Grant Fisher- 14:43 at Portage

The portage course is definitely not completely flat and I'm not sure it was flat. I ran at Portage today in the D1 Men's Varsity race (The same one that Fisher ran in).

*****If you're wondering how the Portage course is laid out*******

***The first 0-2000 meters of the race are almost constant up and down hills.

***2000-3000 meters of the race has an extremely flat area that loops around back to the start.

*3000-4000 goes over some of the same hills that you experience in the first 2000 meters.

***4000-5000 meters goes back to the same area as the 2000m mark, and has one of the flattest finishes to a race I've ever seen. It's actually incredibly exciting. My time was only around 17:05 and I had a 3 minute final thousand meters.

***There is a huge hill that you go over twice. Once about 400m into the race, and again around 3000m into the race.

***My gps watch read the course at 3.10 miles. Normally it reads courses around 3.09-3.13 (depending on a number of things) so it seems like a pretty accurate course.

I'd say it is slightly easier than most courses, but certainly not a pancake. If you're wondering the temperature for the day, it was amazing conditions. The temperature was around 47 degrees and cloudy (but no rain for hours before the race). It was a bit windy (maybe 10mph winds), but the wind seemed to have died a bit during our race.

It did feel extremely cold after we had run the race, but the temperatures during the race didn't seem too bad, and everyone on my team ran a PR.

3 minutes for your final 1000? That means that you ran 14:05 for your first 4000. Which means that you were averaging over 3:30 per 1000. Then when most runners have a tough time maintaining, you were able to run 30 seconds faster (which is about 50 seconds per mile) than your pace? Thanks for making my point.

Full results of the meet here... it is a HUGE meet every year since the late 90s I believe, usually with a handful of teams from out of state:

http://portageinvite.runnerspace.com/eprofile.php?event_id=373&do=news&news_id=286390

A few items of note:

1) You can find the 2000 results on that page as well. Fisher was exactly 1 second off Ritz's 14:41.9 CR with his 14:42.9 today. Ritz went 15:02 as a junior and 14:42 as a senior. Fisher went 15:11 and 14:43.

2) Fisher went through the mile in 4:31. The second fastest at the mile for the entire day was 4:48. He was also the only runner to break 5:00 for mile 2.

3) The winners of the division 3 and 4 races are studs in their own right. ~15:20 on this course is a great time. They'll be fighting for a top 10 at FL regionals. Add in Ben Hill, Ryan Robinson (went to San Diego last year) from division 1, and MI has a chance to send their own team to FL this year.

If your GPS had it at 3.10 miles, then it's not 5000m.

A full 5k course should be wheeled at 5005m taking all the tangents to get the shortest route possible. In a race, it's unlikely you get all the best tangents (you were probably in a pack for at least part of the race), and - assuming you were running or at least jogging and not slowly walking the course - GPS will always say the course is LONGER than it actually is (because the satellite tracking will bounce back and forth trying to keep track of you, rather than in a straight line).

3.10 miles is 4989 meters. GPS is probably going to be about 0.1-0.4% too long (depending on how many turns and how sharp the turns are, etc.). All that doesn't mean the course was DRASTICALLY short, just that it's very likely a bit short of 5k (maybe 20-30 meters short if you were hitting all the tangents perfectly, or maybe up to 50m short if not).

None of that really matters, though, because it's cross country. What can tell you something about how impressive it is is how times at Portage tend to compare to times at other courses. It's not a blazing fast course, but it's certainly not on the slow side either. Fisher's 14:43 is impressive, but it's not nearing Ritz's 14:10 just yet.

Though I a) see your point, b) ran HS cross in the Metro Detroit area myself, and c) cannot stand questionable length courses, how might we (you and I) explain Ritz running 32 seconds faster at state than at Portage? Or faster on the much more difficult Kenosha FL course than Portage? If I remember correctly (and I probably do) Ritz was pretty much a automatic 14:40-14:50 all season at invites/championships his senior year.I do question Spartan though. It has always run "fast", especially for being the 2nd real weekend of the season.Back in my day, Jackson was the big race. May of the top teams would be there. Everyone would PR there.

Carl the greens keeper wrote:

3 minutes for your final 1000? That means that you ran 14:05 for your first 4000. Which means that you were averaging over 3:30 per 1000. Then when most runners have a tough time maintaining, you were able to run 30 seconds faster (which is about 50 seconds per mile) than your pace? Thanks for making my point.

Oh? wrote:

If your GPS had it at 3.10 miles, then it's not 5000m.

A full 5k course should be wheeled at 5005m taking all the tangents to get the shortest route possible. In a race, it's unlikely you get all the best tangents (you were probably in a pack for at least part of the race), and - assuming you were running or at least jogging and not slowly walking the course - GPS will always say the course is LONGER than it actually is (because the satellite tracking will bounce back and forth trying to keep track of you, rather than in a straight

Another fu***** retard knowitall. For Christ sake shut the fu** up if you are this stupid.

I admit I had way more left in me than I should have. The problem was the race was insanely crowded where I was. It was really tough to pass people, and when you got stuck behind a slow pack, there wasn't much you could do till you got to an opening. That made my first mile a lot slower than it normally is.

"A full 5k course should be wheeled at 5005m taking all the tangents to get the shortest route possible."

This is not something I've heard before, and I'm not sure why this would be what defines a "full course". Gps watches are never completely accurate. I don't see why you assume my watch should read it to be exactly 5k. Sometimes it's slightly more than what i ran, and sometimes it's less.

_______

I also ran at Jackson, and at MSU. None of the courses struck me as short, and I check the distance on my gps watch after each race. (I take it with a grain of salt though. Often when you check gps watches with others it's not uncommon for distances to be different).

The MSU course is incredibly fun to run, and I don't know anyone who can claim that's not their favorite course. Short cut grass and nothing but a few rolling hills. I don't think times are fast because the course is short. I think times are fast because the course is easy to run and enjoyable.

A GPS will more often shown course to be short especially if there are a lot of turns. The GPS will straight line it through those corners. Sometimes it will go back and forth. I would never assume a course is long, short or right on. I wheeled portage today as we do most courses and it was 5004, did this in the morning before anyone in course so was able to tangent well better than almost anyone racing except for maybe Fisher.

Portage Runner wrote:"A full 5k course should be wheeled at 5005m taking all the tangents to get the shortest route possible."

This is not something I've heard before, and I'm not sure why this would be what defines a "full course". Gps watches are never completely accurate. I don't see why you assume my watch should read it to be exactly 5k. Sometimes it's slightly more than what i ran, and sometimes it's less.

I don't assume that your GPS watch should read it to be exactly 5k. Courses are supposed to be measured by wheel (not using a GPS) at 0.1% longer than listed course length and measuring by tangents (shortest route possible) within 30 cm of a turn.

Yes, GPS watches are never completely accurate. That was a large part of my point: they overestimate distance traveled due to the way that they work. The fact that your GPS had the course short of 5000m, and that GPS will tend to overestimate the course length even if you ran perfect tangents, strongly suggests the course is short of 5000m. There is nothing wrong with that, distances in cross country don't really matter, it just is what it is. As another poster already said, when people tend to run faster times on a course, it tends to be a faster course. There is nothing wrong with that.

Indoor? wrote:

A GPS will more often shown course to be short especially if there are a lot of turns. The GPS will straight line it through those corners. Sometimes it will go back and forth. I would never assume a course is long, short or right on. I wheeled portage today as we do most courses and it was 5004, did this in the morning before anyone in course so was able to tangent well better than almost anyone racing except for maybe Fisher.

Good info, thanks.

Also just so you know NFHS states that High School Cross Country is to be no more than 5000 meters, they actually really don't care what it is as long as it is never longer than 5k.

The best thing about that Ritz state meet record was how he ran the race. It was a beautiful day, course was in great condition. He goes out in 4:24, and proceeds to hammer the 2nd mile (which is really the only one with any noticable hills, and usually the slowest mile for everyone) in 4:34. So he's 8:58 at 2 miles. Knowing that the entire last mile is very fast (zero uphill portions, a couple downhills including one giving you some momentum with 1200m to go, and perfectly flat to the finish) all he had to do was hold on. His "hold on" was a 4:38 last mile. Everything came together that day, and he really put it all on the line from the gun.

Michigander wrote:

The MIS course is really fast and flat, but 14:10 is just plain absurd for any grass course at the HS level. That is arguably the hardest course record to break in the United States. It'll be interesting to see if Grant goes for it, or runs for the win at the state meet as he will probably be focused on Footlocker at that point.

8:58 for 2 miles in a cross country 5k is absolutely ridiculous. That has to be the greatest xc performance of all time (definitely not the best race, however).

The two best HS cross country performances are:

1: Ritz 3rd at the 2000 World XC behind Bekele

2: Craig Virgin 12th at AAU National XC (6 miles) against Frank Shorter (31 seconds ahead of CV) and most of the other good distance guys in the US at the time.

Clearly Gerry Lindgren probably did better at 18 then either of them, but I don't have any National XC results to rely on.

Ritz ran 13:36?

Stay in Michigan Grant! You will be a hero in Ann Arbor. And develop legend status in the state. With UofM's planned new indoor facilities (300m training track and banked 200m track) you will have the best money can buy to get key training done in the winter, but the cold will help keep you from running too hard Dec-March (as you would in Palo Alto), and you'll be strong for outdoors.

Sullivan has been through all of what you will face as a world class and intellectual 18yo. He was top 10 all four years at NCAA XC, and finished 5th at the IAAF World Champs 1500m while still at UofM. He then proceeded to have a long career as a pro and even ran 3.32 as a 32yo. He knows what it takes to train for early success, while prepping for a long career without burnout. This will keep you humble, and eager to learn as you push for the Rio and Tokyo Olympics while still in College.

Spectator dude wrote:

The best thing about that Ritz state meet record was how he ran the race. It was a beautiful day, course was in great condition. He goes out in 4:24, and proceeds to hammer the 2nd mile (which is really the only one with any noticable hills, and usually the slowest mile for everyone) in 4:34. So he's 8:58 at 2 miles. Knowing that the entire last mile is very fast (zero uphill portions, a couple downhills including one giving you some momentum with 1200m to go, and perfectly flat to the finish) all he had to do was hold on. His "hold on" was a 4:38 last mile. Everything came together that day, and he really put it all on the line from the gun.

His first mile was actually 4:28. The next two were 4:34, 4:38 as you said though.

Don't forget German Fernandez's Mt. Sac or CIF in which he was 32-seconds up at 2 miles in sub-9 after blazing through the mile in 4:20's.

His SR year was sick.

Note that Fisher wasn't chasing any records at Portage. His pacing was designed to get him ready for championship meets later on.

http://mercury-chronicle.com/2014/10/04/2014-portage-invitational-fisher-getting-real-now/