Colorado Mines Track Conversion

i think the altitude is too generous, but i will say this, the best i ever ran a 400 there was 51 high due to the insane tight curves, really was painful on the ankles...everywhere else i was running 50 low, so there is that. but in a mile i dont think your going that fast to get screwed on the curves. i would say 4 seconds total for the altitude/short track

which would give those guys 4:12...is that in line with them?

Most of those guys never run as fast at sea level as they do with the altitude converted times. Mines sent a group of their kids to GV to run at sea level and kept the ones that can handle altitude their to take advantage of the conversions

You are welcome to go run there if you think it is that easy. That track is horrible (the surface is decent, but the corners are super tight and the air is incredibly dry). Their team just dominated the D2 cross country championships (by the largest margin since 1978 at low altitude), it shouldn't come as some sort of a surprise that they have guys hitting qualifying times indoors.

Mines just thumped everyone at xc nattys. And, correct me if I'm wrong, wasnt that at sea level?

To be honest, altitude conversions benefit strength based runners. On the other hand, speed based runners will suffer. My team had guys on both ends. Some guys could never match their conversions and others could not convert to their sea level times. Also, altitude runners get fewer, if any, chances to race at sea level. One shot each season to race for a fast time isn't ideal.

Ive run on the mines track several times and its tough. 8 and 1/2 laps to the mile, has tight turns, and is very dry. Difficult to maintain pace. Would love to watch some sea level sissies run on it.

Alright, I did some more research. Vincent Workman ran the converted 4:05 for Mines and has a 3:51 1500 PR (Faster than his 2nd best time by 3 seconds). That is a very large PR for the first race of the season on a shitty track, so take that as it is. Additionally, Dylan Day has a 3:52 1500 PR which is even farther off what he ran (7 seconds faster than his 2nd best time). Pretty much, anyone who tries to defend the Mines track, I have some pretty large doubts and I’m sure that I can find more data if I wanted.

Also, to people saying that “the air sucks”, literally every indoor tracks air is shite. The conversion is fake and people are bumping people out of NCAA’s because of it.

trackislife12 wrote:

Alright, I did some more research. Vincent Workman ran the converted 4:05 for Mines and has a 3:51 1500 PR (Faster than his 2nd best time by 3 seconds). That is a very large PR for the first race of the season on a shitty track, so take that as it is. Additionally, Dylan Day has a 3:52 1500 PR which is even farther off what he ran (7 seconds faster than his 2nd best time). Pretty much, anyone who tries to defend the Mines track, I have some pretty large doubts and I’m sure that I can find more data if I wanted.

Also, to people saying that “the air sucks”, literally every indoor tracks air is shite. The conversion is fake and people are bumping people out of NCAA’s because of it.

Do runners qualifying from that track have a history of doing excessively poorly at NCAAs? If not, then it's not an issue. Showing up to NCAAs, and putting on a decent show absolutely validates them getting in on these supposedly sketchy qualifying marks.

On the other hand, if they show up to NCAAs and repeatedly end up at the back of the pack when their qualifying marks predict them being much faster, we do have a problem.

Seyta wrote:

Do runners qualifying from that track have a history of doing excessively poorly at NCAAs? If not, then it's not an issue. Showing up to NCAAs, and putting on a decent show absolutely validates them getting in on these supposedly sketchy qualifying marks.

On the other hand, if they show up to NCAAs and repeatedly end up at the back of the pack when their qualifying marks predict them being much faster, we do have a problem.

Workman's career individual finishes at NCAAs include a DFL that was 10 seconds behind 2nd to last (and 21 seconds behind the last time into finals) and a 2nd to last in his prelim finish. The other prelim that year was ridiculously slow so it's tough to evaluate him against the whole field since his blazing fast 3:58 1500 was still faster than the winning time in the other prelim.

On the more positive side he was part of a 3rd place DMR the other year he ran at NCAAs.

Those are the facts. Create whatever narrative you'd like to out of them.

Stop cherry picking athletes. Here are all of the Mines distance runners that qualified on the Mines track for Indoors 2019. I have their rankings and finish at NCAAs.

(Rank/Finish at NCAAs)

Josh Hoskinson

5k: 6th/3rd

Luke Julian

3k: 9th/5th

Josh Evans:

Mile: 8th/11th

Luc Hagen:

5k: 9th/16th

Kyle Moran:

5k: 20th/12th

Mines DMR:

2nd/3rd

If you add everything up, the Mines runners actually improved by a total of 6 spots as a group at NCAAs. It's only one meet but it indicates that the conversions for the Mines track are fairly accurate, maybe even conservative.

That literally does not mean anything. If someone fast runs on a track that has extra conversion and places well at NCAA’s, well no sh!t. They are fast, I am not saying every person that runs on there is a fluke at NCAA’s. I am saying people who don’t belong at NCAA’s, qualify for the meet at this track with the ridiculous conversion times.

trackislife12 wrote:

I know this has been discussed before, but I really don’t understand why the NCAA doesn’t change the standard. Two guys ran 4:16 in the mile there this weekend, it got converted to 4:05. I mean seriously, it’s barely under 200 meters, and the altitude doesn’t seem to have the handicap they claim. Please put an end to this sneaky was of qualifying for NCAA’s.

Conversion seems to be about right. In fact I always thought it was more like 13 seconds.

I don’t know why people are getting confused, I am not calling out Colorado Mines runners. I am taking about their track, I don’t care how good they are. All I am saying is their track is fake news.

Is there anything stopping you from running there if you think it is so great? I know a lot of people go places like University of Washington and the Armory to hit qualifiers, but never have I heard of people saying that the Mines track is the place to go to chase a fast time. You are welcome to give it a shot. I never found it to be that fast a track (anything between 200-800 meters is absolutely abhorrent as the turns are super tight and you have a bunch of crashes because there are so few lanes). Most of the qualifiers from our team were at places like Iowa State or occasionally the Academy, but nobody was ever saying that Mines was the place to go to hit a mark. What you can find at most meets in Colorado is a bunch of fast runners in pretty much every race as there is top caliber talent at both the D1 and D2 level (except when people are off chasing times at low altitude meets). Mines has a limited budget, so they cannot afford to go to low altitude all that often, and as a result, many of their meets are run locally. As for the athletes you are calling out, you should really wait to cast judgement until later as you have no idea how their training has gone and how much they have improved year over year.

I tried running at 8500 feet and a couple times above 10000 feet. It is hard. Also, when not running and up that high even walking around you'll feel somewhat like a zombie.

You're an idiot. 99% of the Universities are not at altitude. All the teams taking advantage of it are altitude universities that train at altitude higher than Golden. Even Mines trains higher than where their facility is. Look at where all the guys that have run the converted times are from. Altitude. Altitude conversions were originally put in for athletes not from altitude going to altitude. Mines literally sent their whole womens team and a few men to GV im sure they could have sent more but they decided to take advantage of the conversions like normal.

Cherry picking wrote:

Stop cherry picking athletes. Here are all of the Mines distance runners that qualified on the Mines track for Indoors 2019. I have their rankings and finish at NCAAs.

(Rank/Finish at NCAAs)

Josh Hoskinson

5k: 6th/3rd

Luke Julian

3k: 9th/5th

Josh Evans:

Mile: 8th/11th

Luc Hagen:

5k: 9th/16th

Kyle Moran:

5k: 20th/12th

Mines DMR:

2nd/3rd

If you add everything up, the Mines runners actually improved by a total of 6 spots as a group at NCAAs. It's only one meet but it indicates that the conversions for the Mines track are fairly accurate, maybe even conservative.

It's not cherry picking to use the performances by the athletes in question.

Hoskinson - Sure he qualified at Mines, but the dude ran 8:08 in a 3k at sea level. I don't think he would've had any trouble qualifying regardless. I'd be curious to know how hard he had to run to get that qualifier on Mines track, but that's subjective and not something you can measure. I'll take the conservative side and give you this one as a legitimate conversion.

Julian - Qualifying performance was at Mines, but he also had a qualifying performance at sea level. Similar to Hoskinson, since he won the race I'm curious how hard he would say that race was compared to his sea level race. I'm not saying I know what his response would be. It would just be a useful data point. Again, I'll take the conservative side and give you this one as a legitimate conversion.

Evans - Not really helping your case here, he was last in his prelim and his overall place benefited from his heat being the faster one. I think this one goes to the naysayers.

Hagen - Also not really helping your case. He was last by over 27 seconds and was lapped by every single All-American finisher. The only reason he didn't hurt the groups result vs seed analysis more was because there weren't more guys in the race. Also, I think you should have him moving from 7th to 16th for that analysis since Winders and Woldemichael were never entered in the 5k at nationals, so really he was seeded 7th going in. I think this one also goes to the naysayers.

Moran - Credit where credit is due he ran well. However, I'd argue your analysis of his performance isn't really accurate. He was 20th on the national list coming in, but due to scratches he was actually seeded 16th in the race. So for purposes of analyzing the whole group he really only moved up 4 spots. I also think it's relevant to note that in what was a fast 5k, (13:46 up front for Panning and Gidabuday and 14:07-:15 for the next 7 guys), he was still 14 seconds slower than his converted time. I'm not trying to take anything away from a solid effort at NCAAs, but if we're talking about guys getting into NCAAs thanks to a generous conversion that they can't back up at sea level, that's a relevant data point. This one is a 50-50, I think. He didn't get embarrassed at NCAAs but he also didn't live up to his seed time.

DMR - They ran a slightly different team at NCAAs, and relays are a lot tougher to judge because of the additional variables. I wouldn't count this one either way.

All that to say I think it's a lot closer to a 50-50 success rate on the conversion than you indicated. I don't think it's fair to say they over-performed relevant to expectations as a group, and while guys who are legitimate bona fide studs backed up their conversion, the bubble guys more people argue about and get upset by certainly had a tougher day. And this is why this conversation isn't going away any time soon, no matter how convinced everyone is they're right.

Okay a few things from years of training and racing in Colorado...

The CO Mines track is FAR from fast. It's curves are horrific for any speed considered remotely fast. The reality is that there have been MANY very good runners throughout the years that have competed in that building thus producing competitive results. Conversions can be nit-picked to death, but one thing is for sure history has shown that the RMAC is the most dominant distance running conference at the DII level year after year after year. Not only people competing at the college level, but they have also had a high number of alums who have competed well post-college at various distances. Until very recent years the only indoor tracks in Colorado were at Colorado Mines, a very bad 200m 3-lane track at CU and the Air Force Academy. So those are where all the runners in Colorado competed. There are more options today with newer tracks at CU, Western St, Adams St and UCCS.

As for conversions at any level...

Tracks - to classify every track as "under-sized", "standard" or "over-sized" is a problem to start with. The actual length of a track and radius of the curves have more of an impact that can be classified by the three categories mentioned.

Altitude - the altitude conversions recognized by the NCAA start at 3100 ft. The highest track recognized by the NCAA is at 7700 feet. Actual altitude effects on performances start closer to 2000 ft. You can ask Jack Daniels about that. To be able to accurately classify how each human being is impacted by every possible elevation is impossible.

There are certainly some specific physiological barriers than can not be ignored or denied when competing at higher elevations. Any performance done at a higher elevation is a legit effort and if people think that the conversions are not for real then they should travel to those tracks and have a go of it. It's not some magical time deduction gift, it's the reality of functioning with less oxygen pressure.

It is cherry picking to choose only one athlete that supports your arguement. That's why I did everyone from that year even if they didn't necessarily support my viewpoint. If we wanted to do a more complete assessment someone should do the last decade and include athletes from schools other than Mines. But that would take more effort than I'm willing to put in.

Bubble athletes will always struggle at NCAAs. They simply lack fitness and experience relative to the rest of the field.

You can't attribute those poor results only to conversions. Even Moran, who ran well in a fast race, didn't hit his conversion. However running a PR in a championship race is very rare. There is contact, surges in pace, lulls in pace, lead changes, lapped athletes. Very different from a time trial. The Mines qualifying times are done with small fields and a pacer. Likely a reason for the fast times generated on that track.

I'm not saying that there is an occasional athlete that slips in to NCAAs thanks to altitude conversions. That certainly happens on occasion. However I think the conversions are about as accurate as they can be without seriously hurting the altitude schools that dont have the budget to travel. Chopping 3-4 secs off the mile conversion to keep Workman/Day out of NCAAs would make it nearly impossible to qualify on that track for everyone else. Even for a top 5 miler.

Mate, I don’t know why you think I am cherry picking. Look at the D2 lists online, those are the top two guys who ran at Mines this year.

To everyone mentioning the tight turns excuse that is ridiculous. Once I am done with finals I am going to run a regression analysis on the top 30 times from mile - 5k . I honestly haven’t looked at any of the other data besides what was posted on this thread but I am sure that I will find a correlation. Also, the altitude conversion is meant for people who don’t run at altitude. Not for the people completely acclimated to training at altitude.

Hey "Mate" - where do you come up with this idea below?

"Also, the altitude conversion is meant for people who don’t run at altitude. Not for the people completely acclimated to training at altitude."

Where is that written?????

NO ONE FROM SEA-LEVEL volunteers to go up to higher elevations to run. The conversions exist for performances at altitude to be equated to sea-level.

The issue that are up for debate are track size conversions.