The Great Question: What's the D1 Cut Off Time?

Hey I will continue to have a ton of posts throughout the next two weeks so make sure u scroll around and read those that u r interested in. I will have previews for every single district, all classes, with complete state qualifying predictions. I will also have an independent league preview. Hope you enjoy all the posts!


The #1 question I've heard asked in the last few months is a seemingly simple one: what time will it take to make states out of district one?

Time is such an easy concept, part of why running is such a great sport. Last year I ran 18:14, this year I ran 17:22 so I've improved around 50 seconds! That's pretty cool, I'm headed in the right direction! Last year the state champ ran 16:09, this year they ran 15:48, clearly this year was a better year.

It's an objective means of comparison. If only it was that simple. In cross country especially it's never that simple. You are running in different weather, there are different pacers and sometimes even course lay outs change. The district one meet is no exception. Couple these complicating factors that are often virtually unpredictable with the difficult task of projecting the talent level within the race itself and you have a blurry Polaroid.

But that doesn't mean I can't pull an Andre 3000 and shake it up a bit.

So here are the basics for those of you who may not know. In District One, the 5 teams with the lowest scores qualify for the state championship. Once those 5 teams have been decided, the individuals on those teams have been guaranteed a state qualifying spot and are therefore excluded from the individual selection process. The top 25 individuals in the race who haven't already qualified with their team will make it to the state championship as individuals. This is where the "last time to states" is determined, by the 25th individual.

(For the record this is the basic formula for state qualifying in all districts. However many teams qualify multiply by 5 and there is your individual count)

District One historically has produced the most state champs and state medalists so things are quite competitive. We (my district one bias in action) stopped sending 6 teams in 2008, so the 2006 and 2007 cut offs aren't really relevant. However, I have considered modified adjustments if the district only took 5 and 25.

I also think the winning time is a good reference point for how fast the race overall was. Since first mile stats aren't always available, the winning time was the best stat. So these would be the cut off times each year since 06 in our current system:

2006: 16:04 (14:47, 1st mile 4:44)
2007: 16:07 (15:02, 1st mile 4:43)
2008: 16:01 (15:08, 1st mile 4:56)
2009: 16:41 (15:35, 1st mile 5:12)
2010: 16:24 (15:16)
2011: 16:34 (15:16, 1st mile 4:51)
2012: 16:19 (15:11)
2013: 16:15 (14:59)

So these numbers are all fine and good, but what do they mean for this year? For starters we need to project the winning time for this year. As you can tell the winning times seem quite highly correlated with the final qualifying times.

Now this could imply two things.
1) The talent level in the district from year to year is relatively constant, the winning times and qualifying times are not necessarily determined by each runners talent but the weather, pace, and course conditions determine the model and the runners themselves run to fit themselves into the positions in the model.

This probably is a reasonable process although I'd say it doesn't really apply to the winner so much as the final qualifier. I was 90th at districts my senior year, so by the time you get down to 90th you are looking at almost identical times from year to year, the only possible variables are weather and pace. The depth down to 90 is basically perfectly consistent, but obviously the depth down to 5 is much more inconsistent.

2) The winner/leaders of the race determine the pace at the beginning of the race based on their tactics and the rest of the strong runners just file in behind this precedent.

Also a reasonable theory, however we can see from the 1st mile times over the year, how fast everybody gets out may be slightly overrated.

The best bet, as usual, is a combination of the two.

Now 2008 and 2009 suggest we can probably rule out some time of natural trend over time, i.e. every year the qualifying time gets a few seconds faster. After the 2008 race I remember saying to my friend Todd, it will take sub 16 to make states next year. I was positive. Lower Merion had run an average of 16:02 and missed states. Same for Kyle Klaptauskus of Bensalem. It was absurd. But we haven't had anything like that since

(nothing even close actually which I find odd. 2008 wasn't a particularly talented group of runners, especially compared to 2006 where we dominated at states. And the pace wasn't fast either really, 4:56 is one of the slowest times recorded for the mile. This could imply a number of things, like maybe Furcht and co killed the second mile, maybe people go out too fast and would be better off running close to even splits. Can't say for sure not enough stats on record. I will say this, in 06, 07, 08 and maybe 09, if my memory serves me correct the start wasn't all the way back, it was in the middle, but they said that was fine because you made up for it by running around the statues instead of in front of them. But I think in recent years the start is all the way back and you still run around the statues? So it may be  extended. I'm working completely off memory here, but if I'm right 2010 and on are the more important numbers).

But I digress. As for this year's situation I think it is important to first discuss the winning time and the pace. Weather is too unpredictable to commit to but early forecasts are suggesting rain early in the week an sun on pretty nice weather on Friday (so maybe a colder, slightly muddier Paul Short? Which produced fast times). This year has produced fast times in every major meet. Abert, Hoey and Power all basically got meet records. Brophy got his own record this past week in an unreal performance from him and Comber (I will go in depth on this in my preview, but I'm not sure people realize how unreal those times were. They just raced 1 on 1 to two of the fastest times ever in course history. Unreal).

I think it's safe to assume sub 15 is in play when you throw Power, Marston, Webb and Sappey (the other major league champs) with Brophy and Comber. That means this thing ought to be fast.

So fast pace and decent enough weather. That means a fast final qualifying time. Now let's talk depth.

I'm not completely convinced things are as deep as last year, but part of last years depth was due to Henderson (which has virtually no effect on the top 25 non team individuals).

That being said, this has been a wild year with lots of guys running fast times at leagues and Paul Short. In my opinion I feel like this year has a very strong top 10-15 group, then a bit more average of a group from 15-30 and then things start to get stronger again from 30-40 (around where the 25th individual should end up). But that's a decent chunk of guess work and personal opinion.

Regardless of how you spin it, weather permitting, I'd be very surprised if anyone makes states with a time slower than 16:25, but very surprised if someone runs 16:15 and misses.

My prediction for the final time in: 16:18, Lukas Marcelis from Wissahickon.

I hope I'm not jinxing them by doing this, but here is what I will say. Can the district gods give Wissahickon a break this year? Since 2009 they have had the worst luck with state qualifying. Dillon Farrell, Ben Ravetz, Sam Brooks, Tristan Marcelis and Lukas Marcelis have all be in the first group of guys to miss states as individuals. Brooks was literally the first guy to miss.

This year my numbers show Lukas as a bubble guy so it's possible that they suffer this fate again. I'm saying the curse breaks this year with Lukas.

Good luck to Lukas and everyone else involved. This years race is going to be a fun one.