Given the fact that we’re pretty solid at giving advice, we graciously take the time to answer some letters from those in need. If you ever find yourself looking for advice, hit us up at Dumbflotrack@gmail.com and we probably won’t answer it cause your problems aren’t really that big of a deal to us but sometimes just venting in an email can help. Anyways…

Dear DumbFlotrack,

I’m a recent graduate of a top ten university and I am employed by a large multinational corporation that is one of the top in its industry. My department and I are some of the top performers and have consistently gone above and beyond what has been expected of us. However, we’re constantly overlooked for praise by another department, some of whom don’t even have college diplomas! I do appreciate what the company has done for me, but when I feel like just another number, I feel under appreciated. What should I do?

Sincerely,
A Tree Grows in Portland

Tree,

Wow, that sounds like quite the predicament and I’m sorry to hear that. Often times in large companies, it seems that politics can play more of a role than we would like. Some of the best advice I ever received was from my sister who once told me, “it doesn’t matter if you don’t get the attention, if your boss is an egotistical maniac, or if other people are committing possibly illegal acts to get ahead. Just appreciate the fact that you get to hang out with Emily Infeld every day and shut up.” I’m not sure if any of that truly does apply to this scenario but hopefully you can find something in that to take to heart.
Dear DumbFlotrack,

I recently threw a large event in my hometown and invited several friends, coworkers, and guests from out of town to join me. Everything went perfectly except my out of town guests upstaged me, including one of my coworkers! While I do appreciate all the attention the event received in the community, I fear that I may have lost some respect (and romantic prospects) as a result of this event! I don’t want to seem like a bad host, but how can I earn back the adoration of my local community?

Sincerely,
Lost in Long Island

Long Island,

While everyone appreciates the thought of hosting an event, most people dream of being the life of the party, not the doormat. While I would advise changing up the guest list next year, that doesn’t do much to solve your current problem. Your best course of action would be to flip this around on your out of town guests. You need to do a bit of traveling, but it will be worth it. Fly to their hometowns, wake them and their families up, drag them into the street and race them then and there. Beat them in front of those closest to them and show no regard for their feelings. Make sure to let their families know how easy it was for you. Post on social media with pictures from these races to make sure others are aware. Then, next year, don’t invite them to your event but be sure they know it is happening. They may text you asking what is up, but don’t reply. Leaving your read receipts on is a nice touch. Hope that helps and good luck next year!

Sincerely,
DumbFlotrack

Dear DumbFlotrack,

Why don’t you cover women’s cross country? You made a top 25 for the men, but completely ignored the women’s teams. Do you hate women? Are they not good enough for your website?

Sincerely,
Erik Von Helen

Erik,

First off, you’ve got some attitude, mister. Secondly, I love women. Thirdly, go stuff yourself. Fourthly, what kind of sick freak “ranks women”? Do you not think that all women are equally beautiful in their own unique way? Do you feel like women should have to compete with each other for the attention of men? Do you think assigning a number to a woman does anything other than marking her as “less than”? I don’t know who you think you are but sure, just for YOU I’ll go ahead and rank the top 25 women’s cross country teams.

DUMBFLOTRACK’S TOP 25 CROSS COUNTRY TEAMS For Her

Arkansas – most teams take an easy meet to start the year, but not the Razorbacks. They’re kicking off their season at the UCR invitational, taking on cross country powerhouses like cal state LA, southern Utah, and okay maybe not a whole bunch of fast teams but certainly beats racing a bunch of your alumni in a glorified time trial which brings us to
Colorado – the Colorado women are the best cross country team on campus that doesn’t have a book about them. They’re bringing back a lot of talent and should see a big bump from recent mystery transfer “Jane Burysz” who is supposed to really add depth to a stacked lady buffs squad
Michigan State – they’re the defending national champs and despite the fact that they lost 3 of their top seven, they added Jessica Hoover who went to (not that) Miami last year and probably will end up having some sort of positive impact. A lot is going to be made about losing o’connor, but she was only Michigan state’s number 3 at nationals in a meet the lady sparts (new nickname?) won by a lot more than people seem to give them credit for
Iowa state – They finished as a runner up last year and really didn’t lose as much as Michigan state, but they still finished a ways back. Losing moen is kind of big for them as their gap between 5 and 6 was pretty large and they’re going to have to depend on Becky straw to come in and finish pretty high for them to get close to last year. Biggest challenge for Becky straw coming over from England is probably going to be which side of the course to run on as I’m pretty sure they do it differently across the pond.
Boise state – mo farah, Bernard lagat, Lebron James. None of these athletes ever won an nxn title. You know who has? Allie ostrander, boise’s top incoming freshman. If nxn is really as big as people say it is, look for her to go sub 13 in the 5k while averaging 42 points and 12 rebounds in a losing effort. That may sound like a lot but when you compare her to athletes that don’t even have half her credentials, suddenly it’s not that crazy.
Oregon – a lot of people been asking a lot of questions about this lady ducks team like “where the heck has Sarah Baxter been?” “Does Sarah Baxter exist outside of Emma abrahamson’s Twitter feed?” “Where does Emma get all the time to write these tweets?” And “does Emma even know half the people she’s tweeting at?” We may get the answers to some of these questions and heck they might even run a cross country meet while they’re at it. The only real guarantee with this year’s lady ducks squad is a whole lot of “While You Were Away…” features on Twitter
Michigan – last year a lot of people got mad at us when we compared michigan’s bandwagon to a broken down wagon in the middle of a field, slowly deteriorating as time, weather, and wildlife broke it down bit by bit. I’d like to apologize to anyone we offended as it really wasn’t a fair comparison, there’s no way in heck the bandwagon would have still had wheels at that point and it wasn’t fair of us to pick that picture. I apologize.
Providence – I just want to say something people can take out of context and tweet if they end up winning so that way it looks like we called it so “(there is a possibility due to the talent and coaching on this roster that) THE PROVIDENCE WOMEN WILL WIN NCAA’S(if they are able to get to Louisville healthy and perform at the level expected of them)
William and Mary – it really doesn’t seem fair to have a team of only two people and it seems even less fair that one of those people is a guy but given that they only have to worry about two runners, this should be a shoe in for a top ten finish
Washington – they recruit so much talent here and offer so many scholarships, greg metcalf could forget to tie his shoe, fall down a hill, hit a tree, continue to fall down the hill, land in a river, spend 6 days floating downstream, wash up on a shore somewhere north of Davis, be adopted by a small pack of wolves, raised as one of their own as he gains their trust, hunt wild prey to feed their young, protect them against land developers trying to put in a whole foods, succeed but have the alpha male die in the process, learn a lesson about family, and still have his women’s team finish in the top 20 at nationals.
Wisconsin – this is probably just because disanza finished second last year and according to the Emma bates rule, your team has to finish 11th the next year. Is it the best rule to have named after you? No, but you don’t see any rules named after Abby D’Agostino, so you know, small victories.
California – sorry, I meant to put Stanford here but I’m really not in the mood to replace it. So I’ll just talk about bethan Knights. What’s up with that Twitter account? What’s the appeal of an account that just highlights the shortcomings of other people just for likes and favorites that don’t even mean anything outside of Twitter? Seems like a pretty small niche they’re appealing to. It won’t last.
New Mexico – there’s a lot of potential on this team but I’ll tell you right now that if its and buts were candies and nuts, German fernandez would open up a see’s candy store
NC State – they don’t call it National Champion State for nothing! (Ed. Note: no one calls it that)
Mississippi state – I’m just gonna rank some teams with bulldog as their mascot for the next few
Fresno state
Georgia
Concordia university, Nebraska
University of Redlands
Alan Hancock college
Arizona state – it’s probably a little high on these ladies as they just lost Shelby houlihan who was probably the greatest “margin of error” any dmr ever saw
Furman – this is a pretty sexy pick for a lot of people to be making lately and I just don’t buy it. Why should we reward a university that continues to go by Furman and not acknowledge all the Furwomen on campus?
California – I’ll talk about Stanford cause I talked about cal earlier but the Stanford women were super young last year and got a lot of experience losing to good teams. Expect them to look even better losing to good teams this year.
Princeton – token Ivy League team
Texas a &m – not really, this will probably be someone like Baylor or SMU