Marco Brolo wrote:
Exactly he asked overall not per capita....
So yes the smaller states are worse OVERALL.
I don't think that's really what the OP was going for. Lots of ways to look at "best" and "worst" OVERALL without oversimplifying it. Mean? Median? Normal curve? Elite individuals? Elite teams? # of runners that have run time X?
Regardless of the OP's intent, it's a heckuva lot more interesting question if you leave some room for factoring in population. So here's one attempt to break it down by size:
19 mil – 39.1 mil
California, Texas, Florida, New York
California and New York are definitely the best of Giants.
8 mil – 13 mil
Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, New Jersey, Virginia
These are still BIG states, so a lot of good runners come from these states. Hard to rank this bunch: lot of quality there. My knee-jerk guess is 1) Michigan 2) Illinois 3) Virginia.
5 mil – 7.1 mil
Washington, Arizona, Massachusetts, Indiana, Tennessee, Missouri, Maryland, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado
I think the top 2 are Washington and Minnesota. Candidates for #3 include Wisconsin, Colorado, Indiana… This is another really good group of XC states.
2.8 mil – 4.9 mil
South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Kentucky, Oregon, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Iowa, Utah, Mississippi, Arkansas, Kansas, Nevada
Significant drop-off from the (stacked) previous groups. I think Utah runs away with it. I’d probably put Oregon #2.
.5 mil – 2.1 mil
New Mexico, Nebraska, West Virginia, Idaho, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont, Wyoming
I think the Mountain West states rule among the Diminutive Ones, with Montana at #1.