So my team is going to Roy Griak next weekend and my coach said the course is slow for being such a big meet. Is this true? What should I expect time-wise compared to other courses?
So my team is going to Roy Griak next weekend and my coach said the course is slow for being such a big meet. Is this true? What should I expect time-wise compared to other courses?
It's a great course.
Now, for a fundamental rule of cross country:
Times don't mean shit.
The sooner you stop caring about your time and just try to beat as many people as possible, the better you will become.
It's a deceptively tough course. No huge hills but there is almost zero flat ground either. Depending on the weather the grass will vary in hardness but since the golf course is on pretty low ground, the surface is usually a bit soggy. Not horrible, but not super hard and responsive like some of those racetracks in Wisconsin. For reference, as a sophomore in college, I ran 26:20 at Griak, then ran 25:35 at Eau Claire (one of the aforementioned WI racetracks), then 26:00 on my home course, which is modestly challenging but has a firm surface. It depends a lot on what kind of courses you usually run on, but yes Griak will probably be slow-ish.
It also doesn't help that the field goes out crazy fast. When I ran 26:20, I was something like 120th at the 1k (finished at about 20th IIRC) and I ran only slightly negative splits. Guys who end up running 26:30 will go out in 3:00 for the first km, no joke.
Also make sure you stick around for the DI race to see some fast dudes run. There will likely be some future Olympians and NCAA champs in the gold race.
This thread summarizes the course pretty well.
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=4248455
In the past the course has been open the Friday afternoon/evening before the meet for runners.
in addition to the aforementioned rolling hills throughout the majority of the course, even when you are on a straight flat section the course is usually sloped one way or another( thinking running across a hill, not up and down). when u combine the rolling hills, lots of turns, and sloped straightaways, it makes it very hard to get in a rhythm during the race
Not slow. Not really fast or short but not slow.
what everyone has been saying- it's not fast, it has rollers the entire way, legit no flat ground to run on.
the field will fly out like crazy though. Just looked up results and last year I was 3:08 at the K and just inside the top 80. 3K I was 9:33 and just inside the top 40, then ate it like no other. there's hundreds of people in the race to keep pulling you along too. it's awesome. definitely a race to focus on just latching onto a group of guys and beating as many as you can.
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