Best and worst state championship courses?

TheRunningTroll wrote:

The Georgia state course is pretty terrible, at least in terms of being extremely slow. The footing is great(well cut grass around a school campus) but it is a 2 loop course that is full of extremely steel hills. Not sure if anyone ever broke 16 there out of all classifications at the state meet. Someone may have but not by much. If you watch the first 7 minutes you can see the most of the hills.

https://youtu.be/1OeyLuJDtsc

Steep* smh

Get a coaches pass and you'll be able to see everything.

MeHereYouWhere?! wrote:

Just take the hobby-jogger's mentality:

If you PR, the course (and race) automatically is the best.

If you don't PR, the course (and race) automatically sucks.

ive always hated the Virginia course. Worst part was the tall grass that saps your energy. When you have very little shot at PRing it kind of takes away part of the motivation of racing for a large portion of the running population who aren’t gifted enough to be “champions”

Of course you don’t like the state course because every other course in Georgia is flat and short. My buddy ran close to 15 flat several times but only ran 9:30 on the track.

South Carolina's Sandhills venus is a great venue; rollings hills, all grass/dirt, wide trail, and spectator friendly.

https://sc.milesplit.com/videos/232362/sandhills-course-preview

New England Entries

1) New Hampshire: Derryfield Park, awesome course, tons of tradition, good on all logistics. Challenging yes, but everything you want in XC.

2) Rhode Island: Goddard State Park, lots of parking, run along the ocean, good spectator areas to see 3-4 times. Can be muddy/dusty, but otherwise not bad. A solid entry.

3) Connecticut: Wickham Park, very tough/hilly, but good venue. Lots of parking, but tough traffic getting in/out. Again a very solid course

4) Vermont: Thetford, lots of history/tradition, very challenging, but such a small state, can't really rank it that high.

5) Massachusetts: rotates between 3. Franklin Park used to be good, but no parking. Now Wrentham which is grass loops and feels like Indiana, but okay otherwise I guess. Central Mass Gardner Golf Course, I hate, not 5k, tough turns, terribly hard hills, not spectator friendly. Western mass: Stanley park not spectator friendly, okay course otherwise, Northfield mountain closed this year due to mud, but is very challenging otherwise, okay I guess.

Maine has moved around a bunch.

Logan Decker wrote:

I'll second MIS at Michigan being less than ideal, I think it would have been awesome to run state at portage, always been my favorite course.

With that said, I'm sure other states are much worse

Portage is a great course...great hills and two loops but very fast. Would make for a great state experience as you could have tons of spectators lining the whole course. I ran there 4 times my senior year since they joined our Division that year.

MIS is less than ideal but not the worst. It is still really cool to see how big an actual NASCAR track is in real life.

-St. Joseph High Alum

Agreed; I ran at MIS this year and it was a literal mud-bath. We ran in the second race, and had box 11- let's just say it was a swamp, while other teams got to start on cinders. Very unfair. It was also very very tight at the right turn at the mile. Super bad course. I say move it to MSU where it actually is useable. Although it is very squishy and hot in early Sep at MSU, it hardens up as it gets colder and they always do an excellent job running the meet.

I wouldn't say CT's is a solid course. it's not a XC specific course. At point it seems kinda random where the course is lots of looping .

You're definitely right about the courses in New Orleans. I don't think there are any other courses in the state worth making the trip for. I always thought the Natchitoches course was fun as long as it wasn't completely destroyed.

Derryfield park in New Hampshire is awful, road race, with a 180 degree turn into the finish.

RRF Kansas +1 wrote:

Rim Rock Farms in Kansas takes my vote. I have been to 30 state meet courses and this is by far the best one. It was designed to be the best and it is maintained like the best should be

Please post your name or email at

. I think you should be nominated for Guiness. Can anyone top having been to 30 different HS state meets? What do you do for a living? Something in the shoe business. I can't imagine why anyone would go to that many different state meets.

I would have Jonathan Gault interview you and have you rank all 30 states from 1 to 30.

Oklahoma's course is complete trash.

Only a couple of short hills and a few really sharp turns where if one is on the inside they risk getting knocked into a pole. The course cuts across come pavement and goes through a largely unmonitored woodsy area where it would be easy for someone to get pushed off the trail and get injured.

Tennessee's course at Percy Warner Park in Nashville has a ton of history on its side, and it's one of the better courses I've ever run or coached. In fact, I've only seen a few courses that were as spectator friendly and that enabled as much energy. It's not exactly a fast course, but times have not been that slow, since kids race there for something that matters. It also requires a good deal of strategery and intelligence to run the state meet well on this course. I've seen many teams and individuals lose spectacularly by running the first half too hard, only to get destroyed by the rolling last mile. I've also seen teams and individuals run smart and win by owning the last mile there. There may be better courses out there, but for Tennessee kids this is a good one.

hershey all day

hills chocolate and drama

The PA course in Hershey is great. Just be prepared for the stench when you run past the sewage plant shortly after the two-mile mark. It's bad, really bad.

Aloha Hills wrote:

The PA course in Hershey is great. Just be prepared for the stench when you run past the sewage plant shortly after the two-mile mark. It's bad, really bad.

Is that why they call it "Poop-out Hill"?

Yeah, agreed, and that's what I said: the curbs, especially near the start, are a safety issue. But having run it myself 3-4 times decades ago (like I said, Woodward park has a LOT of history) and having been there recently, there's a part of me that thinks you'd have to be an idiot to trip coming off that curb near the start because everyone knows it's there! Still, it's always a tight pack and might take some by surprise as they're focused on the race, and a great course shouldn't have something like that. So I agree with Coach B that it's an ok course but nothing to write home about. I like that it has a lot of history though. Nice user name too. :-)

Only beef with the CA course is the curb you step off a few hundred meters into the race that is not visible to many of the runners. There are falls here every year and it does unfortunately impact a few kids and teams races. At least one person lost a state title because of it.[/quote]

Colorado's course is markedly better than it was 4 years ago (same venue, different course). Probably like a lot of other states, the availability/non-availability of parking drives the site selection. Charging for parking is the only realistic option for the state association to break even on the event. That's the reality.

It's not a terrible course, but it doesn't have a blade of grass on the entire course. It starts on a crushed rock parking lot and mostly stays on crushed rock trails. Crosses three wooden bridges, each once. Has a nice creek crossing at the end. Finishes in a stadium. It's moderately hilly and is probably a little short of the advertised 5K.

There are better courses in the state, but none that can support of crowd of 3000 people, give or take a thousand.