USA Cross Course... WTF

It a great course, dipstick. Well marked, spectator friendly and deceptively challenging. I understand that it may be tough for you to tell that sitting in your mother's basement and watching rather than competing.

Yea, you're right. From watching here it does look shitty. Perhaps my perception would change if I were there but watching the field split around playgound equipment or "art" whatever it is seems crappy to me. Way to cut me down for not being there too, but from here it looks crappy. You could have just stated your experience with the course rather than forever associating "old XC master" with the word dickhead.

This is a terrible course. An obstacle in the middle of the course 400m into the race? Multiple trees to dodge, cross sidewalk 6 times, majority of the course is slanted. It is not hard to find 2k of clear grass--would be much better than having a beach view.

serunner11 wrote:

That course looks retarded... dodging trees and playground equipment. Small orange flagging marking most of the course.... are lines even painted? Is this cross country? Looks a bit like free running to me.

I would have to agree that this is a pretty poor course. Once you get on a real "cross country" course, it is difficult to picture the national championships on a high school type course where they just throw some flags out in a park and call it cross country.

Perhaps old XC master was watching a replay of Matlock he had taped on vhs and assumed it was the race.

What is with them having to duck under trees? That is ridiculous. Hopefully nobody gets an eye poked out.

We have a 1.4 mile (loop) HS course that has a monster hill and planty of flat over both smooth and rough terrain. No obatacles to go around, no paved sections at all.

A cross country course shouldn't have palm trees.

runn wrote:

We have a 1.4 mile (loop) HS course that has a monster hill and planty of flat over both smooth and rough terrain. No obatacles to go around, no paved sections at all.

I wasn't implying all high school course are that way. I have run on and spectated on plenty of very nice high school course, but many of them are similar to this course that really looks amateurish.

Maximus was refering to the courses that the random school makes when the first year coach decides to hold a meet. You know what I mean, they try but it just doesn't work. Plenty of high school courses are great.

Wow, Brent Vaughn is freaking awesome.

I was out there running the masters race this morning. I don't think you will find the competitors complaining about it.

I was also in the Masters race. While I generally do like the course, I hit my head twice on overhanging branches. I just felt stupid for trying to run too tight on the tangents. They could have used more rubber pads over the cement paths too. The obstacles were not hard to avoid. It is a deceptively hard course and the weather was too warm for Cross. I don't need Spokane like Ball freeze but it doesn't feel like XC when it's 70 degrees out. Awesome for spectators though. You could see most of the race without having to move around too much. Billy Mills was there. True Legend.

100 percent the day before the race people told me it was 150 meters long.No one has said anything about this .The laps might be long also but it was 100 percent 150 meters over 12k all races were 150 meters long.They told me somthing like that a rule to make it 150 long.BS never seen that before.It also easy to see 2k laps then a 150 meter finsh .So the 8k was 8k plus 150 meters .This is a fact i new this before i even asked the usatf official.You can see this at home also .So why go to the trouble of putting a pace per mile on the side its all wrong.O yea and the course was super slow even with out the extra 150.

serunner11 wrote:

That course looks retarded... dodging trees and playground equipment. Small orange flagging marking most of the course.... are lines even painted? Is this cross country? Looks a bit like free running to me.

There is a history of racing on that Mission Bay course (and in that area) from before the running boom. The venue choice revisited that tradition. Though the course marking should have been wider around tree branches, and cones set around benches and artwork, and sand pits and haybales would have made it truer to XC, the seed planted in the minds of thousands of kids who play in that park will help the sport develop in Mission Bay.

waaaaaaaaaaa!

I ran the masters race both yesterday and in 2008 (same course). I don't hate the course, but a better and truer xc course in San Diego is in balboa park. And yes, the course was about 100 meters too long.

old XC master wrote:

I was out there running the masters race this morning. I don't think you will find the competitors complaining about it.

I guess you were wrong.

runn wrote:

We have a 1.4 mile (loop) HS course that has a monster hill and planty of flat over both smooth and rough terrain. No obatacles to go around, no paved sections at all.

Actually, your course in Balboa has a total of 8 street crossings over the 5K layout. You guys are good and throw down rubber mats, though.