I Went To The Cross Country District Meet Today....

And came away with the feeling: "Is this the best place they could come up for a cross country meet?"
The meet was held at Basic High School in Henderson, and I am sure the people from either the NIAA (Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association) or CCSD spent a whole 5 minutes deciding that this was a great place to hold a district meet.
First, there was a total of two bathrooms (1 male, 1 female) for about 700 athletes, coaches and fans. This is not good when you have kids drink water before and after a race and then have to go to the bathroom. The lines were stretching way outside the bathrooms, for both the men and women.
There were kids waiting in line and almost missed their race because they were in line to go. Then when the race was about to start, they had to jump the fence to get to the starting line. This is just not acceptable for such an important meet.
Then the course was not challenging. The runners had to run two laps of the course and another part of a lap. In addition, there were no hills to speak of and the runners had to run a significant part of the race on concrete. This is not cross country course. Maybe a road running course, but not cross country where the runners should be running on grass, on trails, through the woods (in Clark County, that may be tough but not impossible) and other challenges.
I used to run cross country for 4 years in high school at Wauwatosa East and Oconomowoc High School and I was an average runner- lower varsity, upper JV. I've also coached cross country in Montana and North Dakota and this course and venue is by far the worst I have ever seen. CCSD and the NIAA ought to be ashamed of themselves but they are some arrogant folks, so they won't.. The athletes who ran so hard today deserve so much better.