McAlpine Greenway

When you look at North Carolina boys times on the course with the most history, the progression of significant improvements goes like this: John Erickson in 1983, Ricky Brookshire in 1999, and Matt Debole in 2001.  Erickson, from SE Guilford, lowered the best time on the course from 15:23 to 15:14, which is over 1% improvement.  Brookshire was responsible for the largest percentage time drop of any North Carolina runner, as the Watagua standout dropped Brant Armentrout's 15:09 down by 1.2% to 14:57, becoming the first Tarheel State runner to break 15 there in the process.  Mount Tabor's Debole broke another barrier, going 14:49.2.  Since Debole, the top McAlpine time in state history has only improved by 5 seconds, which is only 0.5% in total, and that improvement has been divided over 4 runners.

For North Carolina girls, it's much simpler: Karen Godlock ruined it for everyone.  In 1992, the Polk County prodigy (shown below with coach Steve Aldred) clocked 17:24.9 at the 1A/2A state championship, which was 2.8% better than the previous NC best (Kathy Ormsby of Richmond County, who ran 17:55 in 1982 at Foot Locker South).  It's also worth noting that two out-of-state runners have produced transcendent performances at McAlpine.  Kathleen Smith (Churchill TX) ran 16:56 at the 1983 Foot Locker South, which was 2.4% better than any prior female performance.  Then there was this guy named Alan Webb who ran for South Lakes (VA) high school - you might have heard of him.  He ran 14:43 at the Greenway in 2000, a mark that at the time was 1.6% faster than anyone had ever run there.