The Facts about HS Cross Country in Suffolk County
Every fall, Suffolk County Cross Country runners take to the trails in search of getting their name printed on the back of the 2nd Wind running shop shirt. The shirt I am referring to is the one that lists the Top 10 times ever ran on the 5k course at Sunken Meadow State Park. Your name gets printed on the shirt, you receive a prize and you receive legendary status amongst the Long Island Cross Country community. Today’s high school athletes are stronger and faster than ever before, so I pose the question: “Why aren’t today’s cross country runners rewriting the record books?”
First, I listed the top 20 junior boys and girls cross country runners from the NY State qualifying meet at Sunken Meadow Park in 2009. I then compared their times with 2008 and their current 2010 season results from that state qualifying meet. The statistics are alarming. It answered the aforementioned question of why no one has challenged the top 10 at Sunken Meadow.
Statistics show that both boys and girls times dropped considerably from the first race to the last race of the season. Boys improved an average of 28 seconds with only 1 runner actually getting slower as the season progressed. Girls improved an average of 1 minute, 2 seconds with one runner actually getting slower as the season progressed. Not bad at all.
With runners running all year in winter and spring track you would think that your starting point would be to run at least last year’s best time for your first race. Let us refer to that starting point of your Cross Country season as “Point Blank”. You are a year older, stronger, and wiser. You have another year of competition under your belt, so a good starting point would be to hit last year’s mark to start the season.
Here are the shocking statistics.
Of the top 20 boys and top 20 girls senior cross country runners this is how they stack up.
The top 20 boy runners ran an average of 23 seconds slower than they did the year before. The top 20 girls cross country runners ran an average of 1 minute 4 seconds slower than they did the year before. Herein lies the answer to why these runner shave no shot of getting on the back of said shirt.
It is taking high school cross country runners the first 6 weeks of the season to get back to last year’s times.
Every high school coach has an offseason training program for their runners. They hand it off to the seniors and tell them to oversee it. Has any high school football team given the seniors a football and said, “Here, take this and play all summer and come back ready to go.” Exactly!
High school cross country runners must change the way they prepare for their upcoming season. Many of you go away to running camps, but if you haven’t properly trained leading up to that camp it can set you back instead of giving you the prep work that you need.
Coaching is coaching no matter what the level. In the three years of our Cross Country clubs existence, I ran the same theory and the results were as follows:
The runners from our Team Sports Center club team that participated last year ran an average of 15 seconds faster than they did at their last race, last year and the off season training was far from intense. However, runners were conditioned to be back to “point blank” for the start of the season.
If you are a freshman, sophomore or junior cross country runner looking to have a big cross country season in 2011 give us a call next summer. We will make you a better runner and one step closer to getting your name on that shirt.
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