Race Standards

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Naomi P Aug 2011 2:25pm, 4 Aug 2011 8,857 posts	0 Naomi P WAVA is one way of tracking your progress, but there's also the option of standards. Basically, a list of times for races under different levels, eg Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum / Titanium / Diamond / Moondust / Whatever. You'd have different sets of standards for age categories. The idea is to motivate people to make improvements and that means you'd want the first set of standards to be pretty accessible say, a 60:00 10k. You probably don't want them to be too soft, they need to be a "running" pace and a "race" pace that Fat Trevor from IT couldn't even dream of (no offence to any fat Trevors intended), but could be based off the average WAVA for that age bracket for example. You also want the top standard to be really quite tough but still achievable, maybe where only a handful of Fetchies have a chance of getting there. Some clubs have them and UKA have some too (well out of the reach of most mortals!) but I don't want to steal a set from a club's website. We'd need someone geeky to set up some sort of calculation, unless we lift them from somewhere. As an example, this is one club's Gold standards for a F-SEN Mile - 06:34 5k - 21:45 5 miles - 36:15 10k - 45:45 10 miles - 1:15:45 1/2 - 1:40:45 20 miles - 2:37:45 Marathon - 3:30:00 This is another club's Gold standards for a F-SEN, a bit stiffer! 10k - 39:30 10 miles - 1:05:30 1/2 - 1:29:00 mara - 3:16:00 Any thoughts? It'd be nice to motivate people to improve their race performances and could spark a whole new set of threads, along the lines of the marathon target times and weight loss threads.
Ultracat Aug 2011 2:32pm, 4 Aug 2011 9,396 posts	0 Ultracat Our club has 4 standards to aim for and they are tough to get as you need to get time for a short(3k or 5k) medium (10k or 10 mile) and long (half or marathon), but as they aren't easy to get they are worth the effort and focus you. I have only managed to get the 4th standard, they are also based on age as well as time.
Gymfreak Aug 2011 2:42pm, 4 Aug 2011 5,510 posts	0 Gymfreak Good idea N. The 1st set of gold standards look very soft, I think there are a fair amount of female fetchies that can do those rather than a handful- 2nd set look more like gold to me, but I know its just a starting point and all. But I like the idea- nice one
Naomi P Aug 2011 2:42pm, 4 Aug 2011 8,858 posts	0 Naomi P Wow, I've just had a look and they're quite stiff. Going to post the link if you don't mind, just as an example metroaberdeen.co.uk Personally, I think if they're too stiff at the entry level then they're just discouraging. You want to encourage people of all abilities.
Gymfreak Aug 2011 2:46pm, 4 Aug 2011 5,511 posts	0 Gymfreak Erm, yes, entry level ones are very tough
Sharkie Aug 2011 2:48pm, 4 Aug 2011 1,180 posts	0 Sharkie What about Po10 standards? Or are they too stiff with nothing leading up to? Hmm answered my own question.
Sharkie Aug 2011 2:51pm, 4 Aug 2011 1,181 posts	0 Sharkie But what's wrong with using wavas? You can always aim for getting over 60, 70, 80 whatever - and it does even things out between girls and boys, young and codgers. Am I missing the point Naomi?
CrazyLegs Aug 2011 2:53pm, 4 Aug 2011 5,935 posts	0 CrazyLegs I wish my running club did something like this.
MudMeanderer Aug 2011 3:04pm, 4 Aug 2011 264 posts	0 MudMeanderer One of the other tricky things might be getting the steps right. If a good proportion of your club end up perpetually stuck in 'no mans land' between standards then they may not prove much of a motivator. Have a look at the Valley Striders website. They seem to have quite a well developed system, based on WAVA bands, but with identfiers relating to each band.
Mountain Cat Aug 2011 3:07pm, 4 Aug 2011 2,333 posts	0 Mountain Cat WAVA doesn't really work for fell races - I tend to look at where I am in comparison to the race winner rather than looking at WAVA. Not sure anything's going to solve that though.