The Ten Worst States for Distance Running

NJ is the smallest state to produce the most sub 4 minute milers, which I think is 11. New Hampshire only has 1 4 minute miler. It seemed in the NCAA basketball finals a quarter of the player were from NJ.

MN wrote:

Minnesota: Klecker, Ettle, Heather Kampf, Katie McGregor, Lemkuhle, Blankenship, uhh....

Methinks distance running geeks usually put Minnesota in the top 5 not the bottom ten. Turd.

Katie McGregor is from Ohio. check your facts please.

fast wrote:

In the past 2 years in Nj there had been over 10 sub 9 minute 3200m runners, and two of those were capable of sub 8:40 (Cheserek and Joe Rosa). I think that NJ belongs in the top five best states for distance running, at least for high school.

I hope you cleaned that post off after you pulled it out of your ass.

OP, I will not dispute you. (Because, as you say, if I did so I'd be...well...wrong.)

Nevertheless, I have a candidate for your eleventh spot: Wyoming. The weather, particularly the wind, is a horror: worse, over the course of a typical year, than the weather in many parts of Alaska.

joe9090 wrote:

NJ is the smallest state to produce the most sub 4 minute milers, which I think is 11. New Hampshire only has 1 4 minute miler. It seemed in the NCAA basketball finals a quarter of the player were from NJ.

How on Earth does basketball-player production correlate in any way to distance running??

I notice, he observed dryly, that not one voice has been raised in this thread in defense of Mississippi.

I won't pretend that this state belongs in the Top 10. But it's not a bad place to be a runner, or a racer. The heat lasts not for 10 months--as an ignorant Northie idiot claimed--but for half that length of time: May through September. The winters are chilly--between 25 and 45, November through early February--and I ran in new snow three times last year.

Runners in North Mississippi have a great bunch of races to choose from, thanks to the Memphis Runners. Leonard Vergunst, a kick-ass 50-something down in Ocean Springs, helps the club down there host a bunch of races, and New Orleans has a great distance running scene, too.

On every run out Old Sardis Road, I see at least one or two freshly smashed armadillos. Maybe a copperhead crawling off into the kudzu. Yes, it's warm and humid in late July and that's no fun. But I'll tell you: when things cool off after Labor Day, there's quite a harvest of fitness to be had from all that hard work. It's our Dixie version of running at altitude. Instead of losing seven or eight pounds during a two-hour run and hobbling home, broken, I'll run an easy 15 and blast back through the front door, crowing about the gorgeous weather.

No traffic jams on the way to races. Yes, it's the boonies, but we have fun.

And then there's Brian Pope:

http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=5362

Mississippi is great for running. Everyone's so fat, you can jog road races and still score hardware.

florida is top 3 if you count all the people that come out of the state in highschool..yeah the heat and humidity sucks but you live with it and kick some ass in national races because the panzies who run in california all year round at 60 degrees isnt fair..

FlaNative wrote:

How could that list not have included Florida? Agree that Alabama and Mississippi are horrible, but you at least have cool weather in each of those states for part of the year.

Florida's weather alone should cancel out anything else it has going for it, which isn't much.

The Smartest Let's Run Poster wrote:

Lexington Steele wrote:

Missouri and Minnesota should not be on there. Tennessee and West Virginia are far worse running states.

I told you not to respond. Minnesota is too cold in the winter. Watch the movie Fargo and get back to me. Yes, I know Fargo is in North Dakota, but most of the action happened in Minnesota. Missouri is hot and miserable in the summer and still gets cold winters. Neither state has mountains. Tennessee and West Virginia have nice winters, miles of trails, and lots of different types of terrain.

Minnesota's cold winters don't prevent training, it just makes you tougher (I lived there, so I would know). There are no mountains, but living somewhere now that has mountains (SLC, UT), I still think that there are some excellent training grounds for hilliness out there (Afton State Park, for example). Minnesota has beyond miles of trails, muuuuch more than TN or WV.

Sorry, no list like this is complete unless you include Kansas. Visiting Kansas is like finding testicles on a chick.

Come on down to South Texas between March and November and tell me it isn't in the top 10 worst places to run. 100+ with indexes over 105-110 with 80-95% humidity.

Im going to go with arkansas that place blows its averages over 100+ degrees in the summer and the humidity has been terrible so far, and back in the winter it was in the single digits-teens and was covered in 14 inches of ice and snow mostly ice. This place really blows. You get a 40 day window in the spring and fall where it is nice but after that its a living hell on both ends of the spectrum.

Oklahoma, EOT.

I love this thread.....

Somebody said puerto? You are obviously too stupid to know this since you posted that but just FYI puerto Rico isn't a state. Your welcome.

Mr. Clif wrote:

"You are obviously too stupid..." "Your welcome."

"You're" grammar sucks.

Check your facts. NH native Sean O'Brien went sub-4 just before Russell Brown during the 2006 indoor season.

I'm gonna vote for (against) Alaska and Hawaii again.

Both states have small populations (not much competition) and require a flight to get to any race in the rest of the USA.

Hawaii is small enough that you could count the number of tracks using google maps. I doubt there are even a dozen tracks in the state. How many are in Alaska? I doubt many.

The running conditions might be nice, but what exactly are you training for there? Ok, Honolulu Marathon...then what...?

There are more than 12 tracks in Hawaii and almost all are open and available to the public. There are also some great trails and reasonable weather. It rarely hits 90 or above. The high school competition is good for development. Some athletes from Hawaii include, Victoria Chang, Brian Clay, Duncan McDonald, Gary Fanellli, and Gary Lindgren. Several pro triathletes train there. So, while Hawaii is a crappy place to train, its definitely not in the top ten worst place list.

Lexington Steele wrote:

Missouri and Minnesota should not be on there. Tennessee and West Virginia are far worse running states.

Someone knows not of what they speak. West Virginia mountain mama, beautiful country. Same with Tenn. Ever been to Knoxville buddy? Simple ignorance.