I'm reading this thread am am very glad to see that a lot of people are treating dual meets like practices. It was very frustrating as a coach having to deal with ADs and other coaches who thought of track like a basketball team.
My senior year of XC I ran 17 races!!! What the hell for? That was 4 post season races, 3 inivitationals, and TEN dual meets. In only one of those races did I actually race people that I didn't see in the other 16. One of those post season races was a "district meet" with 3 teams. We already raced those guys 6 times that year, did we really need a 7th to figure out that we were the fastest team in the school district (winning by 10-15 points)
The only thing that kept me fresh was the fact that in 12 of those races I was a minute or more better than the next fastest runner in the meet.
I've actually toyed with the idea of having JV run Tuesday meets while varsity practiced. It wouldn't be very popular, though.