Analytics207 added two cross country pages Saturday night, a week before the state meet. Runner Rankings ranks Maine's runners on the season instead of one fast day, and Course Rankings shows how hard every course ran this fall. Runner Rankings is under Runners in the cross country menu, and Course Rankings is under Teams & Meets.
Same runner, different course
The hardest course this season was the Oxford Hills XC course in South Paris, where the same runners went 14.7 percent slower than on an average Maine course. The fastest was Thornton Academy in Saco, at 5.5 percent faster. A runner who runs 20:00 on an average course would be expected to run about 22:56 in South Paris and about 18:54 in Saco, just over four minutes apart. The page does that math for 16:00, 18:00, 20:00, 22:00 and 24:00 runners on every course, so nobody has to do it on the bus.
The Troy Howard MS XC course in Belfast hosted both the Maine XC Festival of Champions on Oct. 3 and the Northern Maine Regional Championship on Saturday. The Festival ran 3.3 percent faster than an average course and the regional 4.8 percent faster. Each meet counts by how many of its runners also raced elsewhere, and about three times as many did at the Festival, so the course rates 3.7 percent faster over the two, about 19:16 for that 20:00 runner.
Who is on top
On Saturday's board, 1,702 runners are ranked, 1,012 boys and 690 girls. Dirigo senior William Morris is No. 1 among the boys with a rating of 16:02.6, and Falmouth senior Georgia Moon is No. 1 among the girls at 18:09.2. A rating reads as a time on an average Maine course. The class boards are led by Scarborough's Atticus Merriam, Yarmouth's Bowen Mitchell and Morris for the boys in A, B and C, and by Moon, Lincoln Academy's Karen Higgins and Maranacook's Reagan Mattson for the girls.
Runners are also ranked North and South, and by class within each region, using the split from the state's cross country bulletin, the same one the regionals run on. Bangor's Samuel Bergmark (16:35.1) and Hampden Academy's Addison Elliott (18:51.7) are No. 1 in the North. Morris and Moon are No. 1 in the South.
The boards are rebuilt as of every Sunday, with arrows for who moved and each runner's statewide rank week by week. Moon has been No. 1 on the girls statewide board every week since Sept. 20. On the boys board, Morris was No. 1 from Sept. 20 through Oct. 4, Merriam on Oct. 11 and Oct. 18, and Morris again on Saturday's board. Inside the boys statewide top 75, the biggest climbers since the Oct. 18 board are Lake Region sophomore Evan Regensburger, up 25 spots to 58th, and Thornton Academy junior Noah Loveys-Messenger, up 21 to 22nd. Among the girls, Marshwood freshman Aspen Cabana climbed 17 to 56th and York junior Emily Hutchins 15 to 70th.
How it works
A meet is rated from the runners who also raced somewhere else, by how much slower or faster those same runners went there, and every 5K is adjusted by that number. A runner's rating is the average of their two best adjusted 5Ks among their last four races, so one rough day does not sink a season. A race more than 25 percent slower than a runner's usual is set aside, and it takes two 5Ks to be ranked. Each race is measured against the runner's level from their other races, so a runner loses no ground for racing on a hard course.
What is free
The top 10 of every board, the two biggest climbers on each board, the hardest and fastest courses and the first 10 on the course list are free. The full boards and every course come with All Access.
Updated Sunday, Oct. 25, with the full regional results posted overnight.