Why not 10K for NCAA ladies?

I believe they should bump the women up to 8K and lower the men down to 8K. It would be a better race for all. The men mostly run 8K all season until the end of the season. For the women it would give those women that run the 5K and 10K on the track something closer to their skill set.

Just make it 8k or 5 miles for both. 6k is such a stupid distance to run and 10k just favors your 10k guys too much.

And add a half marathon championship to the NCAA schedule at some point in the year. That could actually get some of these NCAA guys more interested in the longer distances.

I find it equally strange that the NCAA is not even consistent across all divisions. I lean toward making everything 8k. Maybe FL and NXN should have high schoolers bump to 6k for the qualifier and nationals. That is essentially what D1 guys do.

maybe this wrote:

I think NCAAs need to be long enough to spread pack out sufficiently. 8K for the men would be a little short for that so they do 10K, Probably 8K would be sufficient for the women and would take roughly the same amount of time as 10K for men.

The men run 8k every race before regionals and the back is always sufficiently spread out. I think it'd be fine as a championship distance. Plus, the 8k at nationals has worked fine in D3 for decades.

Nigel_Bikes wrote:

They should move both distances to 8K. During the season they run mostly 8K with a few 10K's here and there.

This

maybe this wrote:

I think NCAAs need to be long enough to spread pack out sufficiently.

Through the '90s, sure, but not in the HD/chip timing era.

Why not 10K for NCAA ladies? wrote:

Seriously, it is just odd that NCAA keeps NCAA XC for women at 6K, while moving the men up to 10K. The NCAA has 10K for ladies on the track, but not at XC? This is really strange, and somewhat sexist in my opinion. What say you?

This isn't a question of "can a female run 8k or 10k?" we all know that women are more than capable of running and racing at that distance. This should be a question of creating the most exciting and competitive atmosphere and environment for our sport, keeping the distance at 6k allows more athletes to have an impact on the race and more programs to be in the hunt.

This equation would be the same as moving the women's volleyball net to the men's height; volleyball would still be played but the number of athletes and teams having a significant impact on the game would be limited - the excitement and competitive atmosphere would be much more limited. If our goal is to grow and do what is best for our sport, then we need to create something that is exciting and that people want to watch/be part of.

Yes, however, I think the "most exciting and competitive atmosphere and environment" would be at 8K for the ladies. The 8K will allow for more excitement as we watch 5K-10K specialists pick-off the 1500 and 800 specialists that went out too fast. 8K would be great! Also, it is odd to imagine that a 6K "allows more athletes to have an impact" on the race unless you think it will shrink the number runners toeing the line? 6K or 8K, each runner still gets a recorded finish number. Also, 6K or 8K will result in 10-15 ladies with a good shot at winning (they may just be a slightly different set of ladies at 8K).

Sounds like D1 coach wants his/her 800-1500 specialists to place better, or else he/she has to recruit more HS girls that shine in 3200m - 5K range.

D1 coach should just argue that a 3K race would be the most exciting, as we would probably see many more girls with a chance to win with say 800m left in the race as Wisco. I guess that would be exciting and competitive - but it would defeat the purpose of XC and ruin the sport (in my mind).

I agree, I think 8k would be perfect for women to go up to for championship meets. It’s makes it a little more fair that both men and women go up in distance for the big races. 5k is way too short, collegiate running should be farther than high school.

Make sports equal, if that is what women want.

10K XC

110m High Hurdles

Same size basketball

Same weight implements

Allow checking in hockey

...and so on...

should drop both men and women to 5k

NEO runner girl wrote:

It’s makes it a little more fair that both men and women go up in distance for the big races.

Bizarre, truly.

Anyone can run a 10K but not everyone can RACE a 10k, week after week. There must be some optimal XC race distance, and there's no reason to assume the optimal distance is the same for men and women.

I think 8k is a better distance. Fact is there are less 10k types than 3k types. How many women really last 4 years for coaches to develop. If anything most get slower. They need to recharge with freshman every year and no freshman is going to be competitive. Let alone the number of HS girls who will just quit after HS because they don’t want to.

I’ve long thought frosh-soph & JV (boys and girls should be 2 mi to 4K). They need to do a distance the can race. Same here.

no way, two 10k's at the end of the year isn't that hard. These are grown men and women who are a part of a very small percentage that are running at the D1 level. They can handle it. This is cross country, go run a 5k on the track

The middle distance schools raise hell every time lengthening races is suggested. The fact is several schools train 1500 meter specialists and would fall in the rankings if women raced 8 and 10k.

theJeff wrote:

Make sports equal, if that is what women want.

10K XC

110m High Hurdles

Same size basketball

Same weight implements

Allow checking in hockey

...and so on...

I see your true colors shining through.

None of what you mentioned is relevant to the topic at hand.

non politically correct but accurate answer wrote:

Because it would take too long. I agree that 6 km. is weird. I would argue to take it the other way to 5 km. if any change is to be made.

Also, men and women are different. Believing in the equal dignity of every human being doesn't mean that you have to have them do the exact same thing all the time.

An extra 3k or 4k is not going to kill the day in terms of time. It's highly unusual to have multiple races per gender at a college meet.

It's pretty clear that women can handle the increase of distance as well as the men from 5k to 8k and from 6k to 10k.

The distances are relics from a time when those who were deciding were ignorant.

I know a lot of women's coaches that do not want to change the distance simply because they are used to training to the shorter courses. Because of this these distances will remain for the time being.