For the women using their best xc 5k time which obviously doesn't translate to another meet: 16:55, 17:22, 17:39, 17:54, 18:01.
Men: 15:02, 15:06, 15:13, 15:25, 15:25.
Most of these marks were achieved at Footlocker regionals or NXN regionals. The 16:55 girl got 3rd at Footlockers Nationals that year and the 15:13 guy was likely an age cheat who got 2nd at Footlocker Nationals twice.
No. Over 70 years, we've had a star about every 20 years who won the cross country championship in a large league. That's four runners. None of those four would have been national stars. None was even a state champion. Our sixth and seventh runners were between 9:30 and 9:35 two milers, so they would not have displaced any strong national team's first five. I think there might be fewer than ten high schools nationwide who could compete realistically for the best and the cutoff for the ten might be having five runners sub 9 in the two mile.
Pre-supershoes I think we could have qualified to NXN. We have exactly five really strong runners in my alma mater's history, including myself. I'd probably be considered the least of them, though I might be 4th for cross-country on this fantasy team because one of our historical studs was best known for the 1600/800. If we all were on a team together and had solid days at the regional meet, we could likely have put down the kind of times needed to make it to nationals in the mid-2010s, but we'd have no chance of winning it.
Post-supershoes I doubt we could even qualify, our school record board looked a heck of a lot better 10 years ago than it does now. Maybe we'd all have been faster too but I'm just going off the times we all actually ran.
I should note that I'm also the most recent of the "big five" from my school, and even my high school days predate NXN. It was Footlocker or nothing in my time. My old school has done absolutely nothing in distance running for 20 years.
Pre-supershoes I think we could have qualified to NXN. We have exactly five really strong runners in my alma mater's history, including myself. I'd probably be considered the least of them, though I might be 4th for cross-country on this fantasy team because one of our historical studs was best known for the 1600/800. If we all were on a team together and had solid days at the regional meet, we could likely have put down the kind of times needed to make it to nationals in the mid-2010s, but we'd have no chance of winning it.
Post-supershoes I doubt we could even qualify, our school record board looked a heck of a lot better 10 years ago than it does now. Maybe we'd all have been faster too but I'm just going off the times we all actually ran.
I should note that I'm also the most recent of the "big five" from my school, and even my high school days predate NXN. It was Footlocker or nothing in my time. My old school has done absolutely nothing in distance running for 20 years.
I'll add that we are a middle-sized school in the southeast. Don't know if that changes the analysis because I have never really paid attention to the Nike regionals, just the national meet.
Yup. My high school was top 10 at NXN a couple of times, plus a couple strong individuals in other years. Would've had to all get it done on the same day though, which is always tough, but the ability was surely there. Funnily enough, the girls would be even better, but they've never qualified as a team. Just lots of good individuals spread out over the last 20 years or so.
Even including our few alumni who did well in college (sub 1:50, sub 4 and low 4:0x), we wouldn't. We ran somewhat low mileage as our runners were always best at 800 / 1600 / mile. I think we only had a guy sub 16 every few years, admittedly on relatively tough courses and not (converted to 5k) California road races.