NCAA cross country. No hills & golf courses. Does anyone run real XC anymore?

The southeast regional was at Panorama Farms, plenty of hills and a fair course.

Good to hear. Let's brin XC back!

Panorama farms is a solid 600 meters short of 10k. It is very hilly there however. Never figured out why they don't add an extra loop somewhere to make it legit. The 8k is short by a few hundred meters as well. They have plenty of space out there.

With 8 days between 10 km races.

People just want to do as little as needed to make it to Nationals and I can't blame them.

In order to make Regional's more of a race/XC race there would need to be a wholesale re-scheduling of D1 XC. National's before or after Thanksgiving is the big question?

At the NE Regional they ran multiple loops on the Van Cortlandt flats and the guy went up freshman hill 2 times (nothing really major) and the ladies just once.

It is a crime that neither course goes into the back hills/trails at all.

"any collegiate cross country courses run hills anymore" ?

University of Wisconsin Parkside.

Obvious terraced big hills in first half mile, not so obvious "roller coaster" ups / downs, twists / turns between 2 - 3 mile. Parts of trail can be under water, muddy, snowy or icy.

Notice elevations marked on course map -

http://www.parksiderangers.com/sports/2007/11/29/DannehlCrossCountry.aspx?id=14

Foot Locker Cross Country Midwest Course Preview -

YouTube Video for wisconsin parkside cross country course tourâ–¶ 10:53

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY7dPsH-ous

I think xc is about racing not running fast times. In fact they should not even time the races. It is about man or women against each other. The muddier and hillier the better. If you don't like mud and hills, train for track.

Griak is a stupidly hilly course. No idea how lawi ran so fast there.

american kids teams never ever ever come to Ontario for XC

we quite literally run up ski hills in our xc races for 12 year old girls.

once again you guys got it wrong :(

mt sac

Lucid as F*ck wrote:

mt sac

That's high school and JC.

I get not wanting a hilly course for regionals 8 days away from nationals. But it would be nice to see some XC courses not on golf courses.

I don't know about hills, or much in the way of Topography, but the mountain regional was run at 4500', . Given the level of competition and the elevation, it has to be one of the toughest regions to qualify from. I'm not sure if Air Force has ever hosted, but that would make it a little more challenging, maybe they could add some live fire drills to make it a little more rugged and to your liking.

Why is he a "moron"? In the UK most XCountry courses are not accurately measured - I've run "6 mile" courses in times ranging from 28 mins to 33 mins at the same level of fitness - and nobody really takes much notice of time. It is all about how many people you can beat rather than how quickly you cover the course.

Also, as someone who aimed at peak performance on the track in June, July & August at 800 -5000, I wanted hilly, muddy courses. The conditioning effect is much greater. If you run on flat, fast courses in winter it's almost like having a track season that lasts twelve months - not really what you want!

A variation of this thread comes up every fall. XC is not trail racing. An xc course shouldn't be so fast you can get near your track times, but if you can't run a relatively fast time on an xc course, its poorly designed. XC is so sloppy in Britain because they are too lazy to find good courses, like they are too lazy to institute a real college athletics program ala the NCAA.

MAKE CROSS COUNTRY GREAT AGAIN!!!

#MCCGA

BRING BACK THE MILE

#BBTH

#MTTMGA

Was at Panorama farms agree it has some consistent rollers. @Skinny Bones - not disagreeing but how do you know it was short?

The course for the 1901 Intercollegiate Cross-Country (the predecessor for the IC4A race) at Morris Park was five laps around the steeplchase course with a bank, two liverpool jumps, a water jump, and five hedges per lap. The winning time for the 6 mile, 240 yard race was 34:20.

you're over the hill if you don't hill

Donger wrote:

It's all about fast times but the races are run on courses that will never be the same. They are run on fairways that closer resemble grass tracks.

Did any course today run any legit hills? In the west courses like Crystal Springs and even Woodward Park aren't used anymore. Stanford took out the hills.

I'm curious is any collegiate cross country courses run hills anymore.

I'm not in college but I run Woodward park for some races.