What format to use for proposed "Big 10" Challenge 2012?

slowsteady

Excellent idea all round.

Could I just make one suggestion, that the targets for each distance be based around the IAAF tables so that no one distance is perceived as being 'easier' than any other, i.e. a sub-90, 1:29:59, half is 268 points which is equivalent to a 2:26 800m in the tables.

http://www.iaaf.org/mm/Document/Competitions/TechnicalArea/04/33/41/20110124082825_httppostedfile_IAAF_Scoring_Tables_of_Athletics_2011_23299.pdf

It has the benefit of being biased neither to the 'sprinters' or the 'sloggers'.

RayCun

Or more like this

400m

Name|Time|Cat|Date|Points
04072511|1:00.90|M|10/2011|1


800m

Name|Time|Cat|Date|Points
[COLOR="rgb(46, 139, 87)"]04072511|2:27.90|M|12/2011|3[/COLOR]
woddle|2:42|M|07/2011|4
Timmaayy|2:01:31|M|6/8/11|1
[COLOR="rgb(46, 139, 87)"]Brianderunner|2:22:4|M|14/6/11|2[/COLOR]


...


10 Miles

Name|Time|Cat|Date|Where
TheRoadRunner|0:55:50|M|20/08/11|Frank Duffy 10
Abhainn|0:57:43|M35|20/08/11| Frank Duffy 10
Racman|0:59:08|M50|20/08/11|Frank Duffy 10
Krusty_clown|0:59:25|M35|20/08/11|Frank Duffy 10
Sosa|0:59:37|M35|30/01/11|Dungarvan 10
theboyblunder|1:00:37|M35|20/08/11|Frank Duffy10
Brianderunner|1:01:08|M|16/10/11|Cabbage Patch 10
krusty_clown|1:01:33|Clown|06/03/11|Ballycotton 10
Jimbo21|1:01:40|M40|30/01/11|Dungarvan 10
TFBubendorfer|1:01:51|M40|06/03/11|Ballycotton 10
BeepBeep67|1:02:08|M40|30/01/11|Dungarvan 10
opus|1:02:24|M40|27/03/11|Mallow 10
Ronnie085|1:02:46|M|27/03/11|Mallow 10
RAL3|1:06:21|M40|20/08/11|Frank Duffy
macinalli|1:09:50|M35|30.01.11|Dungarvan 10
Condo131|1:12:18|M55|06/03/11|Ballycotton 10
[COLOR="rgb(46, 139, 87)"]Speedy44|1:04:20|M45|18/03/2011|Craughwell 10[/COLOR]
Chinguetti|1:12:10|M|27/03/11|Mallow 10
[COLOR="rgb(46, 139, 87)"]menoscemo|1:09:21|M|27/03/11|Mallow 10[/COLOR]
RayCun|1:13:51|M35|20/08/11|Frank Duffy
Caprica|1:05:25|M35|20/08/11|Frank Duffy
antomagoo|1:16:14|M|20/08/11|Frank Duffy


Marathon

Name|Time|Cat|Date|Where
TheRoadRunner|2:36:45|M|25/09/11|Berlin
Abhainn|2:43:33|M35|17/04/11|London
Krusty_Clown|2:48:10|Clown|12/10/11|Chicago
Liamo123|2:52:14|M40|25/09/11|Berlin
brownian|2:57:38|M40|10/04/2011|Connemarathon
theboyblunder|2:57:48|M35|06/03/11|Barcelona
earlyevening|2:58:13|M35|31/10/11|Dublin
TFBubendorfer|2:59:35|M40|17/04/2011|Vienna
Opus|2:55:10|M40|25/09/2011|Berlin
[COLOR="rgb(46, 139, 87)"]Macanri|3:08:46|M35|06/03/2011|Barcelona
Ronnie085|3:10:12|M|22/05/2011|Edinburgh
Speedy44|3:13:54|M45|10/04/2011|Rotterdam
RAL3|3:18:15|M40|18/04/2011|Boston
Raycun|3:29:12|M35|31/10/2011|DCM[/COLOR]
Spunderbungle|3:36:00|M|02/05/2011|Belfast
Rainbow Kirby|3:59:00|F|06/03/2011|Barcelona
[COLOR="rgb(46, 139, 87)"]Capirica|3:07:38|M35|10/01/11|Paris
menoscemo|3:24:06|M|06/03/2011|Barcelona
neilc|3:22:59|M40|25/09/2011|Berlin[/COLOR]


and then another table underneath like this


Name|400m|800m|1 mile|3k|5k|5mile|10k|10miles|Half Marathon|Marathon|Total
04072511|1|3|13|4|25|23|26|23|23|20|161
woddle|2|4|13|4|25|23|26|23|23|20|163
TheRoadRunner|2|5|13|4|1|1|1|1|23|1|52
Abhainn|2|5|13|4|6|4|3|2|23|2|64

RayCun

slowsteady wrote: »

Could I just make one suggestion, that the targets for each distance be based around the IAAF tables so that no one distance is perceived as being 'easier' than any other, i.e. a sub-90, 1:29:59, half is 268 points which is equivalent to a 2:26 800m in the tables.

Round numbers only.

Sub 40 10k makes sense as a target. I could not give a **** if the 'real' equivalent should be 38.41 or 40.12. No-one sets those as targets.

slowsteady

RayCun wrote: »

Round numbers only.

Sub 40 10k makes sense as a target. I could not give a **** if the 'real' equivalent should be 38.41 or 40.12. No-one sets those as targets.

Maybe I am missing something - agreed, no-one sets 40:12 as a target but surely the same person would like to know it would like to know it is as good as their 1:29:05 half? An arbitrary judgment?

shotgunmcos

Hey Raycun, I think the simpler the better. The more participants the better. The more interesting the challenge the better. The fewer tables the better.

So, For simples sake, A standard is Gold, B standard is Green, anything lower is normal font.

To get more participants on board and to make it a fun challenge where the plodder can sit next to TRR (at least for a while) by posting a few early races.

The big 8 was exclusive. The same audience is catered for here and the person(s) who achieve 10 gold at the end of the year will still top the list. This format just brings more people on board and reward them for giving obscure distances a go.

How to rank. Simple 1, 3, 10 in order of no target, green, gold? If 2 people are on the same points the the number of golds trumps etc.. Use Ratifying tables to sort a deadlock etc.. I dunno this needs to be agreed. Not everyone will understand the ratifying tables so somthing simpler may have to be incorporated to sort the table.

Gold Benchmarks: 400<60", 800<2'10", 1 mile<5', 3k<10' etc...
Green Benchmarks: 400<70", 800<2'30", 1 mile<5'30", 3k etc....
Post any time 1 point, green standard 5 pts, gold standard 10pts
Name|400m|800m|1 mile|3k|5k|5mile|10k|10miles|Half Marathon|Marathon|Points
04072511|1:00.9|2:27.9|||||||||10
Timmaayy||2:01.31|4.39||16.19||||||30
Brianderunner|||||17.51||37.33|61.08|82.29||20
TheRoadRunner|||||16.05|26.29|33.04|64.50||2.36.45|45
TFBubendorfer|||||18.05|||61.51|83.36|2.59.35|20
AN other|1:12.3|2:29|39.00||||39.59|||2.37.0|22


Thoughts?

BTW this table auto sorts on points

Pisco Sour

menoscemo wrote: »

Don't use that as an excuse to be lazy and not try . If you actually put in the work you might surprise yourself

I am an ex sprinter and am pretty sure I could get close to a 60 second 400m right now with no specific training. Despite that I am getting better and better at the long stuff, hard work pays off.

That's because you are suited to short events, and are wasting your talent doing ultras and marathons being completely honest. There are others who are at the 2:59, 3:00 standard who you could throw on a track right now and wouldnt be able to break 70, let alone 60. You have a talent for sprinting, which makes the sub 60 easier for you, but it aint easier for everybody. Everybody is different.

With regards myself, the longer the event, the worse my times get. I'm just not suited to a marathon. Sure look at Brianderunner. 53 seconds for 400m, which is serious running, and still, after serious training, not even close to sub 3. Some people aren't cut out for longer stuff (relatively speaking, compared to shorter stuff of course), and I believe I am one of those people. I'd need to be running sub 3 for marathon to justify giving up 400m and doing a marathon again, while I believe I can get my 400 time eventually down to 56. It's a bit of a no brainer which one to focus on.

EDIT: Check out this letsrun thread from earlier in the year. Facinating reading.

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=4097790

Pisco Sour

shotgunmcos wrote: »

The big 8 was exclusive. The same audience is catered for here and the person(s) who achieve 10 gold at the end of the year will still top the list. This format just brings more people on board and reward them for giving obscure distances a go.

Hehe, I laughed out loud at that.

Interesting idea though. Just a little confusing to get the head around and would need a clear, simple, bullet point explanation so that everybody fully knows what's going on.

I actually prefer Donothoponpops suggestion where you get points for going say, under the 400m equivalent of a sub 5 mile, sub 2:10 800m etc. Gives people 10 targets in each event, as opposed to just 1, and would create a bit of competition between people in different events, trying to gain a performance with as many IAAF points as possible. Could be a bit of banter.

P.S. These tables make me realise that I need to update my times on that Best of 2011 thread

RayCun

shotgunmcos wrote: »

Hey Raycun, I think the simpler the better. The more participants the better. The more interesting the challenge the better. The fewer tables the better.

That's true, but I also like depth that the S/B/R challenge has

Your overall ranking on the challenge depends on how few points you have. For example 1st place on the run table = 1pt, 2nd = 2pts and so on. Your rank is derived from your total for the 3 disciplines. If you only run and cycle, the max swim rank +1 will be added to your score. So if there are 20 on the challenge and you are 1st on the run and 10th on the bike but do not swim. Your total is 32. 1 (run) +10 (cycle) +21 (swim). I hope that makes sense.

If it's just 5 points for a 'green' time, there's no motivation to post a better 'green' time than anyone else. If your points depend on your position in the event table, you want to move up the table.

... but I've said enough on this thread now, time for some contributions from other people...

shotgunmcos

04072511 wrote: »

Hehe, I laughed out loud at that.

I actually prefer Donothoponpops suggestion where you get points for going say, under the 400m equivalent of a sub 5 mile, sub 2:10 800m etc. Gives people 10 targets in each event, as opposed to just 1,

I figured the obscure comment would draw you or ecoli from your chambers

I thought the whole idea of this challenge was to achieve a set of benchmark times across distances, no? This is why the A and B threads emerged as the original big 8 only catered for "good club runners". The Green and Gold is just a way of keeping both on one thread and one table. You still have to work out how to score or rank the challenge and regarless of whether it is this method or D'pops IAAF suggestion, it still needs to be explained clearly to the masses.

RayCun wrote: »

If it's just 5 points for a 'green' time, there's no motivation to post a better 'green' time than anyone else.

I agree with you here. Part of the fun of the SBR challenge is not just hitting the green and gold marks, but leap frogging your nemesis

It works ok as the 3 vertical tables because you can auto sort each individually. 10 vertical tables is too much IMO, it has to be horizontal. But then how to score/rank?

RayCun

04072511 wrote: »

With regards myself, the longer the event, the worse my times get. I'm just not suited to a marathon.

I think it's more likely that you don't enjoy the event, and don't like the kind of training it requires, than that you are a bundle of fast-twitch fibres and incapable of running longer-distances. Which is fine - run the distances you like! But none, or very few, of us on the forum are running at close to our physiological limits.

robinph

Please, please, please keep the number of tables as small as possible. They are a fantastic facility of vbulletin, but get very overused round here.

shels4ever

if it ain't broken....;)

donothoponpop

I changed the thread title to "what format...?" as any discussion has become about tables, charts, grading, etc, and there's another thread that's an extension of this too, adding different standards to any proposed challenge (which seems an extension of the IAAF charts here). The format of these challenges needs to be agreed upon, and we can start them proper Jan 1st.

My preference is for the round numbers to be kept a la the original Big 8, without tables, ranks, different levels. This to facilitate discussion, what the spirit of the challenge should be about. Its about trying to get the slower guys learning from the faster guys, but at the moment it seems to be about "how can I rank my performance in comparison to others". There's a place for that all right, but discussion threads usually get swamped by tables, charts, and I'd like to have one thread that focussed on comment and discussion on what training/racing you did to hit these round, aspirational targets. This thread should be kept as simple as possible. Another thread could sort by rank/points/standards, whatever.

robinph

I'm sure we could get a fancy Google docs spreadsheet to do all the ranking and sorting and changing colours depending on your time. Just plug in your best time of the year, regardless of if it meets any target. If it does then the spreadsheet works out some bonus points for you and highlights your time in pretty colours.

Then you can talk about how great you are in the thread on boards.ie rather than just scrolling through tables of tables.

RayCun

What if the Best of 2011 tables were kept where they are (maybe with colour coding for the gold and green standards?) and the thread in the main forum just had scores derived from that thread?

shotgunmcos

Probably. Pages and pages of tables is not great. One static table is great. So would the one table be housed an updated on googledocs then and posted as a link in each post or what? I'm interested in this idea for the SBR challenge too

robinph

I think we are going to attempt using Google Docs for the 2012 1000 mile thread. Just need to post a link to the doc, anyone can then view it and depending on other access permissions anyone can edit it. Due to potential vandalism though, I'm looking at you ultraman1 , it is probably best to restrict the edits to people signed in with Google accounts only as it vastly simplifies fixing any errors.

Someone is bound to complain about using Google logins, but compared to the horror that is a 10,000 post thread that discusses nothing and is just a page after page of tables I think it would be progress.

Pisco Sour

You really do love a good oul table don't you Robinph

P.S. I agree with you.

robinph

04072511 wrote: »

You really do love a good oul table don't you Robinph

P.S. I agree with you.

I do actually like tables.

Correct use of table for nicely formatting a bunch of data.
Bad use of table when all that then happens after that initial post is it gets repeatedly edited and edited and edited ... for an entire thread of thousands of posts that don't actually say anything new or interesting.

My hatred of tables is just they way that their use has morphed on ART. We should be talking about what we did to get that new pb that justified an update to the Best of 20XX thread or the 1000 mile thread. Not just updating the table, making a balls of the edit, go back to fix it, find someone else has already quoted a post previous to yours, you repost your change as a new entry, the next person then doesn't delete the quote tags...etc :mad:

ultraman1

robinph wrote: »

, it is probably best to restrict the edits to people signed in with Google accounts and joggers with ipods

elitetism at it best;)

claralara

I'm not taking part in this challenge per se (as I'm nowhere near the standard required) but I just have a query regarding the IAAF tables, as I'm going to set my own challenge. Would I be correct in thinking that if I go to 3.53.30 for a female marathon or 6:37 for a female mile (which are my PBs) that it would give me the equivalent times that I should be able to run for other distances? And that these should, in turn, be my goal times? Sorry, I'm very amateur at this stuff.

RacoonQueen

You'll get your equivalent times yeah, but really your goals should be a bit faster. Take the times for 3:50, make it challenging.

RayCun

The IAAF tables aren't prediction tables. They say that if you can run this time over 400m you are in the top 2% of runners, and to be in the top 2% of marathon runners you would need to run that time. But obviously, there are very few elite athletes who run both 400m and marathons (plus 400m and marathons have different participation levels meaning maybe it's harder to get in the top 2% for one than the other)

The McMillan calculator (or similar calculators) is different, it says that if you can run this time in this distance, then you should be able to run that time in that distance. It's only a rule of thumb, obviously, he's just saying your marathon time will be 2.xx times your half marathon time, your 10k time will be 2.xx your 5k time, and so on.

Pisco Sour

claralara wrote: »

I'm not taking part in this challenge per se (as I'm nowhere near the standard required) but I just have a query regarding the IAAF tables, as I'm going to set my own challenge. Would I be correct in thinking that if I go to 3.53.30 for a female marathon or 6:37 for a female mile (which are my PBs) that it would give me the equivalent times that I should be able to run for other distances? And that these should, in turn, be my goal times? Sorry, I'm very amateur at this stuff.

The IAAF points are merely a way of comparing performances between different events. For example a 58.99 400m is equivalent to a 2:59.59 marathon. Just because you achieve the time in one it doesnt mean you will reach the standard in other events. You could be more/less talented/suited to the event in one event over the other. It's simply a way of comparing people's performances across different events. For example, It is being used by my club to determine who wins our club championship.

ecoli

Remember that just because something is an equivalent to what you have run doesnt mean that you are automatically assured of these times

Equivalent charts such as the IAAF and McMillan are often misinterpreted because people feel that if they can run one time they can run all the others but you need to take into account these are designed to show you your potential if you train specifically for that event this is why often the times are skewed when you try compare two events across a larger spectrum (i.e mile and marathon times) without taking into account speed/aerobic development etc that are specific to sessions used to train for that particular event

claralara

Ok I think I understand the posts since my question.

According to the IAAF tables, the equivalent 1 Mile time for my marathon pb is 7:17.67 which is 40 seconds slower than my actual 1 Mile pb, so obviously thats not something I'll aim for. However the equivalent 5k time is 22:32.06; a time which I'd love to run over 5k (my pb for that distance being 24:18).

What I'm really trying to do is set goals that will require training and effort but are realistic.

ecoli

claralara wrote: »

Ok I think I understand the posts since my question.

According to the IAAF tables, the equivalent 1 Mile time for my marathon pb is 7:17.67 which is 40 seconds slower than my actual 1 Mile pb, so obviously thats not something I'll aim for. However the equivalent 5k time is 22:32.06; a time which I'd love to run over 5k (my pb for that distance being 24:18).

What I'm really trying to do is set goals that will require training and effort but are realistic.

I think sub 22 is a very realistic and achieveable target for you without a doubt. You should see this kind of improvement mainly through just consistently getting the miles in and adding a bit of quality after your aerobic capacity has started to build up

Edit: just saw in your log that this PB was from May and first race this year think sub 21 would be more realistic target as I say you are in about 22 mid - sub 23 shape already personally

claralara

ecoli wrote: »

I think sub 22 is a very realistic and achieveable target for you without a doubt. You should see this kind of improvement mainly through just consistently getting the miles in and adding a bit of quality after your aerobic capacity has started to build up

Cool thanks. Would love to run sub 22 over 5k this year... Will continue to compile my list throughout the day!

Pisco Sour

claralara wrote: »

Ok I think I understand the posts since my question.

According to the IAAF tables, the equivalent 1 Mile time for my marathon pb is 7:17.67 which is 40 seconds slower than my actual 1 Mile pb, so obviously thats not something I'll aim for. However the equivalent 5k time is 22:32.06; a time which I'd love to run over 5k (my pb for that distance being 24:18).

What I'm really trying to do is set goals that will require training and effort but are realistic.

Could be a case that you are better over short distances than over long distances.

ecoli

04072511 wrote: »

Could be a case that you are better over short distances than over long distances.

Could also be the fact that she didnt have aerobic base built up over a number of years to complete marathon to the best of her ability. This is why you 99% of people see improvement on the boards here in marathon times from their debut and why nearly all of us have scope for major improvements

You need to look into alot more factors than simply which times are better at that current point in time

BeepBeep67

Wicklow Fit4Life league will host a floodlit 1M on the Charlesland track in Greystones on Tuesday March 13th if anyone wants to knock off one of the big 10 or set a marker for the rest of the year.