KYTrackXC.com

Every year I tend to see the same general trend that XC traffic beats track traffic fairly dramatically. The site should cross over the 1,000,000 view barrier for a 30 day period tomorrow, whereas that barrier was surpassed the weekend of the Trinity/Valkyrie Invitational in XC which is the third weekend of September, seven weeks from XC state. The peaked at 1.2 million views staying over 1 million close to 8 weeks.

XC does have a ton of kids and the whole team is very important not just one or two kids like possibly in track on some teams. Track has more kids competing and a ton of events. The automated rankings should be huge during track, but subscriptions during XC are close to double that of track.

I have two thoughts on why





Ideas?

I've noticed that a lot of XC runners tend not to run track because they say it's boring. So maybe less athletes means less traffic?

Most of the visitors seem to be distance runners or parents of distance runners, and you've got more distance runners competing during CC than Track. As cougar35 points out, you've got distance kids who claim track is boring. That's true in the sense that many will say "boring" is the reason, but the real reason is twofold. They either don't have any speed, and prefer not to get their butts kicked in the shorter track events, coupled with the fact that you definitely stand out more in track when you get your butt kicked, or they're just not very committed to the whole running thing.

@jonathan

Most elementary schools don't even have track teams, so you lose those mom's and dad's checking how little Johnny or Janie is doing.

But this is a long-standing thing on track message boards: they tend to be dominated by distance people. I'm not sure why, but sprint and field discussions are usually short and die for lack of participation. I've actually been impressed that the throwers have been able to keep their thread alive this spring. Good for them.

I think the ms/es factor is huge. Parents seem to create the most traffic.

@professor

I believe I mention this several years back.
To "spice up" the distance events, I would suggest
let the throwers chuck their weapons at the runners
as they pass by!

Hendodad

@BCrumbo

Thank you Coach C. A little known fact is that us meatheads can actually use computers when we are not busy roasting distance weenies on spits for a late night snack.

@BCrumbo

I also think that some of it has to do with the fact that XC parents, by and large, actually think they know about the intricacies of the sport because they read Runners' World and "compete" in road races. Whereas, there are no track rags for them to subscribe to, and this forum just doesn't have the expertise and cache of a real published piece of journalism (yes, I am being sarcastic).

BCrumbo

@jonathan

I've actually been impressed that the throwers have been able to keep their thread alive this spring. Good for them.

@BCrumbo

Maybe we are just

Brian (WKU THROW) has done a lot for the cause, with Army/Navy and Cougar 35 also, There is alot of personal connctions from highschool, college, post college meets
that ties us together. Seems like 5-6 years ago there was never a mention about throws, and now you have let us be part of the "milesplit team".

Believe it or not, we distance runners like having throwers at meets. E.g., you guys are incredibly useful on sunny days, because you cast a lot of shade! And although we don't exactly understand the appeal of throwing balls into small fields of kitty litter, given our non-standard sense of humor, we do find your events entertaining - especially when you guys grunt like you're taking a deuce.

In all seriousness, I've told several of our kids that throwers are like right fielders in baseball/softball. Plenty of bb/sb teams stick their worst kid in right field, but right fielders actually should be one of the team's best athletes, certainly an athlete with the best arm - given the angle of the throws from right. Same thing with throwers, it seems plenty of people act like throws are where you put the least athletic kids, but in reality, throwers have to be some of the best athletes on the team.

So yeah, even the professor is glad to see the throwers crank it up on this forum.

I loved the throwers on my high school track team. My coaches policy was for every piece of trash left in camp or on the bus, the whole team ran 1 mile. Those throwers were the best cleaners ever, I never ran because of trash for 4 years!

Being one of those possibly obsessive parents who also find this site useful for figuring out a previously unknown-to-me sport,... at least a couple of the MS track meets for our teams have never shown up here (because hosts don't send results.) XC meets were bigger and 100% reliably posted. Seems simple -- host a meet, send the results.

@CoachSullivanhhs

Maybe with the threat of a hour of power cleans in the weight room ,
maybe those non-throwers would not create a pig sty.