High school cross country: Moving the mark

The South Dakota High School Activities Association Board of Directors finalized the change from 4,000 meters on June 10.

“I think it’s an excellent move for girls in South Dakota,” Rapid City Stevens head coach Jesse Coy said. “It’s a few more minutes of racing to be in line with the majority of the country. I am excited to see what our girls can do.”

The 5K races match the boys distance and the change means that only three other states — North Dakota, Texas and Oklahoma — don’t run 5,000 meters, although in Oklahoma and Texas girls from the smaller schools run 3.2K and girls from larger schools run 5K. Iowa, Kansas and Minnesota have joined South Dakota in making the switch in the last few months.

“With the way the girls train, the extra 1,000 meters won’t affect them too much,” Rapid City Central head coach Thad Caldwell said. “We at Rapid City Central usually go down to the Nike Pre-Nationals in Sioux Falls and they run a 5K down there, and we also run a meet in Greeley, Colo., where it is 5K. Most of the girls seem to like the distance.”

The vote to increase the distance was 17-0 in favor of the change by Class AA athletic directors, 32-8 in Class A and 29-25 in Class B.

Not all coaches, however, are pleased with the changes. Veteran Custer head coach Karen Karim is not excited about the added distance for her younger runners.

“The way I looked at in my seven years as head coach is I don’t like to have middle school girls run the same distance as varsity boys,” Karim said. “The larger schools just don’t run as many younger girls. I just worry about hurting young kids. I don’t want them to run or train at that distance. I was happy with the way it was, and we had a lot of success.”

Regular-season meets could be run over a distance less than 5,000 meters at the meet host’s discretion during the 2015 season.

“While not only taking action to match what the vast majority of other state associations do, our Board also left open the possibility that coaches and schools could choose to acclimate their runners to the change throughout the 2015 regular season, leaving the distance of all regular-season races up to local meet management,” SDHSAA Assistant Executive Director John Krogstrand said in a statement.

“Our hope is that this decision will allow our coaches to continue to do what is best for our student athletes in South Dakota, while also ensuring that our female athletes are not disadvantaged in any way as compared to their peers in 50 other states in terms of race distance."

The move will also help the runners acclimate themselves for the longer distance if they plan to run cross country in college, where female runners compete at 6,000 meters.

“I think for the girls who are hoping to run at the next level, it is a good thing,” Caldwell said. “The colleges have been asking for it.”

Karim, however, said that even in college, the women (6K) don’t run the same distance as the men (8K).

“I know a lot of girls from our schools have gone on to run D-I and I suppose one of the concerns is that they can be looked at by big colleges more at 5K,” she said. “But if you are good enough to run in college, they’ll find you.”

Coy said that for the Raiders, the defending Class AA state champions, the change is pretty much a non-issue as far as training.

“We don’t really have separate training for boys and girls; it’s more based on developmental level and what they did the year before,” Coy said.

Caldwell said that as the year goes along, especially in the last half of year, the local meets will be 5K.

“It will be a learning process for most of us,” Caldwell said.

Karim doubted that it will change on how they train or the distance of their home meet. She said it remains to be seen how it will impact everyone.

“Our meet is pretty early in September, so I kind of question as if we will change it,” Karim. “I have mentioned it to our girls, but in terms of summer conditioning, we’re not going to do anything different.”