As part of our annual Countdown to XC, I keep and update yearly stats on how much a program improves from the end of one XC season to the end of the next. I call this metric Improvement Rating, and I have 6 years of data for both 5K and 3 mile races, covering 70+ of the state's top programs over that time span. Every summer I add another year of data as well as more schools, using returning rankings to find "new" programs to include.
Here are the factors included in my Improvement Ratings:
- Year-to-year improvement: I use a team's top 5 returning runners from the end of one season as the baseline - it serves as a projected top 5 for the next season without any improvement factored in. Then I compare that to the school's actual top 5 at the end of the next season. Improvement is listed as a positive (the team is faster than their projected top 5), and decline is listed as a negative (the team's actual top 5 turned out slower than their projected top 5). I can then calculate average improve...
