JK Middle Race, Junior Elite

[mharky]

I'm not sure if this has been brought up before, but does anyone else think expecting an M/W17 to run a course planned for M/W21 elites a bit daft. Surely the juniors should be a running a junior elite middle distance which would be similar in length to JWOC. JWOC is won in under 25 mins. WOC is won in under 35. The W18 Elite is the same distance (5.2km) as the W18L Long distance.

I can understand running the 18s and 20s together, lots of countries do that. But the should most definitely be running their own junior elite course.

[NeilC]

I believe that the request to run 18/20E on the elite middle distance courses came from the start/junior squad managers.

[harry]

I can see this from both sides. It's not totally relevant to the JWOC middle distance but then maybe that doesn't matter. maybe the idea is they are elites, they compete with the big boys, see how they measure up, realise sooner the level they need to be at, start to raise their game, so the others their age have to in order to compete and they end up getting to that level sooner.

I think it would have benefitted me as an W18/20 to race against the 21s more regularly. I don't think I improved much between age 16-20 (when I was running JWOCs) probably because I had it too easy & got complacent in my age class. In hindsight I should have competed abroad or against the 21Es more and pushed myself. Maybe that's the idea here?
Of course they have it much easier these days with super cheap flights round Europe & not getting fed donuts on training camps (hopefully)!

Quite rightly they get their own JK long distance. What happens at the British Middle - hopefully they get their own courses there?

[marcus_weatherburn]

do you think there should be an M/W 18 elite course at the jk and british champs every year? it has good and bad sides to it. running against the m21 runners is a great experience for comparing times an so but like you said before, expecting a m/w 17 to run that is kind of harsh.

at the moment I run m18L and will be doing so at the jk this year. the m18L course this year will not be as competitive as it has been in previous years with all the top runners doing the elite course.

[GML]

Doesn't strike me as being particularly problematic. OK, so it's rather long for a Middle race, but not over long.

What I suspect will come as more of a challenge for some, is the length of the Classic course on Day 3: 12.1km + 490m of climb for M18/20E!

[gg]

i seem to remember the jk "middle" in the lakes was won in over 40 minutes, and the best juniors were 45 minutes plus...

[harry]

hmmm yeah. Thinking about it how many other opportunities are there for the juniors to race under pressure in technical terrain over a 25 min race - ie practice for Goteborg middle race?
But I'm sure Gareth has that under control. Some high pressure races on training camps etc. I guess the steering groups will have to look at the winning times & spread this year & give it some thought for next year.