At the Thursday (2/5/2015) board meeting, officials voted to approve a change in course distance for girl's cross country from 4,000 meters to 5,000 meters. The course distance will be the same as the distance boy's races. Up until today, Minnesota was one of only 6 states that ran different distances for boys and girls.
Talk about moving to a 5k for girls has come up a number of times over the past several years in Minnesota. Part of the sticking point has been a fear of decreasing interest and numbers with the longer distance. However, as more girls run 5k road races in the off-season, or participate in post-season races such as Nike or Footlocker, girls have become increasingly comfortable with the distance.
Iowa will also move to the 5k distance for the fall of 2015; Wisconsin made the move in the fall of 2014, Nebraska in the fall of 2013. States remaining that don't run the 5k include Kansas, North Dakota and South Dakota who run a 4k for girls; Oklahoma and Texas who run a 3200 for girls in small schools and 5k for girls in large schools. Montana boys and girls compete on a 3 mile course.