One Thing I'm Very Much Looking Forward to about State


Word's been getting around, but you may not have heard yet. 

The folks at CHSAA have completely redone the schedule for state cross country this year. If you haven't seen yet (or as a reminder if you have), this year's state cross country schedule rolls out like this:

4A Boys -- 9:20 am, 3A Girls -- 10:00 am, 4A Girls -- 10:40 am, 3A Boys -- 11:20 am
5A Girls -- 12:00 pm, 2A Boys 12:40 pm, 5A Boys -- 1:20 pm, 2A Girls 2:00 pm

That means we have two separate and distinct sections, a 3A/4A section in the morning and a 2A/5A section in the afternoon.

So, if you happen to be coaching teams (or even individuals) of both genders, you have an hour and 20 minutes between your race starts instead of two hours. That's a pretty good deal, and an even better deal when you stop to think about the time it takes to see your runners after their race. This is now a very manageable time period between races without being excessively long.

And, a whole lot more teams are going to feel like they can afford to sleep in their own beds the night before state--this year, that will chiefly be teams of the 2A and 5A variety.

It also means team camps at the site are not nearly as congested. Nor is parking as congested. I'm pretty sure I'm going to enjoy this. 

Not that this matters nearly as much to the most of the rest of you, but I'm also looking forward to actually being able to do some dedicated photo work of 2A and 5A. The old schedule made it very difficult to coach and take photos of any races besides the ones your team was in. This frees up my camera considerably.