SoutheasternOhioPreps.com

You look at the cross country times from various meets and they are all over the place. I know in golf there is a slope score that helps determine the difficulty of the course. is there some way to compare courses based on a math formula.

The grass length, hills etc all play into the times that are posted.

If you took a race and averaged the top ten finishers would that be a fair comparison assuming there were more than 100 runners?

You are right about times all over the place.

Courses need to be rated and figure out some way to grade times.

A 5000 is a 5000 until you throw in the length of a hill or the grade of a hill. Even what is on the other side of a hill. Even what you run on. It would be interesting to come up with something.

In my 12 seasons they get farther and farther apart. I keep my kids updated so they know exactly where they are at.

We ran at Greenfield and it was 68 degrees and the course is either a bit short or run about 35-45 seconds quicker for the front end runners. We ran again Saturday at Fayetteville and that course runs a bit fast but is tougher than Greenfield and it was 10 degrees warmer. I told my one girl who ran 21:53 at Greenfield and 22:30 at Fayetteville that in my eyes she performed almost exactly the same.

It's difficult for kids and parents to get this.

For tournament seeding and predictions I look at how runners compare to other runners they have already faced and the more the more accurate.

A windy messy Rio Grande compared to a 60 degree overcast day at Piketon....seems like the 21:00 girl at Piketon will be in the mid 24's at Rio. Even with a "slope"...the weather is a huge factor but across the district on the same day it's often similar.

This is why my thinking concerning seeding cross country and track and field is useless. Wrestling, football, basketball, and baseball are entirely different sports because pretty much everything in all those sports is consistent.