Best States For Boys Distance

Rested, uninjured, healthy, and awake is usually the best state. Drunk is and okay state for the beer mile.

You didnt even do Washington....

PA had Sam Ritz under 4:10 for a full mile and what about the fact that the guys in Utah get to train at high altitude and then for FL and other races, they go way down in elevation giving them an unfair advantage over kids from lower sea level. So to really look at this, you would have to find the race location from all of these guys from Utah and convert them if you want to be completely fair and have this based on flat out talent. If you are looking to compare states distance Runner productivity in general why would you even include lower altitude states? They don't stand a chance against the guys that get to train at altitude. Isn't that just common knowledge?

The altitude does not give them an unfair advantage. If it did, Utah athletes would win every race they ever entered, and they haven't had a FL champ in like 15 years.

Utah's XC season is also only 3 months long, so they need to peak earlier than most other states like California and Washington.

Their track season is also shorter because the snow does not melt until mid March.

While yes, this guy's original argument left out Washington, it does not change the fact that Utah is up in the top 3 in best times... and they have a fraction of the students Washington has.

Altitude makes it harder to train because it makes recovery tougher, and the only advantage it gives athletes that train up in it is that they can train to do more with less oxygen... so when they get the amount of oxygen the lower states get, they can hit similar times.

A 4:15 1600m in Utah is a 4:10 in California.

Edward Cheserek went up to Boulder for the Pac-12 Championships in XC last season and won, even though he only trained at 5000ft... shouldn't have the Colorado guys smoked him? No... because he has a large enough aerobic capacity that was exactly similar to the Colorado guys got from training at high altitude.

Not everyone that trains high dominates, and not everyone that trains low loses to higher altitude guys

Washington is a phenomenal state... if you plug in their times into the equation the original guy put in, they would be in the top 4 easily.

Great weather year round, competitive races and the overall outdoor environment of Washington state makes it an elite state.

Washington still has a bigger population than Utah... and better freshman/sophomores.

Top 5 Best States (in no particular order)

- California

- New York

- Oregon

- Utah

- Washington

You're looking at it from a purely individual perspective. Genetic freaks can pop up anywhere. That is why having divisions in track is pointless. You can be at a school with 500 kids but one great sprinter can win the state meet.

As for cross depth is key. It's not the top individual but generally the faster 5th man. Look for depth.

That goes to CA, and rightfully so due to the large population. More concentrated population is also helpful (less schools with a higher population).

And really this argument is silly. Most kids don't go to post season meets, the state meet is the focus of their season.

If you really want to know what state is best look at the top 7, 7-14, 15-21 fastest from each state meet. That will be more telling. Even then every course is different. It's always apples and oranges.

A suggestion:

Counting qualifiers means that there is a set amount of spots represented by each region, but doesn't describe how good those athletes necessarily are (some regions are tougher than others).

Also, you might want to make the track standards a bit tougher, since at those times there are well over 100 kids in the nation running them, versus only 40 you considered in XC. Also, those altitude adjustments shouldn't be just a flat 15 seconds off in the 2 mile or 7 seconds in the mile - different altitudes make for varying differences in what a time is worth at sea level.

Also, looking at freshmen and maybe even sophomores is a bit ridiculous - a large degree of difference there is going to be how they have trained to this point and how mature they already are, rather than considering both the talent and quality of coaching/training.

A different look: # of runners under 4:11 / 8:57 / 15:40 @ FLN or NXN

In XC, that means 28 athletes:

California = 5

Utah = 3

Michigan, Minnesota and Washington = 2

Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin = 1

In the 1500m/1600m/Mile, that means 91 athletes (under 4:11.00 for 1600m or equivalents):

California = 14

Illinois = 8

Michigan, New York = 7

Pennsylvania = 6

Virginia = 5

Washington = 4

Idaho, Kentucky, Ohio, Wisconsin = 3

Iowa, Maryland, Nevada, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah = 2

and then 14 states with only 1

In the 3k/3200m/2 Mile, that means 34 athletes (under 8:57.00 for 3200m or equivalents):

California = 7

New York = 5

Pennsylvania = 3

Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Utah, Washington = 2

Alaska, Connecticut, Iowa, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Virginia = 1

All told, that leaves the counts at:

California = 20

New York = 9

Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania = 8

Virginia, Washington = 5

Utah = 4

Idaho, Kentucky, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin = 3

Connecticut, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Nevada, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas = 2

and 13 other states with only 1.

Now, granted, including altitude adjustments would probably boost the numbers from Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming. Maybe even Montana as well. However, you also have to remember that this is going to fluctuate a bit every year.

To answer the question "What are the best states for Boys Distance", I'd say it has to start with California (big population obviously helping). I'd say it also has to include states like Illinois, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia and Washington. Probably also states like New Jersey, Ohio and maybe Colorado or Indiana or Oregon. Generally speaking, I think those are probably the top 13 states, and the order between them is usually going to be different depending on the year, though California probably always either #1 or #2 due to population alone.

The list would look a bit differently if you were considering a per capita ranking. The mountain states like Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico and Montana would be among the top 10/15, along with traditional states like Washington, New Jersey, Indiana and Oregon, as well as some combination of smaller states like Alaska, Connecticut, Idaho, Iowa or Delaware. Bigger states like California, New York, Illinois and Virginia probably sometimes getting in the mix even on a per capita basis some years as well.

We can all agree though that typically the best concentration of runners are from the West... they win FL every year and tend to win Nike

I'd have to agree that Utah is up in the top... probably in the top 3. You have to look at the times they run AT ALTITUDE, and the fact they they have less time to train than California because of their rough winters...

they went 1-2-3-4 at Nike Regionals Southwest with American Fork, Davis, Timpanagos, and Desert Hills... in probably the most competetive region, thats impressive.

Oregon is kinda hard to rank because they run 1500 and 3000 outdoors. o guess you'd have to look at sub-4:00, sub-8:30 guys. Probably a dozen or so?

Not much mention of Texas but they are always full of 4:10-4:15 guys

Oregon is legit.. no doubt. I mean cmon Matthew Maton and Galen Rupp!!

While this chart is great for the elite runners in each state, it does not account for the good but not great talent. The same milesplit rankings (which I actually have a problem with since they do not include converted 1 mile/ 2 mile marks in the 1600m/3200m rankings) show that 490 California boys have broken 4:30 in the 1600 and 442 have broken 9:50. In comparison, Utah had 97 boys break 4:35 and 86 runners have broken 10:00 (accounting for altitude adjustments). And that still doesn't account for the fact that not all of Utah's runners ran those times in altitude. Plenty of Utah's top guys come down to meets like Arcadia to get their fast times in for the season.

Utah had some phenomenal athletes this past year who could probably beat nearly everyone in the country (i.e. Connor Mantz, Josh Collins, Alek Parsons, etc). But California's huge population still accounts for the majority of running success defined by depth.

Either way, both states are doing something right and producing amazing distance runners.

I like that... both are equally good

It would be either Virginia or California. If Virginia's current size was multiplied to have the same population size as Cali, and Virginia's strength and depth increased proportionally, I believe that Virginia would be a definite competitor with California for the "best" distance state.

Agreed. Seems like we (VA) each year have a few sub-4:10 guys and sub-9:15 guys.

Lenny Leonard wrote:

Agreed. Seems like we (VA) each year have a few sub-4:10 guys and sub-9:15 guys.

Virginia is a solid state, as is California. It is a bummer you don't hear about Virignia as much as you do California or other states...

I feel like states like Virginia, Utah, Colorado, Michigan, Florida, they don't get enough distance attention as they should.