In our newest feature, MileStat answers your questions! Check out what questions we answer this week and who asked them.
Our newest feature seeks to answer and talk about exaclty what you want to hear about. We had numerous questions sent to us and of those we chose these to answer. If you are interested in having your questions answered then just shoot us an email at njez@milesplit.com for a chance to be featured next week!
MileStat, what should happen if an athlete is caught cutting the course?
by: Bryce Williams
Bryce, you're asking the biggest rule stickler there is. The simple answer is that they should be disqualified. We also discussed a very similar matter to this during the outdoor season when we discussed in an "Official's Corner" (Check it out here) that distance runners run to the inside of the lanes all the time but are never disqualified compared to sprinters.
Like many rulings and calls in the sport though, this is much more then a cut & dry call. In a 5K you are very unlikely to run just 3.1 miles... It is in-fact extremely difficult to even measure a course exactly the same twice in one day. Since you run with hundreds of other people, you tend to move around and not run in the perfect path throughout the entire race. All of those moves and steps off course add up to make the distance longer then a 5K... usually.
Though that may be true, the rule is simple and in my personal opinion should only be enforced when it is maliciously done in a manner to gain an advantage. If an athlete steps off course to run around a fallen tree or stream then it can be deamed ok. It cannot be accepted however if an athlete is purposely avoiding an obstacle or shortening the distance through a short-cut (whether it be 10 meters or 100 meters). If they do that then they should be disqualified... of course this becomes nearly impossible since in HS races there are no race marshalls and the VHSL/NFHS are stubborn in their ways of not accepting race footage as evidence for any decisions at this point.
With the NYC Marathon just happening it is of course time to relive one of the greatest cheats ever... Rosie Ruiz who started the 1980 Boston Marathon, took a cab to ~400m to go and broke the American record at that time. Of course she never admitted to cheating but then again... why would she cheat the New York Marathon (she took a subway that time) and the Boston Marathon in the same year? C'mon! Can't we take people on their word!?
MileStat, I was wondering, are athletes limited to only three running events on two day meets as well during indoor and outdoor track or can they total more than three?
By: Bryan Kamenga
Bryan, athletes are unfortunately limited to three running events over two days... with a few caveats. In Virginia, which is different then the majority of other states, you may compete in as many field events as you so desire on top of those running events. You cannot however run in three running events in a single day if that involves the 3200/2 Mile. In that case you can only run in one other event that day but since the 4x800 is on a separate day you are able to run in all three if you so chose.
The interesting thing here, and cause for much controversy is how this rule "unfairly" favors sprinters/jumpers. It enables a sprinter, let's take Western Branch's Milan Parks, to run the 100 hurdles, 100 and 4x100 on a single day as well to jump both the long and triple jumps. With that she is running the hurdles and dashes twice (semi-finals and finals), she is running on a relay, she is jumping in both prelims and the finals for both jumps which in theory could total 12 attempts. Many people feel this rule is unfair because of that but then again most of those people can simply respond saying that jumping events and are not only for sprinters... some of the best distance runners in the state in fact have been quite talented jumpers as well (Sarah Bowman-Brown). So, it remains a very hot-topic of discussion.
I hope my tangent on the rule didn't stray away from the very simple answer of yes.
MileStat, as a parent new to Cross Country, I'm interested to learn what goes into the "Course Rating" that I've seen listed on Milestat for each cross country meet location. Seems similar to a slope rating for golf courses, and am wondering how one measures the " hillyness" of a course to figure how it ranges between blazing and hellacious ?
By: Bill Tully
Great question Bill. A couple things go into the "speed" designation. First the rating is based on the times run at the course and how fast it is relative to other courses. There would be no real way to just say this course is fast and not compare it to other courses. To do this our system takes sample meets run at a venue and compares the times and performances to an average. From that average it projects a relation to the median time and thus translates into a speed rating.
There are a few bugs of course to sort out with it. For starters, this is based on all courses being a full 3.1 miles. Franconia Park is only 2.98 miles and thus has a -99 rating (-100 is the fastest) because it is not even a 5K. Adversely if there was a course that was 12 miles long then it would show up as a hellacious course on the slow end with a +99 rating. Aside from the varying distances, the ratings are based on times run at those meets. States for example has a slightly slow rating but some would say it would be a slight bit slower if it held more then the state championship on it. What that means is that if only big meets are held here with great competition then it is truly hard to see what the course looks like... States is only run by the very best in ideal conditions late in the season. Aside from this meets like Maymont are great guages because 100+ teams attend them and they are major invitationals with all levels of competition.
MileStat, could there possibly be more predictions? Like your top 10 in each event at each grade level or polls on the readers predictions?
By: Markus Ballengee
We definitely want to include more pieces that are prediction based. It is really hard however to do that for regionals or conferences when you have to essentially pick and choose for which ones to do this for and which ones to not. But states on the other hand we will have many pieces featuring the top members of each class and also the top athletes overall. Whichever way we decide to break it down it will be based on including as many athletes as possible that have yet to be featured yet this year. We may also do some awards at the end of the season similar to our First Team All-MileStat for Track but for XC.
At the end of the day though it takes active readers like yourself to help with content along these lines. I would much rather write something I knew would have great interaction and traction with our constiuents then just some senseless work. If people are active in these type of things and vote on polls then you will see much more of it.
I will give you one prediction though right now. Blacksburg girls are going to win their 3A classification.