Height adjusted? Dude, you either had your height-adjusted tongue firmly in cheek when you wrote that or you were on drugs. Half the distance? So, what, guys are TWICE as tall as girls? When 5'3" Halle Gebreselassie used to beat 6'0" Paul Tergat in Olympic 10Ks, do you think the race needed to be height adjusted? I actually had to read this post about 3 times to see how crazy it was.

Yes, you were joking, you had to be joking.

bobgrimes, on , said:

In IL, the state pushed the girls up to the 3 mile distance (what the boys run), moving them from 2 to 2.5 then 3, so they spaced it out over two years, which worked very well.

bobgrimes, on , said:

With that logic, shouldn't JV races be shorter length, too?

The only issue I see with a move up to 5k is what Goucher mentioned about middle schoolers. Yes, there are some 7th and 8th graders that run 5k in the country, but most run more like 1.5 miles or 3k (if anything at all) - and I think for the VAST majority of middle schoolers, it is a good thing they are running shorter distances. For combining high school and middle school races, I think New York's solution is the best: if you're going to include middle school kids in high school races, offer a "modified" level race where the kids don't run the full distance, but if a middle schooler is going to be on the high school team, they have to run the high school distance. As for high schoolers... there is no good reason why the girls should have one distance and the guys another. If your state is going to run 3 miles or 5k for boys, then have the girls run 3 miles or 5k as well.

indrun, on , said:

That's exactly how I feel about MN girls moving to 5k. Everyone will forget about it after the first race or two.

In the MNCrossCountryHub article it has this quote: "About 80 percent of coaches in both classes said in the survey that they believed girls are physically able to race 5,000 meters"
I'd really like to hear the reasoning behind the 20% that don't believe girls can race 5k.

You would think that almost every coach/school that hosts a meet would be in favor of girls running 5k as well, if only to make prepping for the race easier by only having to set up 1 course (except races with a 2 mile/Middle School race).

So the point of cross country is that everyone find the bell curve and run for 17-21 minutes?

Come on. Cross country is about getting from Point A to Point B, covering the distance. There is only one reason that girls in some states run shorter races and its roots are easily traceable.

This was a big non-isue in Indiana. Everyone forgot about it being a controversy after the 1st meet. I don't know if its its responsible for Indiana's recent success but XC is alive and well in IN. I'd like to see the state be the first to move to 6K to be consistent with the college distance. This will allow us to continue to kick Illinois' higher population ass.

Girls running shorter distances does not equate to gender inequity. Because girls complete the course in longer time, the same distance is, in a sense, a longer race for girls. What is the equivalent race for girls can be debated. Equal average time would be a course that is about 10% shorter than the boys' course. Equal pace would be much shorter. A height-adjusted equal pace would be about half the distance. So it's not straightforward.