Why is one course more difficult than another?

A course rating is a percentage reflecting the amount of increased energy required to run a cross country course above what the same runner expended to run an identical speed and distance on a track in similar conditions.

Several things contribute to the difficulty of a cross country course. They are, primarily:

• the number of hills, how long and steep they are, including down hills and side hills
• how many turns and how tight they are
• the type of surface and how soft, hard, or lumpy it is

All these factors, in whatever amounts and combinations they exist on a cross country course, contribute to the energy a runner uses while running on it. These difficulty factors are reflected in the increased energy a runner expends to maintain a certain speed for an exact distance on a course above what it took him/her to run the same speed and distance on a track in similar weather conditions. So the number referred to as the course rating is simply the percentage of increased energy measured in that test. A 4.99 rating means that it took runners 4.99% more energy on average to run the course than it took them to run the track. The higher the number is, the more difficult the course. Obviously, for these running tests and comparisons to be valid, courses must be accurately measured.

Performances on any course can be influenced greatly by the weather conditions, such as wind, heat, humidity, and soggy or muddy surfaces. BUT weather related effects are not components of a course difficulty rating unless they are constant or prevailing conditions such as ocean breezes, tropical location, altitude, etc. Soon, ON COURSE RATING SYSTEMS TM will be developing a weather adjustment scale (primarily of temperature/humidity and surface influences) to assist in comparing performances in greatly dissimilar weather conditions.