Endurance League and Road Running Championships – views wanted

1. WCAC Endurance Points Competition.

The revamp of scoring from that used in previous years has provided a much closer competition. Your comments would be welcomed.

In the absence of any comments I was proposing providing the usual first 3 awards, male and female at the end of the season (the main trophies need returning for engraving). Partway through the year I suggested, in response to Jon Tipping’s e-mail inviting comments on the Presentation evening, a dialogue on the awards as the Points Competition is different from the rest of the club awards, but nothing happened.

2. WCAC Road Running Championship.

This was an experiment so I was intrigued to read on the club web site that the there would be awards at the presentation evening.

I have had only one response since the final result was issued.

I have to express disappointment over the lack of support for most of the GP races and also for some of the other individual races added in to give you more choice to make up 8 scoring races. Only 4 of the 20 races (all Borders League races) had 25 or more WCAC senior and older Cheshire club runners. The number of races increases to 6 if we reduce the number to 20 or more runners and to 9 races if the number is reduced even further to 15, but the Chester Spring 5 (18 WCAC seniors) adds a further race into this total.

Against these totals for comparison I have 56 males and 20 females (senior and older) this year in the Points Competition.

I am not convinced this serves any useful encouragement and it would need a radical rethink if the club wants a Road Running Championship.

I am aware that the club has had some significant success in the Borders League over the past two seasons and is continuing to do so. Also particularly this winter it has been rather good to see us finishing teams in cross country events. Both of these aspects were the original major motivation for introducing some form of club endurance competition, particularly which does not compare performances between athletes (the points competition).

Actions – for you!

Comments, suggestions, etc are invited – including discontinue one or both competitions ( I would not be offended – I might then get some free time for other interests!).

Are you happy with the points competition as currently constructed?

Do you want a Road Running Championship – of some form?

Do you think we should include younger members – that is, those who are less than 20 years old? This would be a problem in the Road Running championship as there are age/distance restrictions. Also I am not too keen to encourage younger athletes to race frequently on the road. However we should recognize the superb road running performances of two “young” athletes. Using the BDS handicap system Katie Clarke ran 5.4 in the last Borders League race (5.5 miles) and Christy Mageean achieved 7.1 in this year’s Christleton 5K – Katie’s performance is the best so far this year for a female club member of any age and distance, while Christy’s is only 0.1 slower than the best male performance this year – by Tom Booth also over the 5K distance.

I look forward to your responses.

Best wishes for 2017.

John Driscoll 23 December 2016

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