What is Cross Country?
Cross country (often abbreviated as XC) is a fun and exciting sport that allows athletes to compete based on their running speed over long distances. Cross country is different than track because all races in cross country occur on trails or grass rather than on a track. Most distance track athletes also participate in cross country. Cross country races are typically around 3 miles long. A 3.1 mile course is a popular length because it is 5 kilometers long.
Cross Country occurs during the fall, although most runners practice throughout the summer. SCORING In cross country, athletes score individually and then the scores for all the athletes on a team are added together for the team score. In varsity races, teams can only have 7 athletes run and count the scores for the top 5 athletes. In JV races, teams can have an unlimited number of athletes run but still only count the scores for the top 5 athletes. Each athlete receives points based on their overall placement in the race. The scores for the top 5 athletes on each team are added together, and the team with the lowest score wins. For example, at the 2022 Region 2 Boys Championship, Cole Jameson got 1st, Preston Gledhill got 2nd, Noah Tucker got 3rd, Kai Makowski got 4th, and Jonah Andrews got 5th place overall in the race. Since each athlete gets points based on their overall finish, Cole got 1 point, Preston got 2, Noah got 3, Kai got 4, and Jonah got 5. When those scores were added together, Taylorsville High got 15 points, which in cross country is a perfect score; 15 points is the lowest score a team can possibly get. A TYPICAL PRACTICE Practice happens every day, Monday through Friday, from roughly mid August through late fall. Athletes meet at 2:30 and start by warming up and stretching. After finishing the warmup athletes go on a distance run that is tailored to each athlete based on their running ability. MEETS Region meets happen every Wednesday. These are meets that anyone from the team can participate in. Invitationals generally happen on weekends. These are events for varsity athletes. Caution should be taken while comparing times from different meets. Each course is different in length and difficulty. Race times from courses that are the same length can be different due to the difficulty of each course (courses that are more flat will result in faster times) |