How much does the NXN course impact team winners?

Could be that NY courses are all notoriously slow, and FM girls don't focus on track, so the on paper method of seeing which team is best doesn't really work.

Could be that FM is aiming to peak at this race. That's what they say they do. The whole year is organized around this one day.

???????????????? wrote:

I was recently looking through some of the NXN results, and it really struck me: on the girls side, FM simply does not look like the strongest team on paper--in fact, it looks like Great Oak and Davis should have both been way ahead of them the last two years. Each year, however, FM manages to pull it off in the face of teams that look stronger across the board--teams with kids that have better track PRs, stronger XC marks throughout the season, etc.

So I have to ask: how much do you think the NXN course impacts team results? Racing in mud and cold is brutal if you're not used to it, and it seems like the kids from areas where XC courses are generally warm and dry chronically underperform at NXN.

General thoughts?

Huh?? I thought California teams have dominated lately (removing FM from the equation), no?

FM looks like the strongest team on paper going in every year, unless you limit your comparison to track times. Their XC races have always been stronger, not just at NXN Nationals.

The course definitely impacts results but it's also true that FM girls are just plain stronger at xc than those CA teams. Might not always be the case though. I don't know anybody who thought GO was stronger than FM thus year, paper or not...

Just checked, California had 2 of the top 3 teams on the podium today. Am thinking the results contradict your premise.

Xxxxxcccc wrote:

The course definitely impacts results

Interesting. Which teams have been impacted by the course over the last few years?

I could buy the idea that teams that tend to be more dominated by track runners (e.g. Cain/Murphy types vs. Baxter/Ostrander) could be worse on more muddy XC courses, but I would think that would be a pretty evenly distributed problem throughout the various teams and regions.

???????????????? wrote:

I was recently looking through some of the NXN results, and it really struck me: on the girls side, FM simply does not look like the strongest team on paper--in fact, it looks like Great Oak and Davis should have both been way ahead of them the last two years. Each year, however, FM manages to pull it off in the face of teams that look stronger across the board--teams with kids that have better track PRs, stronger XC marks throughout the season, etc.

So I have to ask: how much do you think the NXN course impacts team results? Racing in mud and cold is brutal if you're not used to it, and it seems like the kids from areas where XC courses are generally warm and dry chronically underperform at NXN.

General thoughts?

You obviously have no understanding how much bowdoin park affects times. Anyone who saw what happened on paper given the courses these teams had run knew FM would win by a massive margin unless one of their top 5 blew up. Bottom line: FM looked like they were easily the strongest team heading into the meet and they delivered