Discussion: Course for Juniors

The course/class committee would like more input from Juniors and coaches. We didn't get a lot of survey responses from this crowd and we're looking for more info.
In particular, we will probably move F-18 to the Green course. Do you like this change?
If we do, should we also move M-18 to Red? or is the jump from Orange to Red too extreme?
There has already been some discussion on this group about M-20 on Blue, but I'd be happy to hear more thoughts on M-20 adn F-20 as well. Right now, it seems unlikely that we will recommend changing them.
Clare Durand

As a practicing non-female, my only opinion on moving f-18 to green is that I always liked competing on the same courses that girls my age did, because then there were more people to compare courses with.
I do not think m-18 should go to red, because green is a pretty big step already, and the only difference between a good green course and a good red course is distance.
I know that if you want to run a harder course you can always just run up a few categories, so moving m-20 and f-20 up isn't such a good idea.

My oppinion to keep course structure same but request from MF-20 runners who want to be in USA Junior team to notch up at non-championship events.

I compete in the f-18 catagory and I find that brown is often too short and too easy. I think the suggestion to bump f-18 up to green is a good one. Another sugestion would be to bump up some of the younger courses to brown. Even changing the ages on the catagories might be helpful. When there is little competition in the f-18 catagory it is often more comparable to run against the 45-50 year olds rather than the 65 year olds. I think that the f-20 catagory should be abolished so you go directly from f-18 to elite.

I think:
No juniors on Brown.
F17-20 should be a four year category on Green.
M17-20 should be a four year category on Red.

Big step from Orange to Red? Hogwash. We're talking college-age people. When *I* was a boy, and all courses were uphill both ways through a blizzard, there weren't no Green course. All we had was White, Yellow, Orange, and Red, and we considered ourselves lucky.

But what do I know?

You can have a chance to influence the board on this subject at the next board meeting. They are voting on the rules for the Interscholastics in January. The proposal has the boys competing against the girls but they are on different courses (green/brown) - very strange, and a difficult problem for the course-setter :-)

i'm with j-j on this - having four-year categories will actually create competition between juniors and keep a lot of them from moving up to blue too early due to lack of competition. it will also solve the problem of JWOC team selection, as all the eligible juniors will be ranked on just one course and not on two, like it frequently happens now.