At the conference meet for Mines, Western and Adams state there were some very fast times on a hilly course at altitude. There was a "2" at one point on the course that the men did not cross twice which would have added about 1/4 mile to the course they ran...Anybody else feel like they may have ran short?
Those times weren't even that fast considering gravity isn't as strong at altitude. The winner tempoed to a 23:20 with his mouth closed the whole way. That's normal with elevation.
I heard about the guys missing out part of the course, the lead cart didn't bring them behind some trees or something. I had a teammate in the open race who ran with a GPS watch and he has the course at 4.86 but some people on strava had it longer, some shorter. At the end of the day it's XC and time doesn't really matter. Fast course tho and perfect weather.
GPS watches aren't accurate enough to be measuring courses
Tempo Mouth Closed wrote:
Those times weren't even that fast considering gravity isn't as strong at altitude. The winner tempoed to a 23:20 with his mouth closed the whole way. That's normal with elevation.
Eight kilometres XC raced in 23:20 is fast! Slightly weaker gravity helps athletes at events 400m and shorter. Athletes racing 600m to 1000m, it depends on altitude fitness of athlete. Athletes racing longer than 1500m are hurt by altitude. There is no debate.
23:20 = fast 8K wrote:
[quote]Tempo Mouth Closed wrote:
Slightly weaker gravity helps athletes at events 400m and shorter. Athletes racing 600m to 1000m, it depends on altitude fitness of athlete. Athletes racing longer than 1500m are hurt by altitude. There is no debate.
lol
The effect of reduced gravity in terrestrial athletics... beyond negligible. Air composition is a far greater factor across the board.
Think about it. If an athlete weighing 75 kg (~165 lbs.) were at 3,000 m above sea level (3 km, ~1.86 mi.) [no normal running event is held at that elevation], then the athletes weight would be effectively 0.17 kg less than at sea level (170 g, 6 oz). This will have less effect on the athlete than if they wore a different pair of shoes or rocked a p!ss recently.
Seems like with altitude conversion and the course the winning time was late 22s worth.
Grand Junction is low altitude for people in Colorado
It was definately short. Everyone I know had it at least 200m short. But it is cross country so times are irrelevant - it was great competition!