Tara Davis was one of California's most active participants in the 2015-2016 indoor season, but you don't have to travel out of state to find good competition during the winter.
California does not sanction an official winter season for runners, but that doesn't mean this so-called "off season" is just a dead space in the year. Far from it: track and cross country athletes all over the state will be engaged in three levels of training and competition, and you can find information about all these activities below.
Even if you're a veteran parent, coach, or athlete that already knows how the winter works in California, you can learn about how MileSplit covers and presents the different types of performances from this strange "between season." That will help you understand the different types of rankings we will be producing, starting with returning marks from the 2015-2016 school year and moving to current marks as we get more meets in the database.
True Indoor Competition
For the majority of the country, the winter season means a competitive indoor track season. Although there is no sanctioned indoor track here, many Golden State athletes still travel to participate in the winter variant of our beloved spring sport. Indoor tracks are typically 200 meters, half the length of an outdoor track, but they come in many different varieties. California athletes regularly compete in these large, national-caliber high school indoor meets, as well as a few others:
- National Pole Vault Summit (Reno)
- UW High School Invitational (Seattle)
- Great Southwest Indoor Classic (Albuquerque)
- Millrose Games (New York City)
- Simplot Games (Pocatello, Idaho)
- New Balance Indoor Nationals (New York City)
In addition, some athletes that belong to club teams may compete in USATF- or AAU-sponsored meets. Some of the state's truly elite athletes might even try to qualify for the USATF Indoor Nationals (commonly known as "senior nationals" to distinguish it from youth or junior competition), which is conveniently located in Albuquerque this year.
When you look at rankings labeled "Indoor" on MileSplit, it means only TRUE indoor track performances are included. That's important to remember, because there is a second kind of competition going on at the same time, and the performances need to be distinguished from each other.
2015-2016 Indoor Rankings
Outdoor "All Comers" Competition
There are several states that have active outdoor track competition going on during the winter, and California is one of them. Many states call these winter outdoor meets "Polar Bear Meets," and that's the name that MileSplit uses to refer to them. In the Golden State, however, they are simply known as "All-Comers Meets." They often bring together current high school athletes with recent graduates and even older runners who still train and compete. In many cases, though, these All-Comers have races solely for high school athletes, and these have taken on more importance the last two winters. Over the holiday break and into early January, we will be working on posting the information for all the outdoor All-Comers meets that we can find, and we will keep up with the results at the season progresses.
In the past, California had an unofficial indoor state championship called The Run for the Dream. That meet has been out of commission, though, beginning with the 2015-2016 school year and continuing through the upcoming winter season. Although we have heard that an effort is underway to bring back that lone indoor meet for the 2017-2018 school year, for now we have an entirely outdoor season
Winter track meets run at outdoor facilities shouldn't go into the same rankings as true indoor performances, because they aren't comparable. A 200-meter track has much tighter curves than a 400-meter track (even if the indoor track is banked), and tighter curves take more effort for the athlete to make the turn. That's why any race longer than 60 meters is typically measurably slower indoors than the same effort would produce outdoors. There is also the weather to consider: indoor tracks are climate-controlled and have no wind, which can help in some events (high jump and pole vault) but could hurt in others (no wind-aided marks in the short sprints or the jumps). For that reason, we label outdoor performances during the winter season as "Polar Bear" in the MileSplit database, and they can be ranked separately from true indoor performances.
2015-2016 Winter Rankings (Indoor + Polar Bear)
During the 2016-2017 winter season, we will prepare front-page rankings for both types of competition separately, as well as combined winter rankings. (You can also choose to filter our standard rankings, not only for indoor/polar bear competition but also for meets with FAT vs. hand timing, or to exclude wind-aided marks from outdoor meets.
Winter Training
Although track & field is a HUGE sport in California, not every running program has spring as the highest-priority season. For some schools cross country is the bigger deal, and for them the winter is a prime opportunity to put in miles and build an aerobic base for the 2017 XC season. Even when that is the main goal, however, many of these teams will still compete in All-Comers meets to gauge progress, or even use them for speed workouts. For those teams, individual results may not be the most important outcome of the winter season, and that's why we have a third type of rankings that we will publish twice during the winter season (and at least three times during the spring) - the XC Offseason Report. This is a team ranking that uses either 1600 or 3200 times (from indoor or outdoor competition) to evaluate which teams are making the most progress toward next fall. If cross country is your favorite season, keep your eyes peeled for these reports in late January and again near the end of February!