Time to really see what collegiate XC meets are like.
STARTING WITH.....
- a 26:00 for 8k gets you bottom 5%, not top 5%
- There are actually mile splits on the courses and 99% of coaches are worried about the pace their runners are going at.
- The schools that pack the final quarter of each race also have their one kenyan in the top 15 every time.
you are the only person there 'cept the coaching staff, a trainer, the guy that shoots the gun and somebody's grandma that lives in the neighborhood
You partake in an orgy.
Youre a freshman and you are wondering where all the parents are
Bunhuggers. Bunhuggers everywhere. :)
Very rarely does 26:00 land you in the bottom 5% of an XC meet. At premier DI meets sure, but at most collegiate meets this will be nowhere near the bottom 5%.
When you're sitting there before the race wondering why you ran in front of bigger crowds in high school. If for some reason I ever need to go into the witness protection program, I'm going to become a college cross country fan. No one will EVER find me.
Greek life offers fraternities and sororities points for going to the meet. Someone from a fraternity brings a puppy to the race, sorority girls who attend the race only pay attention to the puppy and not the race. :(
Almost everyone in the race has some form of facial hair.
The slowest teams have the dumbest and loudest cheers before the race.
You know you are at a collegiate XC meet when...nobody is watching.
You roll through the 5k faster than your high school pr.
High school meets draw almost all of their teams from the immediate area and it is easy for most parents and friends to get there. College races draw from a distance that is ten times are far and getting to the meet is non-trivial.
It is the flip side of why national college team meets are interesting and national high school team meets are almost besides the point (despite Nike's trying to market it), since almost no one cares about any individual high school team compared to those invested in the college teams. On top of that the much larger 'reach' for the college teams means that the depth of the teams are generally much greater than in high school where the drop-off from the best runners on a team are generally much greater.
Everyone there looks like they could win the d@mned thing.
When the girls in the middle-to-back of the pack look the best