Best and worst state championship courses?

The Roy Griak Invitational is held at the U of M's golf course in late September. To anyone who would like to get a great introduction to this course, the widely-seen (3.1 million views!) video of Grace Ping winning the Girl's Gold race on it (as a 12 year-old 7th grader!) gives a really good overview of this beautiful course:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-ap9KvsQzc

howso? wrote:

How could anyone who hasn't run all 50 courses possibly know the answer to this?

I agree with this. This is just going to be everyone bragging on their own home state course. I will say that one plus of the GA state meet is the downhill finish. Even if you do have to run right up that hill immediately before the finish.

The Maryland course at Hereford is a great, tough 3 mile course. For a sense of how hard it is, the year Centro ran 4:04 1600/8:45 2mile he barely broke 16 for 3 miles if I remember right

Michigan's gets my vote for the worst. They have been running it at MIS (Michigan International Speedway) since 96 or 97. They start on the back straight infield run a 1/2 mile an then exit the stadium the next two miles are around the camp grounds and service areas. Then re-enter the stadium to do the final turn and finish near the Race Car finish. For spectators it is terrible. You really have to be in shape to watch the runners more then twice and even then you need to run a fast 800 to get a glimpse of them in the finish straight. Which at best is 3 rows deep of spectators at the fence and a good 50-70 feet from the runners. Always heard how bad it was but had to experience it myself the last 2 years, with daughter running.

For the runners it isn't much better. They have a couple pinch points in the first mile. First there is the 2 - 90 degree turns around 800m to get our of the stadium. Then there is the exterior fence near 1000m, which has a muddy stretch right before it and lastly the mile mark has a split timer which they narrow the course for and also has a muddy stretch right before it. and don't get me started on the final 800 in the soft grass, which by the time D1 runs is a disaster. Plus, if the runners are looking for support about all they get is some spars cheers in the first 800 and last 400.

https://www.mhsaa.com/Sports/Girls-Cross-Country

Ohio's course is absolutely terrible. The old course was great and then they moved it and it is just awful for the athlete, spectator, and coach.

Haha! I won two state titles at Wamego! I love that course but would be more challenging as a 5k course!

Iowa location wrote:

Iowa’s course is in a terrible location for about 80% of the competitors who would prefer a more population centered location. The course is ok except the length changes every year.

Is it still at fort dodge? I remember the course itself being okay, just a big golf course, fairly hilly but not terrible.

I'm not a big fan of courses that - - -

have any amount of pavement.

have loops that are repeated.

just zig-zag back and forth over one area.

just loop around baseball, soccer fields, and parking lots.

I prefer courses that - - -

have varied terrain; both hills & turns.

are a mix of grass and dirt.

are wide.

Golf course are okay, but the best of the best courses I've been to are generally built for XC.

For state it is also very nice to have - - -

adequate parking with an entry that minimizes long lines.

adequate facilities; bathrooms, locker rooms.

a course where spectators can view the race for multiple points.

a group of course marshals that assure safety of races in a respectful way.

-Adam Kedge, Albuquerque Academy

No Massachusetts is the worst, rotate between three different sites because they are so liberal that they want to make everyone happy. No one has the balls to decide on a central location and stick to it.

I’ve only seen CA and IT in person

CA - good location in that it’s right in the middle of the state, some challenging hills but very fast with mostly DKG pathways. Lots of pavement unfortunately.

UT - Sugarhouse park is a beautiful setting but I’m not familiar with the exact layout of the course. I’ve only been there once and it was a long time ago. I did do an easy run in the park once and felt it was pretty hilly anywhere I went.

From the video Long Green Line, IL looks pretty lame.

Near the top of the crap list, Kentucky’s State Meet fence. The distance changes slightly every year and the races are held in a couple of fenced-in areas where horses otherwise roam. That leads to ruts in the ground some years and strategically placed horse pies. First 400 is slightly uphill, so little to no separation of the field at the 400, where there’s a sharp, narrow right turn that brings inside runners to a full and complete stop. One side of the course is on low ground, and after a lot of rain last Fall, it was all underwater. Meet management sucks, the HS Association people don’t know or care. For example, they respond to the water on the course problem last Fall by not letting teams do run-outs, just get in your box and wait. Major parking bottlenecks before and after each meet, just a single one-laned road in and out with clueless Park cops running everything. It’s a cluster f most years.

Top that $hit!

Wamego is alright...I see why people like it, but it’s not even compareable to Rim Rock Farm.

(For those of you who do not know, Kansas has two outstanding state courses. Wamego is for 1A, 2A, 4A and KU’s Rim Rock Farm is 3A, 5A, 6A)

With all I listed I'd grade New Mexico's course at Rio Rancho HS as a solid B.

Positive:

Wide flat start

Wide course

No hairpin turns

hills, both short and long

flat finish

fairly good footing

well maintained

no standing water or mud

ample parking, bathrooms, concessions

good site lines, viewing

good course marshals

host school, coach, and state association really work hard to make everything work.

Negatives:

maybe 0.5 to 0.7 miles of pavement

Nsan wrote:

Marcus Siepen wrote:

Rim Rock (3a, 5a, 6a) or Wamego (1a, 2a, 4a)?

Rim Rock is wonderful, but Wamego is one of the worst courses I've ever stepped foot on. It's basically a test of who can run 180s around a tree then back up a hill, then back down a hill and a 180 again. They need to move them all to Rim Rock and just make it a 2 day thing

Another vote for Rim Rock Farm from me. Due to a one-year classification switch for my school I've run on both Rim Rock (for the invitational and state) and Wamego (just state) and RRF was beautiful but pretty intense, e.g. Cemetery Hill. Agreed on the 180 spin challenge of Wamego

CoachB, We must have different definitions of "lots," because to me Woodward Park in CA doesn't have "lots of pavement." It has a little bit of pavement, a few hundred meters near start and finish, a very short stretch on far part of course, plus crossing a road a few times. Maybe 600m total, if that much? California doesn't allow spikes in XC races, so a little bit of pavement doesn't bother me all that much though I agree it's not ideal. What I don't like is the curbs from street to pathway and pathway to street, feels like a small safety issue for runners tripping in the pack, especially near the start. For me, Woodward Park is a decent course with a lot of history, but not especially good or bad as courses go. By the way, what's "DKG"? Dirt, something and grass?

CoachB wrote:

I’ve only seen CA and IT in person

CA - good location in that it’s right in the middle of the state, some challenging hills but very fast with mostly DKG pathways. Lots of pavement unfortunately.

UT - Sugarhouse park is a beautiful setting but I’m not familiar with the exact layout of the course. I’ve only been there once and it was a long time ago. I did do an easy run in the park once and felt it was pretty hilly anywhere I went.

From the video Long Green Line, IL looks pretty lame.

I have heard nothing but good reviews of the Cross Country course in Thetford, Vermont which has been home to the VT championships since 92 and which has hosted the NE Champs a few times (I believe). Varied, tough but fair.

Amen brother. Add in that the course is seeming to deteriorate every year. By far the worst spectator course ever.

For a state that has bad courses in general, the Florida state meet course (Apalachee Regional Park in Tallahassee) is great. It hosted USATF XC nationals last year and will again in a month.

Ohio's has been despised by athletes, coaches, and spectators alike since it moved to National Trail Raceway in 2011.

This year was especially horrendous when the course could not even handle a moderate amount of consistent rain the week before the original date of the State Meet, leading to the State Meet being postponed an entire week, an absolutely unacceptable clustercuss.

They even changed the original course map less than two weeks before the State Meet (which took away the field where the spectators could actually watch the meet from the stands; the only good part of the original course), and then they changed the course AGAIN the day before the postponed State Meet due to a field being too flooded.

(I should note, the very first meet of the season is exclusively the OHSAA Invite on the State Meet course, and if you are a team trying to get a look at the State Course (to my knowledge, this is the only meet run at this course besides the State Meet) changing the course after kind of defeats the purpose of going)

The silver lining is that the course they eventually went with, I actually thought was pretty solid. The athletes are able to come around the grandstands at the 1 Mile, with 1K to go, and for the finish. I think it was the best possible option at this venue, and if the meet remains at National Trail, I hope that they stick with the course from this past year.

Hopefully the OHSAA finds a way to redeem themselves from this last year's disaster.