Rankings (again)

[Dave]

I suspect Mharky's being a bit tongue in cheek here as the BOF ranking list probably matters least to elites who'll have an IOF ranking and I'd imagine have their own goals that wouldnt generally involve the UK ranking list.

Obviously the world ranking list, being more accurate than bof's, is the be all and end all of elite ambition but don't underestimate how much we strive to be atop the UK list. That's certainly what keeps me going when I'm running the JK.

[mharky]

And how many times has anyone good run the 21S at London? Even when I ran it, I'd been off running since May. If I was actually fit I would have gone round much quicker, but if I was fit I would have run 21L. But surely the ranking list should allow for a fit 21L to run anycourse they chose and points should be the same. The only way to actually test that is to get git 21Ls running the short, but that rarely happens.

[EddieH]

I regularly run blacks (most not scoring at all) but when they do I have no chance of scoring any worthwhile points - this has been shown every time - EXCEPT one.

The middle distance black at Coille Nathais where because it was mddle distance loads of people that normally run much shorter courses entered that one. Despite the fact that there were plenty of elite runners there this is one of my top scores thus proving clearly to me that the original seeding problems have far from gone.

On top of that I am overranked in that my 2 highest scores come from the 2 parts of the Scottish Score champs. You could argue that this shows a sprint race bias, but I suspect it has much more to do with the fact that my course was shared with W45/50 ish.

[EddieH]

I regularly run blacks (most not scoring at all) but when they do I have no chance of scoring any worthwhile points - this has been shown every time - EXCEPT one.

The middle distance black at Coille Nathais where because it was mddle distance loads of people that normally run much shorter courses entered that one. Despite the fact that there were plenty of elite runners there this is one of my top scores thus proving clearly to me that the original seeding problems have far from gone.

On top of that I am overranked in that my 2 highest scores come from the 2 parts of the Scottish Score champs. You could argue that this shows a sprint race bias, but I suspect it has much more to do with the fact that my course was shared with W45/50 ish.

[graeme]

What is good to see is that now everyone seems to be having major events as their scoring runs, most people have all 3 JK days, and either a British Champs or Scottish Champs (WOC test)

The way the list is set up that is pretty much impossible. What I think you mean is "my elite colleagues" rather than "everyone". And what it therefore shows is that the elite are better at producing peak performances at major events than punters are.
Which, I agree, is good to see!

Regarding sprint. Again it's impossible for average scores to be higher than in other races. Three things are at play here...
1/ Some people are much better at running on road than forest. (also vice versa, but there's still a snob value to running well in forests)
2/ Sprint race results are more random (because there's no chance to recover from a mistake). So individuals will get particularly high and low scores there. But the published list only shows the high ones.
3/ There's more mixing of classes on shorter courses and slower runners are still overranked.

Kept going, in the absence of ranking points at the JK relay, by chasing schorah's sorry arse up the hill

[Ali Wood]

2/ Sprint race results are more random (because there's no chance to recover from a mistake). So individuals will get particularly high and low scores there. But the published list only shows the high ones.

You are dead right here, graeme. Is there some way sprints could be statistically tweaked to equalise things?

[mharky]

Point 1, no
Point 2, no
Point 3, bingo

[mharky]

And I thought there was no such thing as peaking?

[rocky]

Scott's top score is the Edinburgh City Race (1394!!!), Murray's is the JK Sprint, Oli's is the JK Sprint, mine is the JK Middle... I've been done!

Look at the JK scores, same good guys everyday. Murray gets 1362 for winning sprint (it has a lot more punters on it), Scott gets 1340 for winning the middle, and Doug gets 1324 for winning the long. That's a big difference.

And then we go to WOC and Scott and I get the best results in the sprint... so we're better at sprinting than you guys are at forest racing and deserve the big bucks points!

[mharky]

I guess that's why I got more than you at London then... if I'd run the same course I'd have got destroyed.

[graeme]

And I thought there was no such thing as peaking?

Of course there is. And there's also randomness, in performance and injury.

The question is whether you've a better chance of achievement in a given year if you plan to run a single race at 100+-5% or ten races at 98+-5% . If all that matters is this year's WOC, then of course you peak. For most of us who'd be happy with a Scottish or British or JK, Long or Sprint title your best plan is not to.

And the other issue is whether it helps your long term development. e.g. we all know runners who peaked once due to an unsustainable reduction in bodyweight.

[andypat]

And the other issue is whether it helps your long term development. e.g. we all know runners who peaked once due to an unsustainable reduction in bodyweight.

Hey!

[The Loofa]

Having started this thread I thought I'd just point out that ranking points for the Caddihoe day 2 vanished as quickly as they appeared - and I didn't have to e-mail anyone.

[DeerTick]

And I thought there was no such thing as peaking?

No, that'd be me, but I stand corrected.

[Sunlit Forres]

Can somebody in the know explain what happens in the following situation:

1. A smallish event on a quality area with 3 or 4 courses is registered as Level C.
2. About 15 ranked runners take part in one of the courses hence making it qualify for ranking points.
3. Some of these competitors are relatively new to the ranking list and have only done two or three ranking events, but have scored quite well at each event they've done (around 1100 points) but as a consequence of not having done 6 events are ranked quite low down with a total ranking score around the 3,300 mark.
4. A talented new member, or a junior moving up to 2nd year M/W16, comes from nowhere and beats everyone.

Does the new member get an artificially low score because of the falsely low total ranking score of some of the other runners, or is the algorithm clever enough to take this in to account?