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  1. Cross Country is the only sport that has a true national championship. You can become a national champion as a team or an individual in cross country.
  2. There are no tryouts or cuts in cross country, if you choose to run, you are on the team.
  3. Anybody can run cross country, even if you’ve never run before. Everybody starts out small and builds up to the race distance.
  4. Cross country is a great sport all alone, but is also a great way to stay in shape for other sports like soccer, basketball, wrestling, and swimming.
  5. A high school cross country race is 5 kilometers long (5k) which is about 3.1 miles.
  6. The top 7-10 runners run in the varsity race and everybody else runs jv.
  7. The top 5 runners in a race score for a team. Whatever place a runner finishes in is the amount of points they score for their team. The lowest score wins. If there is a tie, the 6th runner breaks it.
  8. A perfect score in cross country would be taking the first five places in the race, which would total 15 points.
  9. Adams State in Colorado is the only college to ever accomplish a perfect score at a national championship.
  10. There are no playoffs in cross country, just a state meet. The success of a season is determined by a teams performance at the final meet.
  11. The world record for a 5k is 12:36, the American record is 12:56, the high school record is 13:37, and the St. Pius record is 15:06. All of those runners started from nothing and worked their way to becoming great runners.
  12. Cross country runners prepare for the season by running summer mileage and going to team camp in July.
  13. Cross country teams are very close, and tend to become friends for a very long time. The camaraderie on a cross country team cannot be matched by any other sport.

Some measurements to record are as follows:

  • Date
  • Event
  • Course Name
  • Number of Runners

Gr
SquadTimePaceDistPlaceRank in SquadRank in SchoolRank vs CompLast Year Time
(Δ,%)
Last Race Time
(Δ,%)
Last PR
(Δ,%)
Last DPR
(Δ,%)
Imprvmnts
  • LY = Beat time from the same course a year ago.
  • LR = Beat time from the most recent running of this course.
  • PR = Set a new PR on this course. A “Course PR”.
  • PG = Beat personal goal.
  • SBP = Best performance of season based on position of finish relative to the field.
  • DPR = A “Distance Personal Record” – the personal best time considering distance only, not unique course characteristics. Applicable for 2, 3, and 3.1 mile courses.
  • DSR = A “Distance Season Record” – same as above, but for the current season only.