Ohio State High School Cross country meet postponed a week....

I can't believe my mile hero Jim Spivey is on Let's Run.

Listen up, everyone: To keep sharp for the final when your heat is canceled, run the 800 segment "No faster than 1:56." Got that! James Calvin Spivey said so.

If I just had Spivey-Speed I could worry about such things! And maybe own a world-championship medal.

--Gentracles (who promises not to hit the first 400 in 56.6 and mess up the workout).

Wow that course is just ridiculous. I'm not sure I've ever run on a course that stupid. So many sharp turns and just doesn't look like real cross country, or even fake West Coast golf course cross country.

Water! Mud! High Winds! Snow! Fridgid Temps! Terribly laid out course!

Ohio has it ALL baby! Tomorrow's the day! Let's see if Mid-Ohio can get it done: Shelby, Lexington, Mt. Gilead, Fredericktown! Git-r-done!

Yepper Depper wrote:

Water! Mud! High Winds! Snow! Fridgid Temps! Terribly laid out course!

Ohio has it ALL baby! Tomorrow's the day! Let's see if Mid-Ohio can get it done: Shelby, Lexington, Mt. Gilead, Fredericktown! Git-r-done!

So it was worth the postponement?

My guess is that is will be wetter tomorrow than it was last Saturday. Rained a lot last night and today. Weather was beautiful last Saturday. Supposed to be between 25-30 degrees with 18mph winds tomorrow. OHSAA really screwed this one up. Where is Flagpole singing their praises now?

The OHSAA also changed the course late Thursday or early Friday after some teams had already visited the course Thursday afternoon. There was no official notice given. Just a posting at the course indicating the change. The last few weeks have really been a struggle for the OHSAA in terms of cross country

holbythebear wrote:

My guess is that is will be wetter tomorrow than it was last Saturday. Rained a lot last night and today. Weather was beautiful last Saturday. Supposed to be between 25-30 degrees with 18mph winds tomorrow. OHSAA really screwed this one up. Where is Flagpole singing their praises now?

I didn't sing their praises. OHSAA was in an impossible position last week. The course and the parking is better today than last week. Also, it's not very windy. It's cold yes, but not really a big deal for runners.

whoopsies wrote:

The OHSAA also changed the course late Thursday or early Friday after some teams had already visited the course Thursday afternoon. There was no official notice given. Just a posting at the course indicating the change. The last few weeks have really been a struggle for the OHSAA in terms of cross country

When I drove by last Wednesday the part of the course they took out had no water standing. My guess is that they needed that area to park cars because the farmer across Rt.40 planted more area taking parking away.

I wasn't able to go for the first time in years as I had a race to run. Did they park cars behind the west grandstand in the area they used to run in?

Yepper Depper wrote:

Water! Mud! High Winds! Snow! Fridgid Temps! Terribly laid out course!

Ohio has it ALL baby! Tomorrow's the day! Let's see if Mid-Ohio can get it done: Shelby, Lexington, Mt. Gilead, Fredericktown! Git-r-done!

A couple of those teams had good days and a couple didn't. Mt Gilead had their 5th man not make it from the 2nd split to the end costing them some places but they wouldn't have won unless he moved up 8 or 9 places.

1 year ago today (well, sort of) we got the news that the Ohio Cross-Country State Meet was getting postponed a week.

Eerily, it's raining all day here in Ohio again. However, it has been a very dry Fall for us, unlike last year.

I'm curious if they made any serious changes or contingencies after last year's debacle.

I do like the new course layout which was inspired by the need to move away from the muddy northern farm field. Much more coach and spectator friendly.

Ohio is Trump country!!!!!

There are a least two billion things I would rather do than run in that race again. Ranked in the top 5 heading into race day, but the cold and delay physically defeated me. I ran horribly.

lmao same last year i ran over a minute off my pr and my team got last place

This was my first thought upon seeing the seemingly endless rains this weekend. Hopefully we can just gut it out this year and not have to reschedule. Crossing my fingers!

I went up to see National Trail today. It's not good.

The course: Definitely soft and muddy. Several places with standing water. The worst spots seemed to be by the starting area. But all in all, not terrible considering the rain. It could be a mess by the time we get to the last race of the day though. The good news is that the runners themselves should have decent footing and fair conditions (or fair for NTR standards) and that's what really matters, at the end of the day. However...

The facility: Unacceptable. All of the traditional bus parking and the best spectator areas outside of the grandstands are completely closed off so nobody touches the Christmas light show. Could you not have waited until after the first weekend of November for your drive-through Christmas light show? The meet is going to be almost unwatchable unless you are in the stands (which are average at best on the east side, and falling apart on the west side) but my biggest concern: parking.

Where are they going to put cars and busses if they have closed off almost all of the paved parking? What were they thinking?

National Trail Raceway has never been ideal. The past two years have proven that this venue is absolutely unacceptable and unable to host a championship cross-country meet. In a lot of ways, this year is even worse than last year.

Last year with the rain and the historic rainfall totals, hard to avoid what happened. Still, never should have been at National Trail in the first place, but aside from that, nothing anyone really could have done about it.

But this year? No excuses. National Trail should have known what they were doing. OHSAA should not be at the mercy of negligent and uncaring venue owners, who care more about a Christmas display being up in October than hosting the State Cross-Country meet.

This year is the last straw. It has to move somewhere else. National Trail Raceway is an absolute and total failure as a championship cross-country course. OHSAA and OATCCC need to fix this.

Recommend running race in Cleveland along Christmas Story Race route. Then visit the Christmas Story House and lunch at Grumpy’s.

That venue has been a joke since they put it there. I've posted here before how easy it would be to make the course fan friendly.

If you are sitting in the stands, you can't even hear or see the start of the race. You see them briefly at 2:30 (right before they have to make the hairpin turn while still in a huge pack). After that, you wait until they finish to see them again. If you actually want to seethe race, you have to watch the start, run to the end of the track, run behind the west grandstand, run back to the start, (where you have to wait for them to exit the woods), and then sprint to beside the grandstand to see the finish. That's over 1.25 miles per race.

Putting a drive thru christmas display now is even more comical.

Definitely time to find another venue.

Just looked at the new course. It is more spectator friendly. The other improvement is going through the woods much earlier in the race.

They would still be better off starting in the open area by the track and running to the start area so people in the grandstand can at least know when the race started.

Have to wait and see if the runners like running up and down the race track for about half the race.

that's the easiest workout ever. Anyone can run a few 150's and an 800 in not faster than 1:56.