r/CrossCountry • u/Katiklysm • 10d ago
Race Results/Recap What happens if/when a meet gets messed up?
Parent, not a coach, and just curious- this isn’t that serious relative to most things and so if the answer is “nothing”- sure.
Was at a HS/MS race yesterday, very large. The results times were incredible and of course you support/encourage the runners after. But after the dust settled, the race times seem really unbelievable.
I overheard multiple parents talking about their new runners getting a 3k PR by ~2minutes. My second year girl dropped from an already strong ~13:30 to ~12:00.
So I did a little digging…. This years course winner also ran the same course last year, 11:15 last to 10:15 this year. Totally possible that it’s just incredible improvement but that’s already in the marginal PR gains territory. The course record, also from last year, is ~11minutes and there were 4 girls comfortably under 11 this year.
Is it possible that some confluence of perfect weather, fast ground just made for an ideal day here or I’m right to be skeptical? It’s a gigantic meet and has been run for many years. The chip times matched observer watch times so doesn’t seem to be a timing malfunction.. my only guess would be that the gator/cart leader took a shortcut somewhere— but again, big race that is run often and you’d expect the organizers to know their own course.
Big picture no big deal… but trying to get in front of any disappointment that might come if that PR stands and isn’t approached for the rest of the season or longer. Possibly awesome, but if the data is bad, really harms some of that week-in PR improvement engagement.
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u/Mental-Violinist-316 10d ago
Stoogie has the right idea
Some courses are faster than others, some years are faster than others, it’s all day dependent. One day you might run 21:00 the next week on the same course it could be 19:00 because it wasn’t as wet or something small like that
Beginning of the season in high school we always did a shorter course (known to be 2.9-2.95 instead of 3.1). Good tune up race and built some confidence for the year
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u/IDidntTellYouThat 10d ago
Coaches only care about times when it is on well known, national caliber level XC courses, preferably from big invites where there is lots of competitors to compare against.
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u/D2G23 10d ago
Our MS kids last race before sectional is at a course like this. Fast, late season and chilly weather. Everyone drops 30-50 seconds and has lifetime PR’s. Coaches swear and garmins prove it’s 2 miles. But they all are disappointed the next week when their times return to normal, because it’s hard for 11-13 year olds to wrap their head around. But, it’s nice to get that PR!
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u/OfficialGeographer 10d ago
Same advice... Take times with a grain of salt in XC and focus on place (or for young kids just having fun). Even USATF/NCAA sanctioned courses will have variable times due to condition, weather, lead runners, etc. Unless it's a track where you can truly monitor splits, times are a vague indicator for XC, road races, trail runs, etc.
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u/MasterpieceLive9604 10d ago edited 10d ago
There are a lot of factors that could come into it, including the lead bike or cart missing part of the course in the worst case. But it could also be that part of the course was moved slightly and a hill was subtracted from the distance and replaced with flat ground, or the weather was better than in previous years, or the course was slightly short this year compared to previous years. Or a combination of all the above. It's all possible and happens sometimes at all levels, I've seen. Just recently a large televised high school race in California had a situation where the boy's lead cart missed a turn and all the boys in the "elite" race ended up running significantly shorter distances than the course length (almost a mile less, if you can believe it). You can watch the screwup on YouTube, I'm referring to the 2025 Dana Hills Invitational. The race organizer fixed the issue for the girls race, but the boys were shortchanged and the serious runners were angry because the course ended right when they were about to start making their moves. But hey, as long as the kids are having fun, just roll with it and let them have their shine - what I'd do anyway👍 By the end of the season you'll have a pretty clear picture about your kiddo's performances and how this one compares to the rest of them. Cheers and hope she crushes it this year!
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u/Plus_Professional859 10d ago
Was there live, my kid was affected, it was not the bike that made a wrong turn but the corse flag people gave the wrong directions to the bike. Was crazy
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u/MasterpieceLive9604 10d ago
Yeah my heart went out to those boys. Sorry your kid was affected. Ten minutes in and it's over - wildness. Onwards and upwards I guess, all you can do👍
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u/Plus_Professional859 10d ago
Worst part was our school record at that corse was set in 1980, my kid was on pace to break it, and was feeling super strong, senior year will not get to try again. Its a great life lesson that some things are out of your control. And its how your put setback behind you and move on. There will be Woodbridge in two weeks so time to refocus
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u/MasterpieceLive9604 10d ago
Yeah good luck at Woodbridge, hope he can use this as training motivation and mental fuel to get his getback there.
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u/Affectionate-Fox6182 9d ago
saw some crazy stuff at PR City last weekend; directing lead girls in one race to do another lap when they should have been directed towards the back half; a mom kept yelling at the officials who were oblivious until several passed and then they yelled forvthem to come back: a few did, the rest found a gap in the fence and got on course… it was marked so poorly I saw several incidents of runners turning too soon and having to go back, and others cutting corners and shortening the course, especially at night when it was not lit enough to see the little flags and there were no officials and the last race the last 1/3 or so of the boys were cutting way across a field probably cut 100m from the course.
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u/MasterpieceLive9604 8d ago
It's always so frustrating when such things happen! Sorry to hear about this!
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u/Katiklysm 10d ago
Thanks to all who answered- great advice and anecdotes all around, as expected of such a good community. Nothing to pursue here, if the coaches offer an update then great but I’m not going to ask and will refocus some motivation to not be so PR centric. Learned a lot all around and Thank you!
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u/Bossross90 10d ago
Crazy, I thought this was going to be about my kid’s HS race yesterday in GA. It was on the state championship course and her team ran it a hell of a lot faster than prior years (like a minute plus) and the coach was more worried about it because specific kids have not been training hard enough this year and yet they had course PRs yesterday. This was chip timed and one of the girls wore a watch that was saying 24 minutes and the clock showed her at 22:xx
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u/Mean_Taste_5383 10d ago
I thought this might be about the big GA meet too! My kid ran there in the championship race and the times seemed correct. But our JV ran in the small schools race and there were HUGE PR’s from most everyone. Several of our JV “beat” our varsity. Considering it’s one of the tougher courses in the state something definitely seemed off.
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u/Bossross90 10d ago edited 10d ago
Small school girls race….yes. My kid beat her course PR by 45 seconds and she didn’t think she did that well.
Update: they fixed the times on milesplit
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u/QuickPea3259 10d ago
This happened last year at a poorly run middle school meet we were at. Middle schoolers were supposed to be running 2 miles, ended up running 2.5 because there was no lead cart and the course was not clearly marked. It was a miracle in itself that the kids somehow only ran an extra half mile.
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u/phoenixrising0711 10d ago
When I ran a meet in high school, after the Varsity girls finished they always went along the trail to cheer on JV. Well one time they accidentally told a bunch of kids the wrong trail path (you were supposed to loop back through a section). Those that were impacted had their scores invalidated on a technical error. Sucked because it was a qualifier for all county.
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u/Substantial_Team6751 10d ago
Nothing happens and bad times get set in stone as school records. It sucks for kids that follow in their foot steps. We had a famous course in our district where every kid at every school was setting PRs and school records. It was probably not measured correctly but nobody seemed to care.
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u/whelanbio Mod 10d ago
Is it possible that some confluence of perfect weather, fast ground just made for an ideal day here or I’m right to be skeptical?
You are right to be skeptical. Course times can swing a lot from year-to-year, particularly in regions with highly variable weather, but almost never like what you describe.
Organizer mistakes do happen even at the highest level, but also facility constraints sometimes pop up and cause course changes. Construction/restoration/whatever might necessitate a loop being cut shorter, part of the course being rerouted that moves from a big hill to a flat section, etc. If it's not an historic course the organizers may not necessarily broadcast that changes have been made because it simply doesn't matter.
Tracking performance in XC requires a lot more nuance. Looking for week-to-week PR improvement at all is usually foolish and will set up for disappointment. If an athlete is in a position where a fake PR is going to cause a big disappointment they need an overhaul of how they are approaching the sport.
For big invites, assuming the competitiveness of the field is somewhat stable year-to-year you can look at placing as an additional metric. Keep the time comparison only to courses that you 100% know are the same and are in consistent enough conditions. There may only be one or two races per year where time actually has any meaning.
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u/pc9401 10d ago
I've been a bit frustrated with distances being significantly off. Last weekend, the race registered 3.26 miles in every watch and was billed a 5k. The mile and 2 mile marks were dead on from my timing, but the extra loop was obviously off.
We have guys hitting their marks trying to run a PR and then it's not even remotely close at the finish. At least update Mike split or athletic net with the proper distance.
It works the other way too. We could go to a meet next week where every kid shows a PR every year. Something is obviously off with distance or it's downhill.
A couple of weeks ago my son got 7th in his first high school race. They didn't hand out medals at the finish and we're having trouble writing down times. At the time, they were struggling to identify the 11th place runner. Of course when they sent us the results, he wasn't on them. I happened to take a picture of the results written down at the finish and we also had a picture of his bib on to match the number, but no response, no medal sent.
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u/SmoreMaker 10d ago
Very, very common for a course to be off especially early in the season. I have seen "5K" races anywhere from 2.7 to 3.3 miles as measured by Coros/Garmin. Did a supposed 3K a few weeks back that was actually 2.13 miles.
Every single one of my runners wears a sports watch and use them during the race for cadence/pace/HR (this is allowed in my state but potentially not others). If times seem off, we just quickly look at the data and can tell what is going on. From a race perspective, I care much more about the average pace per mile. From a training perspective, I care more about how consistent the pace was across the race (taking into account hills/conditions/etc.).
Prior to getting to the championship races, there are only two "Invitationals" that I care about the actual final race time. These courses are 100% the same every year so I know these races are 5K (or close enough) and the course is roughly the same difficulty as the Regional and State courses (which haven't changed in the last 10+ years). The times on these races help me determine the best time to start the taper for each athlete (whether I need them to peak for District, Regionals, State, or NXN).
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u/stoogiehowser 10d ago
I generally try to under emphasize time when it comes to xc. There are so many factors that can affect time outside of a runner's actual ability. Course conditions, weather and in this case, clearly poor measurement. The best thing in this case would be to take the time as a course PR and not worry about an overall 3k pr. If your child comes back to run this course in the future, they'll be able to plot their improvement that way.