You Win Some and You Lose Some: Scoring a Two-Team Cross-Country Race

Introduction and Warmup

On a cool autumn day in October, 1980, a marginally-talented high school freshman got his first big lesson on scoring a cross-country race. In his races to date, the freshman runner (whom we'll call "Pokey") had always finished well back in the pack, both on his team, St. John's Academy (A) of Plattsburgh, New York, and among runners in general. On that day, however, running on rival Beekmantown's (B) home course, Pokey managed to outkick an opponent and slip into 10th place overall.