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Ran on a lot of difficult courses so I wanted all your opinions!
Jackson has to be a tough one.

Long's Retreat 2007

Appleton girl from ND won with about a 23:00 and typically was near 20:00. Not many guys under 20:00. It was about 87/sunny and about 3.4....

Georgetown is tough but not quite SE district.

From what i hear, and the times from this year, the Warren course is pretty difficult these days, but i always thought that Marietta was one of the toughest as well.

Jackson is tough, but entertaining with the long down hills. (I always loved Jackson)

Warren is hard because it is rolling.

But the hardest course I know of is Logan because they make you run down then up Big Chief Hill and then send you off to sprint the last two miles because it is more or less flat after that.

Marietta is a killer too, but I think that all of the hills slow the pace down and you don't have the same problems there that you do at Logan.

Marietta, Logan, Zane Trace 3.6 miler lol, and River Valley. I bet hardly anyone here has ran the River Valley course as a 5k, but let me tell you it's a challenge.

I have never run at River Valley or Zane Trace.

Why is Zane Trace 3.6? was it a measuring error

We've never been to Long's Retreat or Zane Trace. One of my kids say Warren is tougher, the other says Marietta. I think that Warren's times always look slower due to it's one of the first meets of the year, and the last few years, it's been either really scorching hot or muddy (the old running uphill in the parking lot didn't help either). I'm anxious to see what times the league meet brings this year.

Yeah Zane Trace doesn't know how to measure courses lol

I always thought Warren was a pretty fair course. Some hills and rough terrain....but that's cross country I guess.

Warren and Marietta are the 2 hardest I ever ran. Marietta always seems worse becouse it was the 1st meet.

I would have to say Jackson..WOW was that hard!

No doubt Jackson is by far the toughest course 2-400 meter Hills straight up.. (WOW)

No way is jackson the toughest. Sure as far as state wide goes it's at the top but not southeast ohio. I would even put logan above jackson.

Track07 wrote:No doubt Jackson is by far the toughest course 2-400 meter Hills straight up.. (WOW)

400 meter!!

The hill on jackson is very tuff and it gets in your head, espicially the second time around. But you have to remember it is practically all downhill after that. times there are usually good. also im not sure of the course length, i've been told by many that it is only 2.9 miles<but not sure. Warren is a tuff course though for the beginning of the year.

ChuckHayes44 wrote:Marietta, Logan, Zane Trace 3.6 miler lol, and River Valley. I bet hardly anyone here has ran the River Valley course as a 5k, but let me tell you it's a challenge.

River Valley is a tough course. I ran it twice - the first time, it wasn't a full 5k, just a season-kickoff type thing, but I puked after I finished it.
I ran it when they had the OVC meet up there and it was the full 5k. I don't know why it's so hard because there aren't any really huge hills like at Jackson, but I was completely spent after finishing it and my time was way off normal.

The new RV course is going to make the old one look like a table top.

Be afraid.

Will it be beside the new school?

Yep, with a fairly evil hill at least twice. If I can get the trails cleared up on the big hill, it will be even worse.

This year's course will not be as bad as what I am planning for next year, but there are trails that need built before that happens. This will be legendary.

I'm glad to hear River Valley's course will have some hills. I'm sure my runners will be looking forward to them. I'm not a big fan of the track on grass courses. I personally don't mind multiple surface changes (grass, trails, gravel, etc.) and many turns within a course. The more variances there are the more it forces the runner to become tactical while racing.

Indeed. I did my high school running in the North Eastern Ohio. Not as hilly as here, but what hills we had were carved by glaciers. They were cliffs will paths up them. Bad stuff. It seemed every coach made his course to involve at least one or two heartbreakers and a few other bumps of some substance. The middle mile or so of our home course was a one mile uphill stretch with an elevation change of about 80 or 90 feet. We did mile repeats on that hill all the time. Yeah!

I am surprised at how flat courses are here in SEO with all the hills we have available. Jackson's big hill wouldn't have been mentioned by the guys I ran with. Of course, the older I get, the more hard core I was.

In fact, when I was a boy, we ran 28 mile course, battled pygmies, and had to slay a wild boar before our courses were over. They were paved with broken glass and cobras, and there were tiger pits with REAL tigers in them. We are allowed to carry spears, but only wooden tips were permitted back in the day . . . good times.