British Champs start list

[Spookster]

The start list for the British went up online yesterday. The organisers have kindly provided it as an Excel spreadsheet as well, so I thought a bit of "lunchtime stats generation" would be interesting...

Starting with the more normal statistics:

• Of the 1590 people on the start list, 40% are women and 60% men.
• 22% are juniors, 39% are in age classes 50 or above, and 8% are running Elite.
• The club with the most entrants is Lakeland with 98, but clubs closer to the event such as Gramp (70), Maroc (66), and FVO (52) all feature well up on the list.

And then some more obscure stats:

• If you can't remember someone's name, they're most likely called Dave. There are more Daves and Davids than anything else (44).
• You might think we'd all be trying to keep up with the Smiths and the Jones's, but in fact the Robertson clan will have more people there (17). And of course Dave Robertson is one of them.
• 232 people have been seeded by the organisers (15%), with SYO (17), FVO (13) and EUOC (11) having the most seeds.

Only two weeks to go - looking forward to a great event, a great forest and a highly legible map...!

[DavidJ]

Interesting data... As one of the over 50 unseeded male David's listed, I would welcome some advice on how to tackle the event - I have only been to Culbin once and that was for the Scottish Champs in 1977.

[Spookster]

I would welcome some advice on how to tackle the event - I have only been to Culbin once and that was for the Scottish Champs in 1977.

Dave Peel is organising some training the day before - that would be excellent preparation, if you can get up to Culbin a day earlier.

[DavidJ]

Dave Peel is organising some training the day before - that would be excellent preparation, if you can get up to Culbin a day earlier.

Not sure that I can make the Friday but I might try to get to Lossie on the Saturday morning for a short jog with the 'map of the month'.

[Mrs H]

I wonder why my little girl is starting three hours adrift of the rest of the family - we were all entered at the same time!

[DaveR]

You might think we'd all be trying to keep up with the Smiths and the Jones's, but in fact the Robertson clan will have more people there (17). And of course Dave Robertson is one of them.

So now it seems I am uniquely common

[Big Jon]

The elite start lists (M/W 20 &21E) are wrong, they will be removed and new lists posted, probably by next Tuesday, to take into account the results from British Middle and Sprint Champs.

Sorry for any confusion caused.

[weekatiepea]

You might think we'd all be trying to keep up with the Smiths and the Jones's, but in fact the Robertson clan will have more people there (17)

Darn it, so if I hadn't got married I would have been one of a kind instead of one of many!

[graeme]

At least all you Robertsons have different first names.

Using a complex statistical formula, involving a mild home-country bias, my computer predicts that Jamie Stevenson is the most likely winning name

And I'm not even top of the list any more

[Gross]

Jon - sure a minor start list hiccup won't change the 'best O in UK this year'

[Roger]

• 232 people have been seeded by the organisers (15%)....

...excluding three reigning British Champions from my club! One has now changed classes, but one appears to be the only unseeded competitor in his class!

Yes, I do know what a thankless task it is to seed classes, especially those you're not familiar with. And I realise that the start list on M80 is sufficiently sparse that seeding or not won't make a difference. But whether or not it makes any difference to the start times I'd have expected the defending champion to be listed as 'seeded', merely out of courtesy.

[Mrs H]

I don't understand what the seeding signifies - I had assumed it was to space the main contenders out but in the M60L class in our club one runner who finished 82nd in the JK is seeded and another who finished 3rd is not.

[Homer]

Is Spookster subtly trying to complain that he himself isn't seeded?!!

It does seem that the seedings are somewhat random and, dare I say it, just a little Scots-biased?!

[Spookster]

Is Spookster subtly trying to complain that he himself isn't seeded?!!

It does seem that the seedings are somewhat random and, dare I say it, just a little Scots-biased?!

Nope, certainly not complaining, just amused. There are actually two previous M35 British Champions not seeded in M40. I know it's a tricky job, and my start time is fine anyway, not adjacent to another seed, so there's no problem.

Meanwhile "Mrs Spookster" is seeded in W35 , which we find quite amusing as she does well to finish in the top half of the field on that class.

[Scott]

Nothing to add, except to point out that the previous post is apparently the 40,000th "discussion" post on nope .