White Rose - Running Up

[Electrocuted]

For those less au fait with things Scottish, here's what DaveR's referring to...

SOL M21S 2009
1st Steve Wilson, M40 CLYDE
2nd Jason Simpson M21 TINTO
3rd mharky

Ha ha. We teased Steve about that last year. Actually, he moved up to age group 45 this year and I think was just running M21S last year to increase the distance on his course from M40S without going all the way to M40L. He's been running M45L this year.

[andypat]

Ha - Yes no offence meant to Steve on this one. I was just using that as an example. Usually agree with DaveR - him being generally sober and sensible of opinion - but not this time. I would defend Steve's right to run up the course but not the class, since that just seems daft to me. He's not really running up at all - he's really an M40L running down. Now Jason - he's a genuine M21s (no offence again Jason) and god knows what Mharky is if Jason beat him (sorry - that one might be slightly offensive to both).

Its OK for all you elite guys out there, but the rest of us need some incentive to keep on trying (well OK 180 minute man might be the exception to that rule.......)

[mharky]

...god knows what Mharky is...

Very proud of my 3rd place

[andypat]

And so you should be! Jason knows i'm only jesting so glad youre also taking in the spirit intended.

[awk]

Its OK for all you elite guys out there, but the rest of us need some incentive to keep on trying (well OK 180 minute man might be the exception to that rule.......)

Accepting you're grinning andypat, this is effectively what some people seem to be arguing seriously. Personally, I don't need 'winning' as motivation - competition and the challenge of the course is more than enough. I know who I measure myself against. I do think it's rather sad when somebody objects to somebody twenty years older than them beating them, 'because they are an L class runner and I'm running S'.

I think this is one of the reasons why I've so enjoyed the urban race scene, and events like the British Elite Sprints - where we're all mixed in together (OK, at urban it's not quite 'all', but at least the classes are nice and broad, and BOF have now wrecked the format of the BES), and there's some real competition. There's too much age class creep going on at some of the terrain based events, and it's in danger of making a nonsense of the word 'competition'.

At the Swiss 6-day a few years ago, I ran HA, which was effectively the S class for classes H35-55. There were getting on for 200 of us, and it was far better than all the silly 5-year sub-classes that we seem so obsessed with here. They're fine when there are loads in every class (eg. 6-day), but ridiculous when there's barely a dozen or so. Meaningless.

[andypat]

I do agree with you awk to a certain extent. The classes and courses these days seem to be a bit arbitrary and we dont have the numbers to make them work. My gut feeling is that if you have a competition of any sort, there should be a definable pool of competitors from where the winner should come.

That is if you have a class M35 (which is 35-39) the winner should come from the group of people who are in this set. If you are going to allow people arbitrarily to run up to any class higher than the one they are in, then the thing that is wrong is the basic definition of the class.

My own opinion - for what its worth - is that if a competition is age based, it should be just that. If you want to run up, run open. Otherwise you run your age group.

[roadrunner]

I agree with you too, awk. As I think I've said before, I think that the age groups for any particular event ought to reflect the number of entries so as to produce sensible competition - so, for example, if M35 in some event only has a few entries, then it would be sensible to combine it with M21 or M40. In this respect, urban events with open/40+/55+ are about right at the moment, although that might change in the future.

However, I don't see anything wrong with running up to a class other than "open" (then again, as an M55 I'm probably biased!). On the other hand, I don't have any problem with the concept of an M30-M39 prize (for which M40+ would not be eligible) - it happens in road races as well, as long as the concept is clear from the start there's no problem.

[fleetfoot]

... he's a genuine M21s....

So what is a genunine M21S? The whole point some years ago (at least as I understood it) of moving from A and B courses to L and S courses was that they were of an equal orienteering technical level, just of different length and (as was much stressed) there was no difference in orienteering ability between L and S course runners, it was purely a choice on course length. And that runners were free to move between the two without any danger of being declared non-comp (as would have happened when we had A + B courses).

Therefore surely M21S is actually an open short course on which everyone is competitive and should be eligible for any prizes that exist? Therefore an M40 running M21S is just another eligible runner choosing the S course and if he is quicker than you well go do some more training and HTFU! Trying to define it as anything else strikes me as a classic case of having your cake and eating it!

[IkeySol]

Its OK for all you elite guys out there, but the rest of us need some incentive to keep on trying (well OK 180 minute man might be the exception to that rule.......)

Accepting you're grinning andypat, this is effectively what some people seem to be arguing seriously. Personally, I don't need 'winning' as motivation - competition and the challenge of the course is more than enough. I know who I measure myself against. I do think it's rather sad when somebody objects to somebody twenty years older than them beating them, 'because they are an L class runner and I'm running S'.

The fact that you dont need winning as motivation doesnt mean that noone else likes/needs it though so yes I am arguing it seriously.

I get beaten regularly by people at least twenty five years older than me never mind twenty and have no problem whatsoever with it. Theyre fitter and faster than me and have probably not taken 15 years off from running. However to my mind theyre competing against each other in an M60 class. To make it competitive and have my own class I like to compete against a similar age group who are similarly either new to the sport or coming back to it. To be told I/we cant win our own age class because there are faster people in older age groups at totally different stages of development strikes me as yet another way of deterring my age class which lets face it is pretty slim on the ground anyway.

If you want to widen it to a 10 year gap to get more of us in M35 then I have no problem with that although Id prefer not to be put back in with the M21, I just like to know (as well as myself) who Im competing against rather than just anyone who realises they can win a better prize on my course than their own.

Incidentally someone mentioned that this should go for anyone beating people in an "inferior" class. Given that M16s should in theory be beating M60 and on the Blue you were very close to having a 60+ year old in standing on the podium in third place on the M16 course

[keever]

Incidentally someone mentioned that this should go for anyone beating people in an "inferior" class. Given that M16s should in theory be beating M60 and on the Blue you were very close to having a 60+ year old in standing on the podium in third place on the M16 course

No, obviously juniors shouldn't take veteran (35+) prizes and vice versa. You just sound like a whinging old git looking for any way to take prizes away from the people who actually deserve them.

[IkeySol]

Incidentally someone mentioned that this should go for anyone beating people in an "inferior" class. Given that M16s should in theory be beating M60 and on the Blue you were very close to having a 60+ year old in standing on the podium in third place on the M16 course

No, obviously juniors shouldn't take veteran (35+) prizes and vice versa. You just sound like a whinging old git looking for any way to take prizes away from the people who actually deserve them.

Why is it obvious though. If we're working on principle that an age class is superior or inferior surely as an M60 they should be rewarded for the excellent effort beating youngsters who should be expected to beat them? Why does it matter if theyre junior or not?

On the other point how exactly does wanting to win a prize for competing against my own age group in my own age class make me "looking for any way to take prizes away from the people who actually deserve them"? They have their own prizes in their own age group.

Oh and thanks very much for the personal attack; nothing like it to show you arent able to construct a well reasoned argument.

[andypat]

You could take that argument logically further and argue that women should be able to run "up" (sorry for the implication) and take the prize if they beat the men on their course. But we dont - we think it is sensible for women to compete against women and men against men. I think its sensible (if we are going to have age classes) that we stick to them. I'd prefer the age classes to be wider to make for more meaningfull competition, and I also quite like being able to choose my colour on colour coded. But I think what we have now, with this running up caper, is just a mess. It suits some of the more proficient older orienteers to be able to do it, but it doesnt really respect those of us who make up the numbers.

[fleetfoot]

You could take that argument logically further and argue that women should be able to run "up" (sorry for the implication) and take the prize if they beat the men on their course.

They can! The male class in any age group is defined by the rules as being an open class for all competitors that meet the age criteria. So a W40 running M40 at the British Champs (or anywhere else) is already eligible to win.

[roadrunner]

Incidentally someone mentioned that this should go for anyone beating people in an "inferior" class. Given that M16s should in theory be beating M60 and on the Blue you were very close to having a 60+ year old in standing on the podium in third place on the M16 course

No, obviously juniors shouldn't take veteran (35+) prizes and vice versa. You just sound like a whinging old git looking for any way to take prizes away from the people who actually deserve them.

Why is it obvious though. If we're working on principle that an age class is superior or inferior surely as an M60 they should be rewarded for the excellent effort beating youngsters who should be expected to beat them? Why does it matter if theyre junior or not?

That's because you expect juniors to improve with age and experience, while veterans may gain in experience but inevitably get slower with age. So an M16 can be competitive on M18 or M21, but not on the higher age classes; similarly, an M40 could run M35 or M21 but not the lower ones.

As for women running men's courses, it happens but it's very rare and I'm not sure that a woman has ever won a men's course: see http://www.londonorienteering.co.uk/2000-2004/holm96.html and look at 19th place on M21L.

[frog]

It sounds very like we should just scrap the whole age structure prize thing and just have prizes for courses eg first 3 in brown get prizes regardless of age, maybe just adding age prizes for over 50 or 60 when folk slow down more. I'd favour keeping m and f prizes distinct as on the whole men are faster than women and we'd rarely win anything otherwise.

One unfair aspect of running up is the skew in age distribution in orienteering, so you generally get more 40-50 year olds than 30-40 year olds. This can make getting an M30 medal easier than an M45 one as although it's longer there is less competition.

Rewarding kids running up is important as they're generally the ones in our national squads and kids can get fed up with sport in their teens anyway without giving them extra reasons to get pissed off.

If a good light green aged kid comes second in green then they should get the green prize.

It's interesting to see where you come in relation to your peers in results but in cc events maybe the age tables should just be for interest and ranking points and the prizes just based on overall performace in the course regardless of age.

Would make prize giving much easier.