USATF XC Club Nationals – Observations

O.K. but. Shorter shorts. Tighter singlets.

That usually has more to do with limitations at the host facility and limitations of the LOC. I do know that having coffee available at the course is something we are definitely going to try to have in Seattle next year.

There are multiple photo galleries of the meet posted online (and I posted links to two of them below). Can you post a link to a photo of the DQd athlete?

You're right, the meet does not have a large budget. Would you rather more of the money go into an ATV to follow the action, or prize money for the teams?

The photos on the USATF website are terrible! Well, reduced significantly in quality anyway, I am sure they were great pictures originally.

Check out these galleries, you can also order from those sites.

Club Nationals has pretty strict rules about residency requirements, I am not sure if all of those programs can field a full team of eligible athletes.

[quote]polevaultpower wrote:

Re: "The photos on the USATF website are terrible!

I doubt USATF would have posted the photos if they were terrible. Those slide show photos is the photographer providing what was asked for. Those images are slightly more than thumbnails, which were provided hours after the event with no processing. It is a lot easier to get perfects photos when you can pick and choose your shots, as opposed to having to capture every single athlete, in every race, mutiple times. When an event has over 1,300 participants, with no break in the action, there is no time to swapt out lenes or change camera settings...it become as much about production as photography.

Check out:

www.backprint.com/themurraygroup

This is where you will find over 6,000 photos, a half dozen shots of each athlete in each race and a complete documentation of the event.

ImageMagic wrote:

Check out:

http://www.backprint.com/themurraygroup

This is where you will find over 6,000 photos, a half dozen shots of each athlete in each race and a complete documentation of the event.

Do update us when the photos are all tagged by team/bib number/race, looks like quite the effort.

polevaultpower wrote:

ImageMagic wrote:

Check out:

http://www.backprint.com/themurraygroup

This is where you will find over 6,000 photos, a half dozen shots of each athlete in each race and a complete documentation of the event.

Do update us when the photos are all tagged by team/bib number/race, looks like quite the effort.

We normally tag photos, but we may skip this step becasue USATF is sensitive about releasing the data needed to do this, but you are correct, it is "quite the effort".

TrackCoach wrote:

7. The DQ because of the uniform violation: I saw the DQed runner and his top matched the others close enough for me. It was the same color, had the same logo, except is was mesh and looked a little older; perhaps this runner was wearing last year’s model.

They were not even close to the same color.

Most of Indiana Elite had on neon yellow

Hass had on black

Scott had on blue

TrackCoach wrote:

7. The DQ because of the uniform violation: I saw the DQed runner and his top matched the others close enough for me. It was the same color, had the same logo, except is was mesh and looked a little older; perhaps this runner was wearing last year’s model.

They were not even close to the same color.

Most of Indiana Elite had on neon yellow

Hass had on black

Scott had on blue

[/quote]

These are not the runners I was referring to, perhaps the runner I am thinking was not DQed. There was a runner on the open male starting line with a slightly different top that an official was telling him that his top did not match.

I would agree on that.

Lots of people took this serious, and I thought that was great. The runners worked it, and I heard people complain when they didn't run their best, so it was important to them that they perform well. No one can do their best every time out. but the fact that people expected this was a time to do their best was good.

I think the whole "ringer" thing is overblown, and the rules are pretty stupid. The whole situation is solved by saying "are you a member of 'x' club for a year or have never been a member of any other club". When a guy of my obvious lack of caliber needs to get a validation for a club he's been a member of for more than 10 years because of his current address it's pretty silly.

Being an NC resident, I think the lack of NC clubs was mainly the almost complete absence of NC association meets. Many years ago when I was "released" from the NC association to compete in the PA I was threatened with the inability to compete in NC association events. I asked the membership chair to name what I was giving up, and she couldn't.

I liked Whiskey RIver as a bar but I though it sucked as an awards ceremony location. I had friends on the podium and quite frankly it was hard to hear when they needed to get there and I thought people didn't pay attention when they did.

I've measured many of the courses in western NC and I was surprised to see the note on the tent the 10K course was long by .08. Obviously a XC course can't be certified but it seemed very odd to me.

My team had someone that brought the wrong singlet too so that was told to us at the start he had to go to the "unattached" box. We had 7 so it didn't matter, but the guys at the top that got DQ'd weren't wearing anything like the team uniform. OUr uniforms had the teams names on them, and our "unattached guy" had on blue instead of the new white. The backs where the same. We knew at the start, as did all teams, what the scoring lineup was.

Organization wasn't bad, but when they have people that bring their own tunes (like I did) have to turn it down because we're drowning out the announcer maybe they need a better PA system. I have a bigger one I could have brought if they'd asked.

All in all I do think it went well. There were some awesome big fields and that bodes well all around. Close to 450 in the open mens and 480 in the masters mens makes for a hell of a show. Times were fast for the course and the participants were duking it out. It was fun as hell to watch and for us gimps a bummer to not be running.

TrackCoach wrote:

They were not even close to the same color.

Most of Indiana Elite had on neon yellow

http://miscottrunningphoto.shutterfly.com/36456http://miscottrunningphoto.shutterfly.com/36484

Hass had on black

http://miscottrunningphoto.shutterfly.com/36458

Scott had on blue

http://miscottrunningphoto.shutterfly.com/36472

These are not the runners I was referring to, perhaps the runner I am thinking was not DQed. There was a runner on the open male starting line with a slightly different top that an official was telling him that his top did not match.[/quote]

Thank you for posting the Team Indiana pictures. I would have DQ'd them as well since the rules were clear and they were not even remotely close.

Those were the only two athletes listed in the results as uniform violations... perhaps the games committee relented after the fact on some of the more borderline cases?

Note the asterisk about the course being a true 10k but the map used online being long. Are we sure that it was either a long or an accurate course? This would be helpful to know, because if you factor in a 20 second difference, that changes things quite a bit.

i would say it was long and the 5 mile marker was30 sec long the last mile might have been right.One thing i know is i was running dead on splits till 5 miles and there was no way i ran 30 sec plus.I would say it was on the long side .People ran fast because of the great runners .I saw a 31 min runner run high 32s there and he was way way back.There was a deep field and they went out fast the start to 1k mark.

It sounds like the 5 mile marker was off, but all 43 athletes on my team got season or lifetime PRs, so I have a hard time believing that the overall course was long.

http://www.athletic.net/CrossCountry/Team.aspx?SchoolID=20753

We must run some really slow courses out here in Washington, I was surprised to see so many people on here complaining about slow times at this meet.

polevaultpower wrote:

It sounds like the 5 mile marker was off, but all 43 athletes on my team got season or lifetime PRs, so I have a hard time believing that the overall course was long.

http://www.athletic.net/CrossCountry/Team.aspx?SchoolID=20753

We must run some really slow courses out here in Washington, I was surprised to see so many people on here complaining about slow times at this meet.

By most accounts, the course was long, but a lot of guys got PRs because McAlpine has a lot of stretches of hard compacted dirt, which with the proper spikes can be almost as fast as concrete. Sort of like some of the California courses. I saw quite a few guys running is flats, which made no sense to me. McAlpine does have a legit hill, but the good footing and long straight-a-ways keeps runners in contact with each other. Also, the race got out fast and stayed fast because of the elites and a lot of guys got pulled along to PRs because of that. After you got past the first 30-50 athletes, you saw guys crossing the finish line looking like they could not walk another step.

Quite a few athletes I spoke to expressed that this was nothing like their local road races, they were hurting so bad halfway into the race that they wanted dropout, but the pride of representing a team kept them pushing. I think that's the beauty of this event, it reminds athletes of what it feels like to truly compete and the pride of running strong for your buddies. Keep in mind that most of the mid pack guys are mostly 5mpm local road racers who are use to being in front. The open men’s race had almost 500 athletes and the 5mpm local road racer was the average guy. Guys like this had to really push the entire race just to maintain their position.

- As you can probably tell, I was really impressed by the event; except for perhaps the NCAA Championship, I don't think there is anything in the U.S. like this meet.

Even though this race might not attract the Supserstars that one might see on TV or at the Olympics, The depth was pretty solid. Running 6 minute pace would have got you 18th from last. You had to break 33 minutes to be in the top 200. I also though the course was a little slow for the effort at which I ran and the shape I thought I was in

Keith Stone wrote:

Obviously a XC course can't be certified but it seemed very odd to me.

This may seem a little nit picky, but I think you might be wrong on this. Granted I have only been involved with USATF course certification a few times, but I believe that as long as you use a longer calibration course on the same surface as the race you can certify anything. I believe there are specific protocols for this.

That being said, distance of cross country courses is almost always inaccurate. I don't understand why people make such a huge deal about cross country course accuracy. If it's in the ballpark it's good.

Eric B. wrote:

Keith Stone wrote:

Obviously a XC course can't be certified but it seemed very odd to me.

This may seem a little nit picky, but I think you might be wrong on this. Granted I have only been involved with USATF course certification a few times, but I believe that as long as you use a longer calibration course on the same surface as the race you can certify anything. I believe there are specific protocols for this.

There are protocols for measuring accurately, but even those don't meet the criteria for certification.

From the RRTC minutes:

1996-12-04: RRTC will no longer issue certifications for cross-country courses, as decided at the Wednesday RRTC meeting during the 1996 USATF Convention in San Francisco. In the past, cross-country courses were occasionally 'certified' but standards were necessarily vague, knowing that cross-country courses cannot be measured as accurately as road courses, and are generally impossible to document meaningfully because landmarks (such as trees) are amorphous in shape and highly changeable. At this Convention, we settled the issue: We are not in the business of certifying cross-country courses. The 'cross country' checkbox will be removed from our certificates. New certificate blanks without that checkbox are being prepared.

TrackCoach wrote:

I think the event is wonderful just like it is, but if USATF can entice clubs like Zapp, Monmouth and OTC, etc., that would only make it better.

Monmouth as in New Jersey??

Just because you'd never be mistaken for a "ringer" doesn't mean it shouldn't be guarded against. It seems pretty silly to want to be a part of a team that is nowhere near you live rather than compete for and contribute to a club's success in your town/county/state. I think it's incredibly obvious that USATF rules exist with the intent of enabling the building of a stronger club system in the U.S. Teams of ringers and other runners who aren't more invested in clubs beyond just what the clubs can do for them undermine those efforts. Fly-by-night teams and runners sticking with clubs halfway across the country with established success rather than making a contribution to building success close to where they live don't help anyone or anything. In areas where the sport is lacking, what's needed are vision and leadership not apathy and avoidance.

Chicken vs. egg. What comes first, stronger clubs or association meets?

As I noted, there are ways to guard against fleeting teams other than the present rules. If Alan Webb was a member of a club in Virginia for 10 years but now is a resident of Oregon, who cares? He's a ringer, but a member of an established club for an extended period. Sure, it's inconvenient for him to participate to the fullest extent in association meets but it's inconvenient for some people locally also. NC has events on the outer banks, hundreds of miles from a club in Asheville. Association boundaries don't really contribute to the strength of clubs.

I too wouldn't want to see fly by night teams, but don't believe it's necessary to tie individuals to geography as a means of controlling them. What makes a team stronger, forcing someone to leave the team and join a potentially weaker one because they had to relocate for economic reasons or letting someone continue to contribute in whatever way they can to a team they have an existing relationship with? There have been numerous fly-by-night teams that have materialized out of nowhere due to a temporary geographic convenience and disappeared just as quickly as their members established careers, families, etc, and relocated. Because they don't have members that are contributing as organizers and managers during "down" periods they evaporate. Wouldn't it be better to have longer lasting clubs with members contributing in non-competition roles primarily but occasionally competing?

Many long established clubs exist in NC and other associations that have little or no competitive opportunities. Clearly strong clubs don't automatically generate association events.