RunBritain rankings

22 watchers

J2R Feb 2020 2:12pm, 5 Feb 2020 2,574 posts	0 J2R I've just come across another example of what I consider to be exaggerated benefit to the handicap from parkruns. I did what I considered to be a rather indifferent parkrun on Saturday, on an unfamiliar course. I wasn't feeling too well, and my time ended up probably 30-45 seconds down on what I was expecting (although the course was soft underfoot). It wasn't a strong field that day, though, and I ended up in second place. I didn't even bother looking at Run Britain until today, and was very surprised to see the parkrun gave me a big boost, from 2.0 to 1.8, with an SSS of 5.4 and a vSSS of -1.2. I certainly don't think my performance on the day anything like warrants this kind of boost (although it's always welcome).
larkim Mar 2020 5:45pm, 30 Mar 2020 10,756 posts	0 larkim Tim Grose, the author of RBR has posted an update today in the parkrun stats geek group:- "FYI I have frozen handicaps on runbritainrankings.com from 15th March and rolled out a change to the SSS algorithm - partly to use more parkrun data. Also the parkrun ranking lists now include "unidentified" (to us) runners so your ranking should be more reflective of what it actually is. This partly done to improve the fastest/slowest course analysis which will issue soon. Been working on a different method for comparison too. Please let me know if your SSS scores and hence handicap scores have changed to the good (i.e. more reflective) than otherwise."
Badger Mar 2020 6:10pm, 30 Mar 2020 12,091 posts	0 Badger Interesting! Now, St Neots' half last year is one of my contributing races, and just below that is a 10k, with the next parkrun (which is amplified by being recent) below that. I don't remember what the (v)SSS scores were before, but I do remember that the half didn't make the list just after I'd done it, and the 10k never did either. Three of the four parkruns are sub-23, which for me is top form.
larkim Mar 2020 6:17pm, 30 Mar 2020 10,757 posts	0 larkim Yes, I think now I've looked that mine have been rebalanced away from parkruns, including a 10m race from the summer last year. Good opportunity to get stuff like this done with something of a natural break in the calendar!
Bazoaxe Mar 2020 7:03pm, 30 Mar 2020 16,192 posts	0 Bazoaxe I seem to have worsened by 0.1 but in my postcode risen by 4 places in the Men and overall. MV50 category couldnt have improved further
larkim Mar 2020 1:06pm, 31 Mar 2020 10,759 posts	0 larkim Just noticed this on the front page:- "In 2020 from April to September, at the end of each week, any runner who has improved their handicap in that week and has clicked their clock will be in contention to win a prize." Chance would be a fine thing!!
Snoot Aug 2020 1:19pm, 12 Aug 2020 176 posts	0 Snoot The submit button says 'Closed' but the text after it still reads 'Rewards Running 2020 competition runs until September 2020', think someone forgot part of the update!!
Sigh Sep 2020 4:05pm, 24 Sep 2020 7,371 posts	0 Sigh My first recorded RBR result since 7 March
J2R Sep 2020 7:13pm, 24 Sep 2020 3,037 posts	0 J2R I had a couple of track ones recently, which should theoretically improve my handicap. But that is frozen at the moment and I have no idea what they plan to do about events during this period when they unfreeze it again.
Sigh Sep 2020 7:26pm, 24 Sep 2020 7,373 posts	0 Sigh I wondered about that, too. Although in my case, my handicap is mostly based on parkrun results so even though this HM was a PB I doubt it would improve my handicap.