Interesting that Eric seems to lurch here and there.
What do you mean by "lurch"? Aside from almost falling at 44 seconds (after running down a steep dune), I think he's running pretty clean.
The ground is soft, and considering all of the Washington terrain I've been on, this is probably the smoothest you can get. No rocks, no cliffs....
Keep in mind just how fast he's going, too. He ran this 1.0km model course in about four minutes.
The music is definitely ELO. In fact, as soon as uploaded to YouTube, I got some auto emails saying that Sony Music owned the rights to the audio. If you view this movie in YouTube (as opposed to here on AP), you'll see a little pop-up ad about 10 seconds into the song telling you the name, the artist, and where you can download it.
Hmmm... after contemplating editing my original entry, I'll fall back on "The lyrics of Mr Blue Sky put that into my head"... (duly whacked - but hey - it did take 4 hours to get noticed;-)
On the ground - watching again, I see that the camera moved more than Eric. I made my original statement when I expected to see him move to a certain spot he didn't, it was higher or lower than I expected. At least some of that is enhanced by the slight movements of the camera.
I've never run in that terrain and think my original statement is true - running across those has got to be a bit different than anything else. [Geological info is on this page: http://usochamps.org/index.php?page=15 ]
It's a great video, an enticing venue, and I only wish I could get there...
Nice try - but SO unrealistic. How false is that? This guy would be world number one based on this video - he sprints all the way round, looks at his map once every other leg for about 1/2 a second. Great advert for a ( very fast ) cross country run - but not for orienteering - sorry chaps - I like to see orienteering portrayed realistically - flame on if you like !!
@ccsteveI see that the camera moved more than Eric.
Eric is a much better runner and orienteer than I am a cameraman!
@Brian WardSO unrealistic. How false is that?
Dude, chill out. It's a *teaser* movie, meant to show a perfect run through the model terrain. It's a US Championship event, and we've got a former US Champion running in the movie. Who would want to watch a movie filmed by Eric showing me run slowly to the wrong re-entrant?
For that matter, is any sports advertising realistic? They always show the guy scoring the goal, making the basket, hitting the home run, and holing out from the fairway. Where's the "realism" of the ball getting kicked out of bounds, the missed jumper, the routine fly ball to center, and the missed green in regulation?
@RosstopherHow staged was it?
Quite. We had one camera and one control flag. I designed a quickie course and we found good vantage points along the way, with me knowing which routes Eric was going to take. Eric filmed the first-person running shots without a map, natch. It was very collaborative. We filmed some sections a few times from different angles. We yelled out "action!" and "cut!". It took about an hour to film everything.
So yes, Eric knew exactly where he was going on every single take. He was also running really fast because filming was essentially an interval training for him.
But, you said that Eric is a pretty speedy guy and navigationally savvy, so it's not super-heroically unrealistic.
The intent was to showcase orienteering through the terrain to get people interested in our event. It wasn't to see how well Eric performs while orienteering.
@walkTerrain looks tricky, subtle. Will be fun.
Exactly!
@20 of 70I especially like the shot at the end.
Thanks! Mike Schuh gets credit for suggesting the ending shot. We waited around for a while for the sun to get below the clouds, and by the time we were ready for that shot, Eric's camera had died. I warmed up the battery just enough to shoot the shot you see, and I wanted to re-take it again from a slightly different angle to make it more silhouette-y. But, by then, the camera was completely gone, but the shot came out quite nicely nonetheless.
Yes! Totally beats the pieces we have all seen on the local TV news about a 'game' that is 'like a scavenger hunt' and people looking confused at their maps using a compass with a mirror ;)
That said, this was intended to be a preview of the terrain, not as a marketing video for the sport. But now that you mention it, how hard or easy should orienteering be portrayed if it were to be marketed?
The 3-2-1 Contact show (okay, this is going back 20 years) for kids had an orienteering segment showing kids looking at their maps, and running to their next control. That was enough to get me started, but I had a childhood of playing in adjacent woods. I don't know what would catch the video game generation and get them out of their comfy chairs.
Come now - everyone knows the US team has a special focus on punching technique. And according to the US team Blog, Eric holds the US championship in
Ultimate String-O
Really sorry to hear that about Jaxon. I figured that's what happened after looking at Sunday's map and not seeing any other controls around. Really impressive weekend though for him, considering how short a time he's been in the sport. He may just be the best junior in the US right now.
JanetT, I totally remember that 3-2-1 Contact segment from when I was a kid! It was many years after seeing it that I finally tried orienteering, but it was definitely in the back of my mind.
and don't forget John Williams who won the ISVM after losing his e-punch on Saturday which cost him 12 minutes, and then came back on Sunday to win the overall title... great perseverance!!!
Impressive! Its great to see these juniors popping up all around the country. Given OUSA's strategic plan, I wonder how can we (as orienteering clubs and OUSA) provide greater encouragement to these more isolated kids so we don't lose the them when they head off to other great adventures after high school? My own suggestions/brainstorms:
1) Remove the rankings criteria for making the US Teams and make the Team Trials and Interscholastics completely decide the US Teams, in alignment with the way USATF Olympians are decided - top three in each discipline compete in that discipline at WOC. Rankings significantly favor those who live in northeast, can be abused, and have much less relevance for sprinting. Juniors would have a much better chance of making the US (Senior) Team by focusing initially on sprinting. The current structure really hampers this.
2) Immediately get each of these juniors a coach or mentor, preferably someone on the US Senior Team, to help guide them.
3) Revive the waterstop or provide a similar social network for juniors and perhaps a Junior Edition of ONA. I like the Ozone too.
There really are a lot of juniors out there with great potential. I hope that we can do our best to encourage them to stay with the sport, to improve and to tell their friends (whether they are racing to win, or just orienteering for fun). Changing the selection criteria for the US team might help maintain the interest of those with a desire to compete internationally but I believe there are also some difficulties in selecting a team in just one team trials meet. You end up favoring juniors in whatever region the event is held (you could argue this is better than always favoring the northeast) and you run the risk of an elite junior either being unable to attend (there could be a petition process) or an elite junior that loses an epunch on the course or that just has a bad day. We've had a largely discretionary selection process in the past and it was a major headache to those involved. The switch to an objective measure of rankings was designed to avoid any appearance of favoritism. I would like to see, instead of a focus on making one team trials event, more and easier access to A-meets. If you are going to an A-meet consider inviting some of the juniors in your club along. We used to have money for travel grants, and we hope someday soon to have that kind of resource again. Lots of A-meet attendance will get lots of ranking information and that will help us choose a team that has the best chance of performing well at JWOC.
As to getting a coach or mentor, that's a really great ideal to strive for. I think that current members of the US team are not always the best choices for active and involved coaching. The current US team members have a lot of advice and experience to share but they are really busy with their own training and the other responsibilities of being a senior team member, which doesn't always leave a lot of time out for one-on-one coaching. Here is a good time to really praise some of the current team members that have been working with the junior team Samantha, BG, Szurcher, Kat, and Corinne Porter among them. A better resource might be to tap into former US team members. They have even more experience and if they've backed off of their training, they have more time to devote to coaching themselves. I encourage juniors to be proactive about their own development too. If you want to get better, and you make the effort to reach out to an older orienteer that you trust and respect... that orienteer will very likely make time for you. If you put the time in, they will too!
You end up favoring juniors in whatever region the event is held (you could argue this is better than always favoring the northeast) and you run the risk of an elite junior either being unable to attend (there could be a petition process)
If you're serious about competing at the international level, you better damn sure show up. If you're not, please save USOF some dollars.
Hey Ross, thanks for the dialog. I can understand how a discretionary selection criterion would cause headaches for the ESC in this very opinionated sport. My problem with your suggestion is that we are many years away from the ideal situation in which kids and young adults of any financial situation anywhere in the country can easily attend enough A-meets to be ranked. A system in which some athletes have to fly half-way across the country multiple times to obtain the minimum four ranking days whereas others can drive to enough A-meet days to easily drop out their bad days is most definitely broken. It was almost the case this year where a junior swept the Interscholastics and would have had absolutely no chance to make the US Junior Team even had he done so. I believe it has also been the case in the recent past where a junior has won the Sprint selection race of the US Senior Trials, but was not selected because he did not meet "objective" criteria which heavily favor those with technical navigational skills required for the other disciplines. These situations will invariably keep recurring with the current selection criteria. Might I suggest a middle ground where the top one or two individuals in each discipline at the Team Trials/Interscholastics are awarded automatic spots, while the rest of the positions are filled by taking into account rankings. The single-day selection gives individuals who don't have the funds and/or parental support to travel more widely a chance at making the team, gives athletes a single goal to focus on instead of trying to keep in peak condition throughout the year, and also nicely mimics the stress faced by these athletes at (J)WOC qualification rounds. Inclusion of the rankings component should help alleviate your concerns about a really good athlete having a bad day. There is no need to introduce a subjective petitioning process.
Onto the other topic...
Clearly, coaches with the time and inclination to play an active role are the best choices. I only suggested the US Team members because they can be role models as well as mentors for these kids. It sounds like a number of US Team members are doing that, and that's great! Back to the coaching... OUSA probably has around 100 certified level I coaches. Its possibly just a matter of making the right connections.
a middle ground where the top one or two individuals in each discipline at the Team Trials/Interscholastics
It is NOT a World School Championships (there isn't such a thing in orienteering). It is the Junior WOC. Upper age is 20, which is well beyond upper age in U.S. schools. Please do not confuse the two. Time and time again arguments are made that make it sound like the JWOC is for school kids (and some of these arguments would almost have "to have fun" at the end). It is not. The men's courses at the JWOC are well beyond what kids are exposed to in the U.S. at the Green/Interscholastic level (and even on the Red level). To argue that someone is fit for the JWOC based on some 4.8-km course results borders on preposterous.
If I were the decider, I'd have JWOC hopefuls run in the "Senior" Team Trials, and pick the Team based on these results. The Team Trials have course lengths and technical difficulty that most closely resemble what juniors will be exposed to at the WOC. And again, if you don't show, you can't play.
I will use this point in the discussion to promote one more time my O-scores database system for those who didn't paid enough attention to it yet.
The system allowed me to predict Jaxon as a top runner some time ago when he had not enough meets to be A-ranked and was running orange.
O-scores is designed specially for those beginners who would like to evaluate themselves immediately and know how they stand to big guys on absolute scale. Doesn't matter what color or what level or event you are running.
I'm still waiting for @feet to find time to perform a stress test which will confirm and validate system independently.
In the meantime O-scores shows that our best M-16 is still Carl Underwood with Jaxon trailing very close (~125) (link above). And also it shows that they both would beat or match Sergey Velichko and Joseph Brautigam being top M45+'ers (also ~125) (flip age class drop down).
Of course system would require more adequate data stream from local clubs in order to notice local stars and bring them to light. I'm working with event organizers on getting the data, but so far not many of them got interested, event though all what it cost is sending me CSV SportIdent export file.
I wonder, why?
We keep saying that we need to increase population, do this and do that and at the same time refuse to take somebody's time and efforts to "start-up" some project
Even if to many it might seem useless, is it harmfull?
And also it shows that they both would beat or match Sergey Velichko and Joseph Brautigam being top M45+'ers
... and that's exactly why a rankings-based selection approach is nonsense. On a physical, technical 12+ km course that approximates the conditions of a JWOC Long, none of the juniors would currently beat Joe or Sergey. In a 3 km urban Sprint, they most likely will. Using data obtained under one set of conditions to make extrapolations into vastly different conditions seems a pretty bad application of measurement science.
@krechet, sorry, broken wrist, not going to happen. To be honest, was not going to happen any time soon anyway - too busy. Will apologize for any past doubts because cannot put up, so have to shut up.
@ Tundra : :) sorry, Vladimir.
There is no point in blaming stop-watch if the owner of it misinterprets the data...
All examples you present all the time are valid, but not very relevant...
Using data obtained under one set of conditions to make extrapolations
Compare Sergey V and Gregory B in the example above. They ran Blue and Red correspondingly this time, while usually they run the same color and what do you see? - same scores, same speeds.
This means that Red(~9000) and Blue(~13000) were within abilities of both runners. Even though Blue was 30% longer. If Blue were Twice as short and Red same and Green twice as long who would win? Maybe Sergey, Maybe Jaxon or Gregory - I do not know, neither do they or you... This time Green Saturday was GV=7600: lower end of the typical Red course and Jaxon performed reasonably well. I have no reason to believe he would fail real red, just 10-15 minutes longer...
Let's use common sense when interpreting data?!
@feet: To be honest, was not going to happen any time soon anyway - too busy. :) To be honest, never thought you would do it, and no blame here.
Too much work with too little outcome.
Given your CV, I think you can grasp the math essence in a second, so if you ever feel like, easy 15-30 minute long Q/A session over the phone will be much better and more useful exercise. Jman, Tundra and other deciders are also invited...
I'm Jaxon's father. I think he has been mentioned explicitly and implicity in this thread. He loves the sport, trains religiously, and is getting good at it. Our family is fortunate in having time and resources to get him to enough A-meets for ranking purposes and good competition. Just so everyone know how much traveling it takes to a get an orienteer from Tucson, AZ to A-meets, here is the traveling we have done in the past 2+ years. Miles are round trip.
2008
Western States - car trip 110 miles twice = 220 miles (easy!)
Lake Tahoe - car trip 1782 miles
Laramie - plane trip 2096 miles
2009
PNWOF - car trip 2994 miles
O in Oaks - car trip 1590 miles
Vasquez rocks - car trip 1030 miles
2010
Georgia Navigator - plane trip 3484 miles
Flying Pig - plane trip 3708 miles
2010 planned trips
US Champs and NAOC - car trip 3110 miles
RMOF - car trip 1666 miles
Oh and I almost forgot the Xterra SoCal Trail running series he competes in
Los angeles - car trips 1000 miles x 3 = 3000 miles
I recognize that if Jaxon wants to get really good at something he is passionate about we have to travel. I don't mind long car trips and my wife can tolerate long plane flights. But we are in a unique situation, and most families could not do this.
I would like to see something like Tundra and DanF suggested where you have one meet than guarantees a couple of positions on the JWOC team, and then fill the remaining positions using the rankings
@Tundra....
let's try one more time..
"Statement": Given some set of data, Person_A is slightly faster than person B (on average) therefore A will finish ahead of B (on average). Conditions unspecified but average conditions implied.
Your Example: Under Conditions XYZ(specifically chosen to be extreme), person_A speed will decrease significantly (unsupported guess), while person_B speed will stay unaffectred (unsupported guess), therefore "statement" is wrong.
Webster's says "RELEVANT: having significant and demonstrable bearing on the matter at hand". How can you say that "average" conditions are implied if the rankings for Sergey and Joe, on the one hand, and Carl and Jaxon, on the other hand, were obtained under vastly different conditions? Which conditions are "average", those for Sergey and Joe or those for Jaxon and Carl? Can you name a race in which Sergey or Joe would go head-to-head against Carl or Jaxon?
My main objection is to your statement "Person_A is slightly faster than person B". I don't know if that is true. Person A has more points in your system. You have not proven that more points in your system translates to being faster even under a single set of conditions, not talking about all possible conditions.
regarding JWOC qualification: I think a JWOC qualifying meet is a good idea. And I think the courses at the qualifying meet should mimic as much as possilbe the courses of a JWOC competition. If you had a Sprint, Middle, and Long course at the qualifying meet, you could take the champion of each course and put them on the team and then use the rankings to take the remainder of the team.
@jingo6390: I think a JWOC qualifying meet is a good idea. I also think so. The question is as always feasibility. Should the meet be held somewhere where it is equally not convenient and expensive to get to everybody?
Or it should be 4 meets, Washington, Texas, Ohio and New England? Or we can skip New England saying those guys should get into the rankings themselves?
It seems like some significant level of cherry picking will stay.
The more or less fair but "socialistic" and therefore expensive solution could be:
= Organize 4-5 regional qualification meets sanctioned under USOF and organized at close-to-JWOC conditions.
People should travel on their own to these meets - bearable cost.
= Pick 10 local winners at each category and provide them USOF travel grant to the main JWOC-like Champs somewhere-who-cares-where-because-USOF-pays.
= you got 50 top local runners in each category - competing for the right to be in the team.
= Money: ( 50x4x(M,F) = 400 juniors x $500 =$200K spent on grants.... well, that's why in Europe they pay TAXES...
@ Tundra ( Sorry to others for apparent off-topic)
How can you say that "average" conditions are implied if the rankings for Sergey and Joe, on the one hand, and Carl and Jaxon, on the other hand, were obtained under vastly different conditions?
How can I do it is another part of the discussion... But I DO say that conditions are AVERAGE. And you are carefully crafting an example which is far from average to disprove my statement about average performance in average conditions. This is IRRELEVANT example.
On the other side your comments and doubts are very relevant to the examples you are inventing for yourself.
And will stay so especially if you keep avoiding examples which could resolve your doubts and disproof your beliefs.
Shura, I hope you agree that a direct test of a hypothesis is something that is relevant to the hypothesis. So, at the West Point event you will have some (hopefully a lot of) data that will allow you to see if your hypotheses are true under some conditions that we all agree exist. Perhaps not directly Joe vs. Carl, but maybe similarly ranked runners.
krechet, your idea of regional qualifying meets followed by a national meet is a good one, but probably not realistic at this time (maybe in a few years if the sport grows). I would still like to see a national JWOC qualifying meet somewhere (the location could be rotated from year to year). As tundra has stated if you don't show, you don't go. Serious orienteers can find a way to get to one national meet.
@ Tundra: why wait? West point 2009 is here and somewhere between lines 10 and 20 you get perfect sample of people from various age categories running Blue, Red and Green, including Carl and Joe...
I see no score for Carl under the conditions I described, so I don't think this example is relevant. Carl has two short races, in one he is beaten by Joe, in the other it's the other way round. My claim is that on a long course (that most approximates the conditions of a JWOC M-20 Long), Carl's speed would be less than what his ranking would imply and he would be beaten by Joe.
Tundra and krechet: here is a much more telling example comparing Joe and Carl, they both ran in the 2009 US Ultra-Long Champs. Although they ran different Red courses, Joe Red X and Carl Red Y, they were similar.
I agree with Tundra that in general 16 yr olds don't have the endurance to compete with Joe and Sergey. However I think both Carl and Jaxon are exceptional in their endurance for their age.
Carl has shown this in his performance at the 2009 US Ultra-Long Champs.
Jaxon has not run these longer courses, but he will. However he has run long Trail Races and shown some endurance. Finished the Xterra Boney Mountain Trail Run in 3rd place out of 290 finishers, 21km and 975m ascent and 975m descent. His time was 1:37:24.
I agree with Tundra that in general 16 yr olds don't have the endurance to compete with Joe and Sergey.
At the first glance I didn't notice that M-20, M-18 and even M-16 perform significantly worse during the races with GV above 8000. See for yourself and compare with M45+
Ok i'm going to add in my junior point of few here:
* someone mentioned that JWOC is 20 and under NOT 17-18 and under. Please can we remember this!?!?!
*we CANNOT use the interschoolastics or anything like that as our JWOC selections. The courses this past weekend for the Varsity girls were no where near what the courses at JWOC were like. Over Half my course on saturday was a simple trail run, you would not get that at JWOC. There was also no sprint at the IS champs. Further more over half the eligible girls for this years team could not run in the IS champs because they are in college.
*Personally I believe that we still should have a required number of a-meet days! do you see the Senior team only racing at the Team Trials? I have a fear that juniors would not get to as many meets if we did not have the rankings as our selections. I know that last year I got to the amount of meets that I did because I had to for rankings, my parents couldn't really argue with that since it was my dream to get to JWOC, and they support my dreams. With out that requirement Juniors could go to one big event of the year and that is not enough exposure for JWOC. Actually even our biggest meet in the US i feel might not be enough, but it is a good start!
*Northeast is a power house - Well yes we may have a lot of meets but I have gone all over the country in order to get my points as well so that isn't totally fair on us NE juniors to always get that put against us. we hear a lot "oh well you live in the Northeast it is easy for you to get to meets no wonder your 'good' ". No we work just as hard as any junior any where else in the country. Also we don't have the option to pick where we live, that is our parents.
*the ranking system does a pretty good job of placing us in order for our performances over the course of a year. Over a year we can get a lot of data. different terrain, different distances, Different start times (early, middle, late), Different weather, Different course setters and difficulty. It is like all the Stats that are kept on any other major athlete.
Basically there is never going to be a system that works for everyone. I do think though that for us being juniors the ranking system is the best way we can do it for now until we grow.
krechet, couldn't you do some kind of a correlation test (like the Pearson product-moment) to test if the juniors do in fact perform significantly worse as the GV increases?
@jingo6390: I would rather provide all raw data for outsider to get more trust. Who would believe me if I do it myself?
Also I would think one need more local club data, as juniors tend to run their appropriate age class course during the A-meets and therefore only few of them run really long courses on record.
Important Points about the Finances of the Junior Team:
~There is absolutely NO money tree: therefore if a parent cannot support their child to go to an an A event they most likely will not be able to sent them to JWOC. USOf only pays for the entrance fees to JWOC and tries to pay for everything for the training camp the week before but with the change in concentration for USOF that might not happen this year. So a parent has to pay for the airfare($1,000+) and any extras like entertainment or things that USOF can't pay for.
~There use to be money available for travel grants but again with the changes in USOF there is no money for grants or anything else for that matter. The kids/parents are buying their own uniforms as well.
So if all of you out there want financial support for the Juniors then you need to get busy with doing fundraisers at your local or National meets. From now on the money that will be available for any junior program will come mostly from fundraising. USOF gave the Juniors $2,000 for the 2010 budget. We are greatfull for the help but it is a drop in the bucket considering what we need to send the team and coaches to JWOC let a lone any other programs we want to have.
Next area of concern: the supposed bias to the NE for JWOC team members. The only advantage the juniors in the NE have is that the clubs in the NE do A events regularly. If you want your juniors to get nationally ranked then do an A event for them. I don't want to hear that your club is to small. OCIN just finished doing the IS with nearly 500 runners and they are one of the smaller clubs we have and they do the Flying Pig every year, so if they can do it any club can. Clubs in regions need to work together and get the A events done for their juniors then there won't be a big need for long distance travel other than to get into different types of terrain which is very helpful as well but not necessary to make the JWOC team.
There always seems to be all these big ideas for the teams and their programs but when the call goes out for help there is usually a very small response. If you don't like the way things are being done then PLEASE feel free to step up and volunteer to do one of your wonderful ideas for us. We are always open to new ideas but it must come with the help. Those of us that are giving hours upon hours of volunteer time and spending our own money to do things for the team programs are doing the absolute best we can with the time we have available to do it. So unless you want to get involved in doing coaching, training camps, fundraising ,etc. in your region. I would ask that you be care on how you complaint about those of us that are doing all that we can to make the best possible programs with what we have for the Junior and the Senior teams.
The only advantage the juniors in the NE have is that the clubs in the NE do A events regularly.
Two things: One, you're confusing "regularly" with "frequently", and two, juniors in the NE area also have the advantage of a higher major club density, so it's easier to get to more events.
It's not just about getting them to one A meet where they can get ranked, it's about them practicing on A meet quality courses.
so it looks like M-20 runners which run the red course, the same as M45, do not experience a drop in scores as GV increases.... although a statistical test would be nice by someone who has more expertise in that area than me
according to the USOF rankings, Carl is now 17 Yes, I know. It is a problem for 2 year long classes and year long rankings.
Currently, in year long rankings most of the races Carl was running were when he was 16.
I solve this problem in simple way: for a year he will appear both as M-16 and M-18, depending where you look...
The only advantage the juniors in the NE have is that the clubs in the NE do A events regularly.
With all due respect to my fellow DVOAer, that is a very significant advantage in a selection system that requires a minimum number of ranking days and allows more bad runs to be dropped from the scoring as attendance increases. The USOF ranking system is also mathematically biased against sprint races, which leads to the ironical situation where a fast runner who hopes to qualify to run the (J)WOC sprint may well be better off by avoiding racing in A-meet sprints.
This issue is not about your or my volunteering, or the talented, hard working NE juniors. Nor is it about funding requirements or volunteer hours - the proposal would have minimal impact on both. It is about choosing the best athletes for each discipline at JWOC and WOC, regardless of their financial means or ability to travel widely. A kid's chance to make the JWOC team should most certainly not depend on MY willingness or ability to volunteer, nor should it depend on the kid's host club's ability and/or desire to host A-meets. Unfortunately, not all clubs have OCIN's Mike Minium who acted as event director, field checker, and course setter for both Interscholastic A-meet days. That guy amazes me.
Calling out people for not volunteering, especially when you don't know anything about them, is not a good way to recruit people to help your cause. I understand your frustration, but that approach has been tried by every orienteering club in the US and it simply doesn't work.
Jingo, I do intend to follow up on this issue, although I currently have other responsibilities which must take priority. If you want to get started, probably the best way to proceed might be to flesh out our ideas about how this might work, get feedback on them, and write a draft proposal to be presented to the USOF Board and Team ESCs. Otherwise, it will have to be on the back burner for a few months at least.
Thanks to Vlad and Alison for pointing out my incorrect conflation of Interscholastic age groups with JWOC age groups. My confusion stemmed from seeing Nate Lyons' name near the top of both the Interscholastics results list and the M-20 USOF ranking list.
Has there been much discussion about the possibility of combining Interscholastics and Intercollegiates into a single meet? Anyone know what the pros/cons might be?
I am sitting on some frequent flyer miles that I might never get around to using. I would be happy to donate them to a USOF program that would help juniors travel to A events or JWOC or whatever. I wonder if there are others like me and someone knowledgeable in the travel industry who could make the best use of them and administer such a program.
If you want your juniors to get nationally ranked then do an A event for them. I don't want to hear that your club is too small. Clubs in regions need to work together and get the A events done for their juniors.
Before I bring out the numbers, do you have any guesses as to which USOF region has hosted the most A-Meet races per club in the past three years?
Number of USOF Clubs within Region 13 Northeast
11 Heartland
7 Pacific
7 Midwest
7 Northwest
5 Southeast
5 Southwest
4 Mid-Atlantic
A-Meets per Club within Region 3.14 Pacific
2.46 Northeast
2.00 Mid-Atlantic
1.86 Midwest
1.80 Southeast
1.14 Northwest
1.09 Heartland
0.40 Southwest
The region that's hosting the most A-Meets per club is the home region of Jaxon! His region is already "getting it done" for juniors. Too bad his region is physically larger than the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Midwest regions combined (those three regions combined for 50% of all A-Meets).
This northeastern bias is an issue, as both drewi and danf are attesting. And I respect both of their opinions, as they both currently live back east after previously living out west. They've seen this issue from both sides.
There's more to it than the number and density A-meets - there's a lot to be said for the social and competitive aspects. We don't have any competition for Jaxon here in Tucson, nor do we have a group of juniors who can hang out, compare routes, travel together to meets, etc. I've spoken to plenty of top orienteers who stuck with the sport because they had a core group of friends/competitors to keep it fun and exciting. It's tough to do that in a lot of places out west.
Wow, less than 15 minutes for a broken-armed feet to come and refute my numbers. I'm impressed.
Of course the numbers are flawed. But the accusation was, "Hey you other regions, organize some A-Meets!" And this was the quickest and easiest way for me to say, "Hey, other regions are putting on events."
I figured that all of the regions have their giants and minnows, so it would roughly equal out. In the Pacific, BAOC is huge, GCO and GPHXO are not. The Northwest has COC and the tiny SAMM. I'm a member of possibly the smallest club (or cult, as some would say) in the country.
If I had exact membership numbers, then these numbers would be more meaningful. But they aren't.
It isn't just A meets, it's overall activity - and it varies even by parts of the state you live in. ROC holds roughly 20 events per year including an A meet or significant event every couple. Just 60 miles down the road Buffalo Orienteering holds 10 events a year - and from when I first looked a few years ago, that seems to be on the upswing. CNYO holds 15-20 events a year including an annual Rogaine and an A meet every couple.
If you happen to live near Watertown the events are far and few...
The NYC and Boston areas are 6 hours away by car, so a number of opportunities exist for A meets.
And I'll stand by "local club led" in the same sense that Scouting is a "parent led" organization. It was a shock when I heard it when my son joined, and there were always some surprised faces each year when as Cubmaster I informed the incoming parents that if the dozen and a half 1st graders wanted to create two new dens that I'd need at least two parents from those boys to lead the dens...-)
There isn't anyone that will come in to run things for any organization, so we've got to grow the sport so that high quality events exist all over the place.
In the mean time, we try to offer as much as we can and provide a system that supports all juniors as best as we can....
If people of similar sizes, intellect, and standing are born in every month of the year, why is it that most Canadian Hockey players have a birthday in January, February or March?-)
It doesn't mean we should just accept the unfairness, but it is all around.
in youth hockey, size matters... in orienteering the youth born in Jan, Feb, March should have an advantage also, however being older doesn't appear to be that big of an advantage at least not in making the JWOC male team
One of the issues with picking the champion from each race for JWOC is that every JWOC athlete runs each distance, so the athletes should be able to be competitive in each event.
@sandy I think Bruce McAllister (I apologize if the name spelling is incorrect) used to help out some athletes with miles if you wanted to see how he did it, could also talk to Leif about it.
@sfleming I don't see that as a problem, I think we should have the best possible runner in each distance going to JWOC even if they have to run all distances
If you sent the runner winning each distance you would still pick at least 3 (males) from the overall rankings, giving you PERHAPS 3 specialists and 3 generalists
A better statistic would be something that combined a meets per capita per square mile with local events per capita per square mile.
Hockey birthdays have been discussed on AP before, but I don't have the link handy, does someone else?
For the 2009 men's JWOC team, AFAIK, none of them were born after June (thought I don't have Gabe's birth date handy...)
I think having a qualifying meet is a good idea. Life isn't fair, it's what we do for both other international competitions (WUOC and WOC), etc.
Krechet: Alison Campbell is ranked ~10 points higher than me on your power rankings, yet I've beaten her every time we've raced head-to-head. Doesn't this suggest to you that there's a problem?
While I think having the winner of each race make the team is theoretically okay, I have a hard time believing that we actually have specialists in the US, especially at the JWOC level. I'm in favor of rewarding consistency, at least until the field is deeper.
i dont think we have specialists either per se, hence the word PERHAPS. Although there are some juniors who definitely do better at shorter races and some who do better at longer races. If you do a correlation between GV and ranking scores for individual runners on the male junior team, you will find 2 who are sprinter types. Regardless a qualifying meet might add some more excitement and interest to the qualifying process.
The other advantage of a qualifying meet is that it simulates the pressure of a 'big race', something that we don't get to do as often over here. So it's certainly worth doing and counting in some way.
Re: sprinters - US A-meet sprints are often much easier technically than some of the international elite sprints. If US sprinter = very fast but not that technically strong, they'll likely lose their advantage at a place like JWOC.
yes, I did notice that those 2 runners that have a significantly negative correlation between GV and USOF Scores (do better on shorter courses) were just 3rd and 4th amongst their team mates on the JWOC sprint last summer.
With their speed, and some added technical training, who knows ?
@drewi
Alison Campbell is ranked ~10 points higher than me on your power rankings, yet I've beaten her every time we've raced head-to-head. Doesn't this suggest to you that there's a problem?
This would definitely suggest there is a problem.
I looked and didn't find any races last year where you ran head to head. All Drew races are here and here are all Alison races
If there was a qualifying meet, and the champ from each course got an auto berth on the team, that would mean 1-3 runners taken from the qualifying meet (taking into account possibility of a multiple winner) and 3-5 runners taken from USOF rankings. So, consistency would still be rewarded, and you would have the added advantage of a "big race".
@drewi
And really your ranking score is measure of your top O-speed.
Remember : Power is just a reference: average of ALL your recorded runs. It is there for REFERENCE, so you would have something to compare your current score to.
See following analysis for example
Your ranking score is 91, and Alison's 98, quite close
But your lower Power (81) suggests 1- you are progressing right now very fast, and your year old races pull your power down. Also 2- you are not very stable, sometime you have really deep downswings. They do not affect ranking score (dropped as worst races) but affect power.
Alison's power on the other side is about the same as her score. This suggests : 1 - she is very stable, almost no down swings, and 2 - she didn't improve during last year significantly...
Enjoy
P.S. There is also ~T/T drop down which switches trail/no trail RS calculation. In ~T mode RS is calculated using just 4 best races. You both are about the same at 100+, so, in mistake-less race - about equally good.
A better statistic would be something that combined a meets per capita per square mile with local events per capita per square mile.
Agreed, but I would change that to orienteer capita. I wouldn't expect non-orienteers to start hosting A-meets. And that would be the best statistic, but I don't have that data to start with.
A better statistic would be something that ... brings money, or more money, or even more money.
Or at least shows how good it would be to have more money put into the sport so statistic would be much better, which would bring public or other appreciation to those who would decide to give money.
Hockey reference - I was not suggesting the year in orienteering means anything, just that hockey significantly piles on the training and expectations to the slightly larger, earlier born players from ages 5-6-7 - so that by the time size equals out, the effect is already pronounced.
Orienteers do not necc specialize at that young an age - but if they did, watch out;-)
Our "unfairness" may be that if you happen to live in a particular spot, you may find more or less training and competition opportunities...
I see it (trials winners getting berths) as opening up a potential pathway of development that is currently locked down tight for no real reason. It requires less travel (one meet to focus on instead of three or more) and less access to technical terrain (which avoids problems with anti-sprint bias in the rankings, clubs without technical terrain, athletes going away to college away from orienteering clubs, etc). It gives athletic kids and young adults who live in terrain-poor regions a chance of making the team just by training hard locally on sprint maps and google maps converted into pseud-o, and thus might help motivate some very good athletes to not just stay in the sport but to try to excel at it. We can't easily fix issues of support and terrain access, but why are we making it even harder on isolated athletes by having a selection system that extends these very advantages?
If US sprinter = very fast but not that technically strong, they'll likely lose their advantage at a place like JWOC.
To me, this is an argument that we need to 1) improve our technical standards for sprints at both the national and local levels and 2) perhaps focus more on specialization, because certainly the phrase "technical difficulty" involves very different things for sprints than it does for middle distance and long races.
The irony in all these arguments I've been making is that I very much dislike sprint orienteering, I'm not very good at it, and I would prefer if it had never been introduced.
There is no money nor a system to support prospective juniors in the USA. Best bet for a junior who wants to develop into an international level athlete is to go to Europe for education (better to Scandinavia) right after high school. The one needs at least 30-40 elite starts, specialized training camps, and a group of athletes at same level to raise up. And it is devotion and style of life for many years :)
All the notion of reducing number of starts for juniors is not right, espcially during early athlete development. They need more exposure to different terrains and experience more of competitive pressure.
Unfortunately, none of the current juniors in the USA is ready and training for that. At age 16-18 a junior need already do 60-80 km/week regular training just to be on physical level to sustain technical training in woods. At elite level volumes are twice of that.
If the one is not there yet at this age - best she or he will become is a recreational elite at local level. No wonder that best NA elites are ranked in the second or third 100 in World Ranking with only Sam being 100th.
Train, train hard, train and compete more - this should be the motto for our juniors but they need all the support we can give them. And in current situation it is mostly parents who need to foot the bill.
BTW, I was 19 when posted my 1 mile PR of 4:05. I was very proud being faster than any woman in the world of that time :) At that age I certainly would outrun any current USA Team member on easy sprint course but I doubt that I might win over feet, ebone, or Ross in woods on long course. I still can not :)
Experience and endurance come with proper training for years.
"Alison's power on the other side is about the same as her score. This suggests : 1 - she is very stable, almost no down swings, and 2 - she didn't improve during last year significantly... "
since people are talking about my performances here I think I have to defend myself a little bit. If you look at your ranking system (which I still do not understand at all, but that is another matter) and take the interscholastics at west point last year and then the interscholastics at the Flying Pig this year my scores went up. I beat people by a much bigger margin this year than I did last year and was racing pretty much the same field of people. So your rankings show that. Then another thing is I placed 3rd in F-20 at the US Champs in 2008 and then First in 2009. I can't find the scores from 2008 but i'm going to guess they went up a bit. So Really I think I have improved my performance by quite a bit over the last year. And yes I am consistent I'm known for that I think. But I think there is still something funky about your rankings if you get that I haven't improved much over the year. unless i'm reading the system wrong :/
because certainly the phrase "technical difficulty" involves very different things for sprints than it does for middle distance and long races.
Sure, the skills emphasis is different, but I think it is a bit delusional to think that you can develop a good sprinter who isn't an all-around good orienteer. Anyone who is good enough to excel at the international elite level in sprint is most likely going to crush the US competition in middle and long, too. Many of the skills are the same, especially in a forest sprint.
Take a look at recent results - you see the same guys winning medals and finishing in the top 10 in the sprint as you do in the long - Hubmann, Tero, Khramov, Merz, Johansson, etc... I'm not saying that orienteers can't have relative strengths, just that I don't think sprint is somehow so fundamentally different from other disciplines so as to make it worth focusing on to the exclusion of the others.
The whole rationale behind introducing the sprint discipline was precisely that it was different from Middle/Long. It has its own mapping standards and its own technical aspects. Indeed some all-round orienteers do do well in sprints, but equally there clearly are "Sprint Specialists". Mixing sprints in with the other disciplines for selection purposes isn't giving those people any development incentive and that's maybe why you mightn't have any outstanding sprint prospects.
@ Acampbell◪:
I think I have to defend myself a little bit. I'm sorry if you feel like you need to defend. Didn't mean to offend ever...
I can't find the scores from 2008 ???? Just flip Time Span to show EOY2008.
Your scores from 2008 to 2009 went up A LOT, about 10+ points, and this is very visible.
If you look at your ranking system (which I still do not understand at all ... It is the same as USOF in a nutshell, do you understand USOF?
But I think there is still something funky about your rankings if you get that I haven't improved much over the year. unless i'm reading the system wrong :/
I'd rather suggest I'm interpreting data wrongly/differently.
We both look onto the same numbers. To me they look like your score grow "significantly" between 2008 and 2009 and didn't change much within 2009 ( Unlike Drew's, who improved a lot during 2009). Maybe we treat word "significantly" differently? After all I'm not a native speaker...
Try not to be upset, system is still in pilot mode and there might be some errors, maybe even significant ones. That's why I took very seriously Drew's comment and investigated it.
After all this is just a numbers, and your performance and feeling of improvement is much more important and if numbers do not reflect it - numbers must be changed, not you...
Re: sprint. I agree that it's different, but I think people believe that it's somehow much easier to become a sprint specialist. Perhaps it is a bit easier, but it's still not easy. The amount of talent and training required to be competitive at sprint on the international elite level is high, and if we had any young Americans doing that, they'd probably also be doing very well (relative to other Americans) in the other disciplines as well...
O-ing mentioned "selection purposes isn't giving those people any development incentive"
He is absolutely right! To be a good international orienteer you need to be able to run fast and navigate. There are a lot of North Americans that can run very fast - there are a few that can navigate very well - but even fewer that can do both together (ie., orienteering) at the International level. From my experience, a person new to the sport with a strong running history can become successful domestically much quicker in urban sprint orienteering and as such like O-ing said there are 'sprint specialists'. If a person does better than others in one discipline why would you require them to also do well in the others. I doubt other running sports would require this of their athletes (ie., coach to athlete: "Hey kid, you are a great miler and have lots of potential but we'd like you to try out by racing 5K and 10K as well before we select our team")
I'm not arguing that racing middle and long won't help a 'sprint specialist' improve their orienteering skills. But I will argue that there aren't as many sprint specialists as there could be because there is no incentive to be one.
Maybe I'm delusional as well (and in this following scenario I've been told that I already am) but what if a bunch of 14 to 15 minute 5K runners decided they would like to focus 80% of their racing on XC running and track and the other 20% on urban sprint orienteering. They think hey, international orienteering is a goal. Then they find out that they need to run middle and long to be selected to achieve that goal. Do they still spend that 20% on O? Probably not.
Hammer, development incentive is something completely different. Maybe what you talk about would work. I don't know. But what I've been trying to say, obviously not very clearly, is that if this super fast runner actually gets very, very good at sprint (internationally), then they'd also be pretty darn good at middle and long (in the US) even if they were training as 'sprint specialists'.
I may argue that none of 14 to 15 minute 5K runners would compete in O. That would ruin their running career. And O is an obscure sport. And result in many foot injuries. Our best bet is in juniors who compete in O and complement their training with road, track, and XC competitions because they are good at running. The question is how to retain and motivate these juniors if there is no money and system in place to support them.
Currently the only best way for their parents to send them to Europe.
@ Cristin◪: The amount of talent and training required to be competitive at sprint on the international elite level is high,<...> if we had any young Americans doing that ...
With current system of runner evaluation, being:
- intrinsic sprint undervaluation by ranking
- lack of sprints ( less than 2 sprints per every classic race)
It is almost impossible for sprint specialist to be even noticed. Add this to overall lack of visibility due to above mentioned problems and you will never see motivated sprint specialist on the horizon
Interestingly enough, Cristina is the best sprint specialist in Overall USA women Sprints Look for those whose Ranking Score (only Sprints are selected) is at least as high as their Power. Most of the top Ladies are much worse in Sprint than in Classic.
Next outstanding are Tori Borish and Debbie Newell.
Hm, interesting. I think this perfectly highlights the specific issue of sprints not being hard enough in the US, and the issue of my mediocrity in general. ;-) Unless I'm misinterpreting the numbers...
@ Sergey. Agreed. If someone is running 14-15 minutes for 5000m then they really ought to stick to running and see if they can run 13 or high 12s. However, that may not really be the type of person that I would see doing well at O sprints - they are probably on the slow twitch end of the ideal range (and would transfer really well to Middle/Long). No, the majority of the population have closer to 50-50 slow twitch/fast twitch muscle fibre and would really struggle to beat 15 minutes for 5k. But for O sprint that might be what works best - fast when you need to with multiple short "rests" or slowing down, so someone predisposed to, say 800m racing, who can recover a bit at controls.
So how many American college runners can go sub 15 for 5K?
In 2009, roughly half the number of USOF members. It probably takes about a 13:30 to get signed with a sponsor after college, so the vast majority of the above will not go on to pursue professional careers, at least not in running.
With regard to nothing except that someone asked the question "why are most Canadian hockey players born in January, February and March".
The answer is because their hockey-playing parents put away their skates and start copulating in April, May and June.
If the parents don't play hockey then the copulation starts with the elimination of their team from the Stanley Cup playoffs, usually in April.
>If the parents don't play hockey then the copulation starts with the >elimination of their team from the Stanley Cup playoffs
So by that rationale there should be more hockey players from the Toronto area born in November or December because the Leafs will most likely have been eliminated from even making the playoffs by Feb or March
That's a good number of fast runners - and there may be more than a handful who would find orienteering interesting and fun. I think it would be great to introduce them to orienteering through urban sprints. I also think that the next step is pretty tough - getting them hooked on maps and into the woods. Can't be a great sprint orienteer if you don't run in the woods and read contours well.
I don't think that super fast runners are the easiest marketing target. In all my 'recruitment' efforts of runners in my city, the plea has gone out to the 15-16 min 5k dudes just as much as the 18-21 min guys. The ones who show up are the slower ones, and they enjoy it. It seems like even guys who have no future in professional running are still taking it quite seriously, and they really like running. Just pure running. It's going to be a rare guy (or gal) who starts off as a super speedy road runner and transitions to orienteering while they're still young. Better to get them really young before they realize their potential, and seal them into orienteering. ;-)
agreed, you are not going to get many (if any) top 5K runners to give up their current training regimen and status, and switch to another training regimen in hopes of maybe becoming good at a less well known sport.
I think a better target community for orienteering recruitment would be the backpacking/hiking crowd. You might find a few athletes there who don't enjoy running on flat road surfaces, but might enjoy a run through the woods.
If we're recruiting runners, show 'em this video! (at least an attempt to get back to the original subject). Running! Fast! Woooo!
Now on to backpackers. I used to be a backpacker (the "pack" of kupackman comes from that). And I've pretty much quit backpacking now that I've gotten into orienteering.
So there are going to be some backpackers out there that are recruitable. But also keep in mind that they like to spend their weekends backpacking, so it's hard to be both an active backpacker and orienteer. (Maybe rogaining is a better fit?).
Does the backpacking community even know about the orienteering community? The most recent issue of Backpacker is completely devoted to maps. Tons of maps, GPS routes, etc, etc. The word 'orienteering' appears only twice in the issue. Once in the title of a recommended book, and once in a story about a guy trying to hike his way out of Idaho with a bunch of maps, but not knowing where he was.
About a year ago, the Backpacker folks staged skills contests with seasoned backpackers against Boy Scouts. One of the contests was "orienteering", but it didn't include any maps!
I think the link between the orienteering community and the backpacking community is probably best connected with education. We know how to navigate. A lot of backpackers/hikers do not. I think partnering with REI to teach in-store orienteering classes might be beneficial. (REI does all sorts of in-store classes).
Last time I was in the flagship REI store, I saw a section specifically devoted to geocaching. And they have a map section. And a trail running section. And in their magazine section, they have some dedicated specifically to niche sports, like trail running, rock climbing, mountain biking, etc.
I'm not suggesting that we start putting ONA in REI, but it seems like there are so many similar things at REI that overlap with orienteering that REI (and similar stores) would be a great partner.
However, I don't beleive that either USA or Canadian federations allocated any meaningful resources to junior development. Right now (and it was for long time before) it is dad and mom hand in hand operation where almost all expenses come from pockets of juniors' parents. I understand the desire of these parents to decrease expenses thus asking for less competitions. I am faced with same for my daughter (and you too). But the one does need a lot of competition and training at high level to progress in this sport. Therefore, the only alternative solution to this grim situation is for parents to send best to Europe for education and orienteering career.
I would love to see this situation to change but without real government support it is all doomed to stay at the same level of slow deterioration.
BTW, it is all started as US Middle Champs Teaser Video :)
Damn Eric - he is running too fast on this video :)
I hope everyone is doing intervals on open rought grounds in preparation to these competitions. This is fast terrain for USA Middle, Long, and Sprint! I bet that NA Champs will be equally fast! Runners this is your chance to outrun navigators :)
The NAOC terrain is not as fast. It's steeper and bigger features, lots of rock and cliff detail and has some elements of denser woods. The champions will all be very good navigators and strong off-trail runners, that's a guarantee!
Vlad, O is not an Olympic sport, therefore, it is cut from this bigger money pile. Unfortunately, based on the past 30 years or so of history, it will never be.
True but lots of sports in the U.S. are not in the Olympics and have access to some kind of money pile; a smaller one than for say swimming, but a pile nevertheless. None of them have access to government money, the possibility of that happening is exactly zero. It doesn't do us any good to say "We can't have government money, so therefore we shall forever suck and give up all hope". What will do us good is going for some of that private-sponsor money, and that's why we hired someone who has obtained loads of sponsor money for a non-Olympic sport. I suggest Canada for those with fantasies of government money, in this country it's as likely as free universal health care or free higher education.
Apologies in advance because this is off topic but the thread is all over the map (no pun intended) anyway....
Tundra: Interesting comments about government money and sports. Two things:
1) While not government money the US Olympic committee has a sweet deal with the International Olympic Committee that pays them a huge amount of money (20% of the sponsorship money and 12.5% of TV revenue). That is in the hundreds of millions!
2) Did you know that 60% of the over $20B spent on renovating or building new sports stadiums or arenas for professional sports teams in the US the last 15-20 years was paid by various levels of government (ie., tax payers). Mega taxation is being proposed right now in Glendale, AZ to subsidize the Coyotes purchase by the Chicago Bulls and White Sox owner (ie., a millionaire).
So corporations indirectly funnel money to the USOC through the IOC and government money ain't fantasy for many sports in the U.S. through the funding of 'community stadaiums'. Oh and while totally off topic it is also worth noting that the per capita government spending on higher education in my province in Canada is lower than the per capita government spending by over 45 U.S. States.
Back on topic...
The sport is how you market it. If the feeling is that fast runners and sprint specialists aren't wanted, needed, likely and/or welcome then you won't get them and right now the selection criteria is stacked against them.
Well, colleges aren't exactly government. They get money from (mostly state, some federal) governments; then they spend it on athletics. The point/difference is, to get a college to support an orienteering program, you don't have to convince "the" "government" (hard, and many people will question whether this/their money is spent wisely, given lack of precedent). You just have to convince the college's administration.
Hammer, the selection criteria is not stacked against them, because anyone who is that fast a runner and that damned good at sprint orienteering is also going to do well enough in the other events to make a team. I just can't see how someone could be a spectacular sprinter (by international standards) and not be a decent middle and long guy (that is, by N. American standards, still quite competitive).
"I think the results from West Point on the red course are in your favor!"
middle course
Joe 38:50
Carl 55:22
long course
Carl 1:12:20
Joe 1:15:54
I know nothing about rankings and don't care for them. I look at the splits and results. What I see is Carl and I each had one good day and one bad day.
And give some credit to Andrew and Ethan Childs also. they performed well on a technical "long" course.
I do believe they should be running blue though if they are going to JWOC. Look at Emily Kemp running blue this weekend.
now, after I got all the data and can say with numbers in hands, it is clear that not long, but middle race is where the experience matters most, at least for the personages in question.
Younger runners definitely have a tendency to make more mistakes which are much more expensive at the middle course..
Bad Middle day for Carl was really bad, while Red long for Joe was within normal and Carl, Andrew and Vadim won as expected.
Ethan had to be at top of his skills to get 4th place in Red long.
exactly Glen.
See, what the results sometimes don't show or take into account is the weather, the difficulty of the course, the terrain, injuries and sometimes when us M45's like to have a couple refreshing drinks the night before a race.
I think we should put it to the rest :) No doubt there are a number of juniors who are approaching or already passing a cohort of retired "local recreational elites".
The real question is how to get from their 4-5 hour/week training regiment to 10-15 hour/week so they may, indeed, become internationally recognized elites. Only this may take 2-3 years of lots of sweat. Just remember that Joe and I ~20% slower than USA elites who are in turn ~20% slower than world elites.
In my personal opinion, as there is no any established support system (both monetary and training) in the USA, they need to move to countries with lots of oportunities where they get O relevant training with the best at low cost. That encompases Scandinavia, Swiss land, France, and to lesser degree Great Britain. Russia is, probably, out of question as you have to be born there to enjoy :) I hope they already think about spending their gold years in there.
See, what the results sometimes don't show or take into account is ....
It is just the opposite!!! The results TAKE this into account, not getting into much details, just comparing your time with times of all others and fitting you into the crowd appropriately...
Important: I'm not discussing the reasons here. Maybe Joe had bad day, or his ability to run marathon is relatively worse than his ability to run standard race, but the fact is - more than 15% drop and ?? sign.
Statistically You were only ~3 minutes behind expectation. Which is normal: mistakeless race is faster than expectation, mistakeful - slower, right?
At middle - 6 minutes faster than average
As for the races you quoting at the attackpoint. I'm not sure the performance evaluation is reliable.
There are only 3-5 people reported at two of them and of course your run will be treated as mistakeless, as averaging is taken by very small number of people.
F.e at Pond mountain according to the data, Joe lost 14 minutes, same as GlenT, as in reality Joe should be ~25-30 minutes faster than Glen at this distance, therefore - actuall loss for Joe was ~40 minutes, or something was fishy there and it was not really a loss but something else...
If you can send the the data from this event, we can look at it with numbers in hands.
Have a nice weekend and do not take it too serious.