HOW SHORT IS AUBURN?

If someone in college is dumb enough to believe they ran 24:00 for 8k when their previous PR was 25:45, then they probably don't belong in college. This isnt high school where people can claim they ran 15:59 for 5k on some short course and call it their PR. Most dudes probably know the course is short and won't count it as a PR.

This post contains asinine conclusions.

[quote]Reliant Aries wrote:

This post contains asinine conclusions.

[quote]

The post you mentioned contained mostly facts. The last paragraph might be a conclusion you don't like, but it's a fair comment.

If Auburn would have stated the course's length correctly within 100 meters, none of this negative publicity would have happened. For that type of rough accuracy, walking the two courses with a measuring wheel would have been fine -- and taken one person only about 3 hours to walk.

Ahh yes, but at least we figured out just who on letsrun has the most amount of spare time on their hands.

auburn staff wrote:

Womens couse was gps at 3.06 miles

Guys coures gps 4.83 miles.

Its cross country, who cares about pr's the track is where you run for time.

The runners care.

If you don't care then don't measure the course, as that would be better than posting erroneous distances.

The women's course was obviously NOT 3.06 miles, and gps devices are not accurate. Neither are car or golf cart odometers.

Did you calibrate even a portion of the course with a tape?

To get a semi accurate measurement, you MUST calibrate the measuring device with a tape. The calibration distance needs to be on the same type of surface as the course, preferably a representative portion of the course. A mountain bike with a Jones counter that is CALIBRATED with a taped section would be much more accurate for a cross country course.

How much did teams pay to enter the race?

and

how much did the idiot get paid to measure the course?

This thread is a fine example of why letsrun should be shutdown. This site is like a trainwreck that I keep coming back to see what the body count is. I admit to no one that I am on here.

Let me start by saying that if you care about your pr in xc then you just don\'t get it. An example is the course at pre nats. Every year it gets faster. The time it takes to be in the top 100 has dropped almost a minute in the last 5 years. That is a combination of more/better teams, teams peaking earlier to get points and the course is faster despite being the EXACT SAME LENGTH as the year before. This may have stunned some of you rocket scientists out there but it is true.

The next thing is the claim by that jackass that Pete Watson can\'t coach and that is why he has international athletes. There are several types of people on these message boards. Unfortunately the dirtiest and nastiest type is the college coach that is trying to make himself look better by constantly making the ignorant young high schoolers believe that they are better than they really are.

Those guys are bad but the lowest scum on earth is that coach that keeps getting his ass kicked so he gets on here looking for a way to out recruit another rival coach or just make him look bad. That is more than likely the case here and so often on letsrun.

Note to any high schoolers - DO NOT come on here looking for good info about schools. You are more than likely reading something from a college coach so it is way too biased. Do your own homework. Talk to a coach. If you talk to Pete Watson then you will find out quickly that he knows what he is doing. If you listen to some insecure coach trying to tear him down on letsrun then you are making a mistake.

I am a coach that has recruited against Pete several times. He does a great job. When Pete starts getting the top Americans (and he does try to recruit them) then he will show you. By the way, the African runners are not machines. They also have to be coached. Remember that Dathan Ritz, Adam Goucher, Leo Manzano etc. were all VERY good before they stepped foot on their respective college campuses. Their coaches did not MAKE them. They could have been great in MANY programs.

Sorry so long - good night

Wow, I've never read that type of diatribe from a "DI coach" before on LetsRun.com.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out. . .

(You'll be back lurking in less than two weeks).

[quote]another college coach wrote:

Every year it gets faster. The time it takes to be in the top 100 has dropped almost a minute in the last 5 years. That is a combination of more/better teams, teams peaking earlier to get points and the course is faster despite being the EXACT SAME LENGTH as the year before. This may have stunned some of you rocket scientists out there but it is true.

Courses get faster over the years as they get beaten down and more firm. What started out as lumpy grass is now hard packed and firm. There is a high school course in my area that is constantly questioned but the fast times are a result of the course being run on for 35 years, being almost flat, and generally having one of the first cool days of the season. This year when the humidity was way up, most of the times were 20-30 seconds slower. Of course kids aren't running ridiculous times like they did on that Auburn course that was a half mile short.

What kind of idotic banter are you expecting to prove here?You're speaking out against yourself in every right, you're a coach and any highschooler that comes here should simply say "whats this dipshit know?"You're just a coach, go away and coach instead of trying to make yourself out to be better than other people you self manipulating half-witted retard.

Wow, it's getting harder packed?? The thing turns back into a mudhole every November! Terrible explanation.

You sir, are an idiot

Is it asking too much for runners to be told the correct length of a course to within 50 meters so they can use their finish time as an indicator of their current fitness and from that adjust their training?

Amazingly it appears that the Washington Women bumped off the #1 ranked Oregon women in the polls this week as a direct result of the unbeliveably fast times they ran on Auburn's short course. I doubt the Washington or Auburn coach told those voting in the USTFCCCA national poll that the Auburn women's course was about a minute short. Nearly all the Washington runners ran the Auburn course a minute faster (after adjusting from 6K to 5K) than they did the prior week as Sundodger where most ran PRs and their top runner broke the Sundodger course record. It is crazy to believe they all took another minute off their new PRs a week later.

This past weekend #1 Oregon convincingly beat #11 Arkansas by 23 to 60. Arkansas they moved up in the polls to #10. At the same time #2 Washington has yet to race against any ranked team and has only raced against one individual competitor who finished on the top-100 at '07 Nats.

Washington didn't go from 1 first place vote to 11 first place votes because they beat some slow unranked teams or individuals at Auburn and Sundodger. They got those ten new votes for #1 because of their great times at Auburn. The individuals who vote in the UATFCCCA national poll likely had no idea of how short the Auburn women's course really was.

and the polls are how important? Oh, that's right. They don't mean shit!

thats basically the exact point people are making... many people BELIEVE it was 8k and for it to be represented that way is dishonest. almost every year that course is misleading and nothing is done to correct it because they apparently want obsurd times to be one of the appeals of racing there. there wouldn't be an issue at all if they would just put 7.6k on the results, or were able to measure an 8k correctly. as terrible an academic school as auburn is, you would think someone would know how to tack on an extra 400m somewhere or atleast put the correct measurement at the point they stopped on the results.

Hollie Knight's track pr at 5000m is 16:11 so to say she set a 2min PR on the Auburn course is nothing but proof of your ignorance and pure desire to attack people.

Obviously both courses were short but I dont understand why there is such a big deal being made. In cross country, no matter how you measure it, there are going to length discrepancies. Courses are almost never 100% accurate and can be long or short to varying degrees.

The people complaining about this are being ridiculous because: 1. It's cross country! Times are always taken with a grain of salt unless they are run consistently - anyone believing they ran a PR by almost 2min this week will be in for a serious shock the rest of the season. 2. Unless you ran on the course - you have no right to even be angry at the supposed the deception by the Auburn program. If you ran there expecting a full-8k - sorry! If you didn't run there stop being a jealous little bitch. I know how people on letsrun work - they see blazing times and since nobody can be faster than them, they find every way possible to discredit those faster times. Get a life! 3. It's not that big of a deal. Perhaps Coach Watson should change the results, but even if he doesn't the course being short does not warrant the kind of attacks being posted here.

Finally, Coach Watson is a pretty damn good coach and so was Coach Fox when he was at Auburn. The reason Auburn now recruits a lot of foreign talent is not because Watson cannot coach. It has to do with the desire for instant results in a track and field focused program. In other words, pressure is put on the distance coach to immediately have someone who can score points at nationals. Fox brought Watson in for this reason because Fox himself was about to have to start looking overseas. So don't try to start bullshit by saying one coach can't coach because he recruits outside the country - it's just wrong.

First, Run77 was comparing XC PRs at 5K. He never said Hollie broke her track PR by 2 minutes. She probably is the only runner that ran a true XC PR at this meet.

Second, no one is asking for perfectly accurate measurements on Auburn's XC courses. Just tell us the true length within 40-50 meter accuracy. Just have someone spend a few hours walking the courses with a measuring wheel. Don't even bother to calibrate the wheel.

And yes I have a right to be upset, even though I didn't run this race. The Oregon women lost their #1 ranking due to your very short course. Washington's going from 1 #1 vote to 11 #1 votes because they ran on a very short course finally convinced me the USTFCCCA polls are a joke and not worth paying attention to. In the future, I'll do my own rankings based on head-to-head performances at pre-nats, and the conf/regional meets.

QUESTIONS:

So why won't Auburn spend a few hours wheeling the course and tell us about (within 50 meters) what the course lengths are?

Is it because Auburn has stubborn individuals that can't admit they made a mistake here?

Does Auburn still contend the women's course is accurate in length?

Does Auburn even know how to measure a course by measuring the shortest permissible path thru the course (running the tangents, staying on inside around curves)?

During Chris Fox's last year or two, the finish line was moved and the courses were the most accurate they have been at Auburn for years. During Coach Watson's first year the finish lines were moved back to the fairway used when the courses were short. This accounts for some of the improvements the last five years. I usually think of the courses as 400 short for men and 200 for women.

Coach Watson sent me out to do the course again and I did it three times the girls course is 157 meters short. The guys course is 372 meters short.

We are allowed on the golf course less than 48 hours before the race. We never run there and we have limited access to the facility. We have 6 hours to lay it out before the facilities people come out and paint and stake the race course.

The xc course is flat, no hills and we had very good talent at the race this year so combined with perfect weather, great talent and a short course you are seeing fast times.

I can tell you that all the coaches from the big schools have told us how great of a weekend they had and that they plan on coming back.

thanks