It’s on dirt, is an early season meet (HOT), is an awkward distance, and it makes my legs SAD. This course is the only course I’ve ever seen MULTIPLE D1 athletes walking on consistently.
I have bad dreams about this course at least once a week.
How is any D1 (or even D3) athlete walking any 10k and below XC or track event?
It’s on dirt, is an early season meet (HOT), is an awkward distance, and it makes my legs SAD. This course is the only course I’ve ever seen MULTIPLE D1 athletes walking on consistently.
I have bad dreams about this course at least once a week.
How is any D1 (or even D3) athlete walking any 10k and below XC or track event?
The course has a very extreme elevation profile where you run on a slight downhill for the first 1500m or so, and then you tackle 3 extremely steep and long hills over the next K, run on flatish ground for 500m, and then loop around again. People are aggressive on the first mile, normal for the leaders to split around 4:10-4:15, and then you are punished for that aggression up the hills. No ones running 4:anything pace up the hills, and it’s extremely common to see people running as slow as 8-10:00 pace on this part of the course. 6:30-7:30 pace is the norm for college men up this thing. On the second lap it’s normal for athletes to walk or drop out. You try to make/match a move on that second downhill and then the final stretch makes you PAY for it.
By the end you are choking on dust, dealing with pure muscular failure and massive amounts of lactic in your legs, you are overheated because it’s 90 degrees out, and about to finish the slowest 6k you’ve ran in years.
Some would argue this is one of those “true XC, the time doesn’t matter and conditions are rough” courses, and they’d be right. But i’d love to forget every time i’ve raced on this thing.
Audubon Park has a flat fast short course that Jesuit runs on. Kudos for them but not the guy who overhyped them and saying it is a difficult course. It is if you trip over tree roots.
I remember that. The course apparently was a "5k and not a pancake like woodbridge." Yeah right. It was a short 3 miler, very fast course.
Choose an xc course to remove from existence, all of its results, history, and future meets. Nobody would ever talk about or run on that course again.
Seneca, Illinois Ag Farm. Crosses a creek twice. 10-15 feet drop and very steep. Kids get free ambulance rides to the local hospital almost every meet. Mostly girls. If you ever raced there you'll know why.
The most dangerous course?? In the late sixties, I ran the Edgewood HS (MD) cross country course. When we warmed up and came out of a wooded section we found ourself on railroad tracks for about 150 yards before entering another wooded section on the other side of the tracks. Amazingly, this was an active rail line.
Before my race, I asked the coach what I should do if a train came by. His advice was pure genius. I was to stop and wait for it to pass.
The most dangerous course?? In the late sixties, I ran the Edgewood HS (MD) cross country course. When we warmed up and came out of a wooded section we found ourself on railroad tracks for about 150 yards before entering another wooded section on the other side of the tracks. Amazingly, this was an active rail line.
Before my race, I asked the coach what I should do if a train came by. His advice was pure genius. I was to stop and wait for it to pass.