Just What is Cross Country Anyway?
(according
to Peter Brewer of Castro Valley High School)At
first sight, a cross country meet seems a jumble of bodies in flight amidst much
shouting and arm-waving. These meets do really have a semblance of order, and
usually follow a general format.
The start: All
races should have a fairly long starting line, so each runner can get a toe on
the line. If the starting area is smaller, each team gets a "box," a
small section of the line, and the team puts runners behind each other.
The course: Most
courses are at least 2 miles long, and the varsity races tend to be 3.0 miles or
5 kilometers (3.1 miles). Junior varsity and froshsoph competitors tend to
race at 2.0 miles.
The race: Races
start in a clump of runners-and stretch out over the first half mile, and string
out pretty well by the first mile. There is an apparent lull in the middle of
the race as the runners don't seem to be changing positions much, but the
finishes are always exciting. Many courses do not offer much visibility, so the
runners seem to disappear for a while and then reappear for the finish. Other
courses let the spectator and coach see more of the race in progress.
The finish:
Hopefully there is a chute at the finish to keep the runners in order after they
cross the line. Some smaller races just have a pair of cones to mark the finish
line. There are various methods of handling the results. The runners are given a
numbered card at the finish, to mark their finish placing and later have the
card, and their name taken by a meet official to record. Other races give the
runners tags before the race, so the finish officials only have to remove the
rags at the finish. It is always important to keep the runners' finish in order
to accurately give the runners their times, and to score the meet.
The warmup
and warmdown: Each team (varsity, JV, et cetera} should warmup for at least 10
minutes before a race, and for 10 minutes after a race. This should be done as a
group, so the members of the team should be together both before and after the
race for a period of time.
Keeping
score in a meet
Cross
country is much like golf, in that the lowest score wins. Each runner scores the
amount of points that is his or her finish position in the race. The first
runner in scores one point, the second runner scores two points, et cetera. The
points are tallied for the first five runners for each team and the lowest score
wins, meaning that that team had more runners near the front of the race than
other teams.
The top seven
runners count towards the scoring. The first five for each team count for
points, while the sixth and seventh runner displace. That means that even though
their points do not score, they could make the other team's score larger by
finishing in front of one of their top five runners, displacing them to a lower
finish.
A team needs at
least five runners to score. If fewer runners finish, then that team does not
score, and the other team automatically wins. In some races, a team is allowed
more than seven runners. All the runners after seventh place for a team do not
count in the scoring or the displacing,
In the Bay Shore
Athletic League we run tri meets. The scoring is the same, except now three
teams are in the same race.
Invitationals use
the same scoring method. Some invitationals save time and do not bother to
discount runners who ran individually without a complete team, and do not
retally the score just using the adjusted finishes of the runners from the
complete teams. Other invitationals and all championship races fully score the
meet.
Salesian
Generic Team
1, 2, 5,
6, 8, 9, 13
3, 4, 7, 10,
11, 12 ,14
So we see that Salesian defeats the Generic Team 23-35 with superior finishes. In a dual meet if one team places runners in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, there is no way the other team can win. A perfect score is 15, which means that a team’s top 5 runners place 1-2-3-4-5. A tie is broken by determining which team's 6th runner finished higher. If one team does not have a 6th runner, the other team wins the tie-breaker: If neither team has a 6th runner, than the meet is rescored using only the top 4 finishers for each team.