A question about Cali XC from an NJ perspective

From California. First of all Woodbridge is a ridiculously fast course. It produces insane times every year. Unrealistic times to base the rest of your season on. The course isn't short though. However, California is also loaded with extreme talent. The team that won, Great Oak, had 3 guys run under 4:10 for the 1600 last year. One of them is also a 1:51 800 runner, and the others are pretty close to being sub 9 in the 3200. People on here really like to bash California teams, but the truth is they are actually as good as their times suggest. Also this was a pretty slow year for Woodbridge, at least compared to the last couple years. Look at the results from 2013. Blake Haney vs. Estevan de la Rosa. Best race ever.

Oh yeah 2013 was also the year Sarah Baxter went 15:57 there.

Thanks for the input. Great Oak I know is an awesome team on the national level. I remember seeing the Haney/de la Rosa results from a couple years back as well. The boy who won it this year was very close to sub 9 as a junior. Still amazing that this is a "slow year", the course must be blazing quick. It'd be interesting to see some of those top NJ teams on that course. Not saying it would be faster but for comparison sake, interesting for sure.

Yeah I wish some big out of state teams would do it. That would be neat.

I think there's 1 thing you're forgetting, Cali has about 4 1/3 the population of NJ... It has just over 12% of the population of the entire country... I would damn sure hope that they have results like this.

It's also worth noting that a full one eighth of the U.S. population lives in California. That's going to boost the likelihood of seeing these insanely fast teams.

California XC is very good. The state is littered with schools with 4000+ students, so there's plenty of talent to work with, kids in everywhere but the most northern parts of California can run year-round because the weather's great, and CIF rules regarding practice times / restrictions on athletes are pretty circumventable (I've heard anecdotal stories of coaches not letting top athletes take challenging school course loads in order to make sure they have time for training + sleep, coaches having essentially 7 day/week practice schedules with team captains leading the Sunday workouts, and so on). The final result is the deepest state in the country.

California's had at least 100 boys at 4:20 or faster in the 1600 every year since 2011. Roughly the same number of girls under 5:05 each year.

That being said, Woodbridge is fast as hell. Take the Woodbridge times, and assume that those runners could run a true 5k somewhere between 60 and 80 seconds slower than they're running Woodbridge.

From California. First of all Woodbridge is a ridiculously fast course. It produces insane times every year. Unrealistic times to base the rest of your season on. The course isn't short though. However, California is also loaded with extreme talent. The team that won, Great Oak, had 3 guys run under 4:10 for the 1600 last year. One of them is also a 1:51 800 runner, and the others are pretty close to being sub 9 in the 3200. People on here really like to bash California teams, but the truth is they are actually as good as their times suggest. Also this was a pretty slow year for Woodbridge, at least compared to the last couple years. Look at the results from 2013. Blake Haney vs. Estevan de la Rosa. Best race ever.[/quote]

Speaking of De La Rosa, whatever happened to him?

I know I read on here about him not having the grades to run at a university but even if that was the case he could still run at a CC in California. He doesn't have any results in TFRSS.

Does he still run?

trixs wrote:

From California. First of all Woodbridge is a ridiculously fast course. It produces insane times every year. Unrealistic times to base the rest of your season on. The course isn't short though. However, California is also loaded with extreme talent. The team that won, Great Oak, had 3 guys run under 4:10 for the 1600 last year. One of them is also a 1:51 800 runner, and the others are pretty close to being sub 9 in the 3200. People on here really like to bash California teams, but the truth is they are actually as good as their times suggest. Also this was a pretty slow year for Woodbridge, at least compared to the last couple years. Look at the results from 2013. Blake Haney vs. Estevan de la Rosa. Best race ever.

Speaking of De La Rosa, whatever happened to him?

I know I read on here about him not having the grades to run at a university but even if that was the case he could still run at a CC in California. He doesn't have any results in TFRSS.

Does he still run?[/quote]

I have also heard that he is going to a community college, and then transferring to Northern Arizona. I hope everything works out for that guy. He had some really sick races. Never number 1 in the state, but his performances were my favorite to watch. Closing the last mile at state in something crazy like 4:31?! Only to come in second sadly. He actually got second at state twice. Along with a second at NXN. And Woodbridge. Dude was cursed. He did win Stanford though. His solo 8:55 3200 at Arcadia remains my favorite HS race ever. I know, I know, there have been far greater performances than that, hell, even far greater solo performances, but I always wanted him to win stuff, plus I actually got to watch it live. I was screaming through my computer screen at him for the last two laps lol. Great runner. Lots of potential. Hope he doesn't go the way of Oshier and Gedyon.