This is a new idea for 2008 linking a number of races organised by village communities in East Devon, albeit many of them in conjunction with AVR, to raise funds for themselves. The series is promoted by AVR and supported by Ironbridge Runner.
I am organising the series to raise the profile of some excellent races in the area as well to as provide a bit of fun for runners endeavouring to outdo each other over a year's running! It's restricted to the main races this year but if all goes well then the challenge will be expanded to the associated junior runs in 2009.
| Axmouth Challenge | 10 miles | 6 Jan |
| Dalwood Three Hills Challenge | 10 miles | 24 Feb |
| Umborne Ug | 6 miles | 11 May |
| Talaton Trotter | 6 miles | 7 Jun |
| Musbury Castle Challenge | 8 miles | 21 Sep |
| Yarcombe Yomp | 10 miles | 1 Nov |
A runner's best four results count for the series with performances being measured relative to the median time (the middle finisher), then scaled according to age and gender via formulae approximating to the age-gradings from tables issued by WAVA (the World Association of Veteran Athletes):
your_score = median_time / your_time * 100% * age-factor(Note that this was changed on 8th June after John Perratt pointed out that I had incorrectly specified your_time / median_time.) The middle finisher gets 100% raw (ungraded) points and the winner about 140%. After scaling vets have more points and seniors the same.
This may seem a bit complicated but positions obviously aren't comparable between races with different numbers of runners, and percentage of winning time is very sensitive to which particular speed merchants happen to turn up. Having said that, I'm not sure just how comparable median is between races since some people are getting a wide range of points for apparently comparable runs, but I'll continue with this method for now and review it at the end of the year.
You will need to run in four races to count for the overall results.
Team scores are computed from the area under the graph of cumulative percentage of a team's finishers against their age-graded position (plotted alongside the results tables below) divided by the number of runners in the race. This is a measure of the performance of the entire team rather than just the first few. It's not perfect but then nor's the age-grading! At least five runners are required for a team to score.
Thanks to sponsorship from Ironbridge Runner everyone completing four races in the series will receive a t-shirt. I also hope to be able to provide some prizes.
Garry Perratt (LMRB). (AVR email addresses are Firstname dot Lastname at AxeValleyRunners dot org dot uk.)