Dec 28, 2019
1975 | Eric Hill - Die Virtuose Gitarre DECCA Reissue Cover: VG- Vinyl: VG+ Small Ad Find #washheargrade #erichill https://www.instagram.com/p/B6n8oxPoo-_/?igshid=1f50gj86d3m5u
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1975 | Eric Hill - Die Virtuose Gitarre DECCA Reissue Cover: VG- Vinyl: VG+ Small Ad Find #washheargrade #erichill https://www.instagram.com/p/B6n8oxPoo-_/?igshid=1f50gj86d3m5u
We are GOOD! Why aren’t we ranked?
By Eric Hill
If it were possible to evaluate every team in the USA with an unbiased standard for cross-country performances, what would the results look like? If you could control for the effects of weather on that windy and hot day, how fast could you have run? We are a GOOD team who wins every large invite we attend, why aren’t we ranked?
For the sake of conversation, let’s say that someone has figured out how to accurately evaluate every cross-country performance in the USA with no prejudice. If every runner got to sleep in their own bed, with their normal race routine, and race on familiar turf, how would they stack up against the rest of the country?
NXN brings 22 GREAT teams from throughout the USA to compete after they pass the gauntlet of their league, district, regionals, state, and finally, the multi-state (NXR) competitions. Many teams who watch NXN must be thinking that: “If only…..”. When our great team didn’t make NXN, we wondered how good we really were. We aspired to be mentioned by Milesplit, Dyestat, HighSchoolHarrier.com, or Tullyrunners.com. We questioned the legitimacy of their rankings and wondered how they could really KNOW.
After evaluating every race of every runner in the USA, I realized some things that surprised me. I want to share those with you first. I DIDN’T REALIZE HOW MANY TEAMS ARE GOOD ENOUGH TO RUN AT NXN! The graph below was a HUGE surprise to me. There are so many good teams in this huge country who are watching NXN with legitimate claims to the “should-a, would-a, could-a” of their dreams. If only this person didn’t get injured, sick, or you fill in the blank. They really could have been there.
When you see teams at NXN who have an off-day, you may have thought, “We could have beat THEM!” Or, you may HAVE beaten them in the season, and it still stings that you are sitting at home instead. This graph represents the top 300 teams in the nation this season. The data shows how well a team could perform at NXN if all things were equal. This graph represents the top 3 percent of teams in the whole country.
Evaluating a team for an NXN performance places more weight on the fastest runners of the team. At the local or state level, being one of the fastest in your state has diminishing returns for running 10, 20, or 30 seconds faster. However, at NXN, most of the runners are as good as that, or better. It is a big mental adjustment to attend NXN with a team that previously looked invincible.
I present to you the top 90 teams (because the 101 teams I tried to fit on the graph, to be clever, didn’t fit).
From my earlier graph, you can tell that there are over 200 more teams that I could have mentioned. They too are AMAZING teams, with very little separating them from being the best of the best.
Striving to be better, and doing it, is the most satisfying part of running. I’m available to help you and your team be the best you can be. Contact me for more details: [email protected].
Meet Spot! Character vist this Saturday after Storytime at 11:00am. #wedoimportantwork #erichill #spotthedog #erichillbooks (at Barnes & Noble)
