It's cross country! Who cares if the course is short or long. It could be all uphill, into the wind and in a foot of snow. Everyone has to deal with it and the effort and places would be all that matters. Paul and Fred at Augie do a great job hosting a first class event and we should appreciate their efforts to offer the course whenever possible! I remember the coach's meeting at Regional in 2010 and only Paul offered to host the event in 2011.

when you have 35 runners under 25 min., the course has to be short. there are not that many high quality runners in 1 region. nationals will be fun to watch

i think that the course is a little short of 8k in reality. it's marked as 8k and measured that way, but the measurement is not as precise as they have calculated so the times will be slighter faster than normal. many courses are on golf courses, because that is how the sport has evolved. i would say that the national courses are not usually as forgiving so cut the regional races some slack. it's going to be an interesting regional meet for sure!