MEET INFORMATION
We are pleased to invite your team to the 23rd running of the largest high school cross country meet in the State of Maine. For Maine teams this meet will give you the opportunity to run on the same course as the 2024 Northern Maine Regional Championship Meet. Since Maine does not have an all-class meet, this meet provides a rare opportunity for teams from all classes to come together for spirited competition. For teams outside of Maine, you will have the opportunity to run in a competitive meet while visiting the beautiful mid-coast part of our state. For all, the challenging course and unique format of the meet should be an excellent primer for conference, regional, and state meets.
In previous editions of the meet, many of the teams from the Penobscot Valley Conference, Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference, Downeast Athletic Conference, Aroostook Conference, Southern Maine Activities Association, Western Maine Conference, Mountain Valley Conference, and strong teams from Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia have competed. In 2023, 101 schools and 1602 runners participated, and the team champions were the Cumberland, RI girls and E.O. Smith, CT boys.
MEET ENTRY PROCESS
Step 1 – Team Registration – Opens June 4, 2024 @ 7:00 AM
The meet has a limit of 65 Maine teams and 15 out-of-state teams. The only teams that have guaranteed entry are those who have attended every edition of the FOC. All other schools will be taken on a first-come, first-served basis. Coaches or athletic directors can enter their teams using the form at the link below. The form will become active at 7:00 AM on Tuesday, June 4. MEET ENTRY IS NOW CLOSED
Step 2 – Submission of Rosters – Deadline September 10, 2024 @ 8 PM
Entries this year (for Maine and other New England teams) will be through MileSplit. Coaches should make sure that you have a free MileSplit account and that your account has been linked to your school/team (this may take up to 24 hours). You will receive an invitation for the meet through MileSplit and your rosters should be entered by Tuesday, September 10 at 8 PM. This action confirms your team’s entry in the meet and if you miss this deadline your team will not be allowed to participate in the meet. We use your roster to order personalized race bibs for your athletes and we need to send those in 3 weeks before the meet to get them back in time. Rosters will be posted on this website after the deadline so that you can verify correct spelling and that all athletes are included before the file is sent to the printers. If Canadian teams cannot use MileSplit, they can send a Hy-Tek Team Manager roster or a spreadsheet with the following columns (first name, last name, sex, school name).
Download “MileSplit Quick Start Guide”
Step 3 – Payment of Entry Fee – Deadline September 24, 2024
The entry fee is $125 per school (includes both girls and boys teams) and $15 for an individual runner not participating as part of their school team. Checks should be payable to Belfast Area High School and please put Festival of Champions in the memo line. Send checks to: Susan Robbins, Belfast Area High School, 25 Lions Way, Belfast, ME 04915. Checks can be processed starting June 1, 2024. Do not bring your check to the meet, it must be mailed by the deadline of September 24.
Click here to check the status of your 2024 entry fee…
Step 4 – Submission of Seeded Entries with Predicted 5K Times – Deadline September 27, 2024 @ 8 PM
This step will also be done through MileSplit and the deadline is September 27 at 8 PM. Make sure that the athlete’s grade in school is correct and EVERY athlete needs a current or predicted 5K seed time. Remember that you should not enter athletes who cannot complete a 5K in under 40 minutes. Entries will be posted on this website after the deadline and the final seeded sections should be posted by September 29.
COURSE
The course is located at the Troy Howard Middle School in Belfast. Course features include: staring line on the football field with a long straightaway for a fair and safe start; a long gradual uphill just after the first mile; wide grass paths through a rolling meadow; several short and steep hills in the wooded part of the course; and a slight downhill for a fast finish. This is one of the most fan-friendly cross country courses will ever see. Just by standing at the start/finish area you will see the runners at least 5 times. The race distance for both boys and girls is 5,000 meters.
MEET FORMAT
There will be 3 girls races and 4 boys races. All first year freshmen will run in the freshman only races unless permission from the meet director is obtained to run in the seeded race. In the other races, individual runners will be placed into sections according to their 5K seed time so that they will run in races with comparably skilled runners. Then all of the races will be merged and scored based on times as if they were in one huge race. Coaches do not need to designate who their varsity runners are – your fastest 7 runners regardless of which section they run in will be used for scoring purposes. Top 5 runners count for the team score, and 6th and 7th runners count for displacement. After we receive the entries, we will break the runners up into seeded sections of 250-400 runners. Athletes must run in the section that they are seeded in.
Coaches must provide a predicted 5K seed time for each runner. The integrity of the seeding process depends on coaches providing accurate seed times. DO NOT seed your athletes with a slower seed time because they have to leave the meet early or with a faster seed time because they need to arrive late. Any coach violating the integrity of the seeding process will be risking the banning of their team from future editions of the meet. We will post the seeded sections on this website a few days before the meet. Athletes will not be moved from one section to another so seed with care! Runners should be able to run a 5K in under 40 minutes to compete in this meet. We will establish a 2 mile cut-off time that runners must meet or they will be asked to abandon the race. We will be using Hy-Tek Meet Manager, FinishLynx and IdentiLynx cameras, and Ipico shoe tags to administer the meet, and athletes will be identified by two hip numbers and their chest bib with their name.
We hope that this unique format will allow coaches to run athletes together that are competing for the last spots on their varsity roster as the championship meets approach, and that the freshman races will be a unique experience for them as well as a showcase for the stars of the future. The format gives comparably skilled runners the opportunity to run against each other regardless of their position on their teams and gives a wider range of runners a chance to win awards.