i mean by "stuck" guys on all fours trying to claw their way up the embankment but in fact slipping downward faster than they could crawl. Others guys were stuck because they could not pull their feet out of the muck.

These were the guys who had got there ahead of me, at about 4:30-4:40.

[/quote

There is a difference between total elevation and elevation difference over the course of a run. You can go for a flat run at 6000 feet.

Ever hear the Ozarks saying "our mountains aint very high but our valleys sure are deep."[/quote]

I don't run many hills anymore but i can take you to some nice gradients we used to run up, we can start with the average 10 percent grade 1 mile road to my house maybe

there is a nice trail to the top of Oat mountain nearby that was used by all the local runners i think it over thousand feet elevation gain in 6 or 8 miles

we do 17 mile runs in the Hills constant climbing

as Dave Babiracki about them

South Lewis High School in Turin, NY.

Its in the middle of nowhere. Most of the course goes through cow fields, and you more or less have to scale this mountain to get to one of the fields. Seriously. Brutal switchback. And you run down it first.

One year we ran that in a downpour. Even with 3/4s in it was treacherous as all hell, with near washout conditions...but we did it. Watching the girls was the best. The top group of 5 or so at this particular invite made a mutual decision to back off and they were way ahead of the back. When the pack came through you heard nothing but screaming. It was hilarious. I don't know that they still use that course, but Lopez Lomong set the record with a mid-high 15 something for only 2.8 miles. (2.8 that ran like a 5k, thats how we saw it.)

Similar conditions at another section 3 (NY) school, Weedsport - has a brutal hill ("science hill") that you have to scale. We ran that one in the rain too...it was so steep a lot of people just slid down on their butts.

It can be done.

But I have to say I can't see how the kids out there would have the necessary spikes to run that kind of course.

be realistic wrote: mud and clay do the same damn thing. stop beijng pussys

is it really that hard to understand that the different minerals in soils give them different properties? it's really basic stuff here. you have geology, geography, chemistry and physics all at the most basic level. this isn't mud that can be sloppy, cold and inconvenient. it's clay which clumps to the bottom of shoes and once you have a couple pounds on the bottom of each foot it slips against the wet clay on the ground. on a hilly course like this it wouln't resemble cross country running, it would be survivor style slip & slide scramble with a lot of injuries