2012 Awards - Performance of the Year

RayCun

The nominees are:

Claralara for the Longford Half Marathon (1:27:48, first female)

RandyMann for the All Ireland Masters in Tullamore
100m- M2 (M40) Silver - 11.88 PB
200m- M2 (M40) Silver - 24.08 Equaled PB

Tunguska for the National Half Marathon in Athenry (1:12:22, 15th)

myflipflops for the Melbourne marathon (2:48 marathon from sedentary life-style in just 10 months)

Pablo t for his sub 18 hour Bob Graham round

Claralara for the Berlin marathon (3:08:07 84th female)

ultrapercy for his 50k world trophy final

Bazman's run in the Dublin City Marathon (2:18:46, 14th)

Younganne for the Dublin City Marathon (3.57.46 144th in category)

Tunguska for his National Track and Field 10,000m run (33:12, 13th)

DAVID AKA MACKY for the Charleville half marathon (69.44, 7th place)

RayCun

reminder - The poll threads will be open for comments BUT I will be deleting any comments that talk down nominated posters or their performances/logs/photos. It is okay to say "I think Jessica Ennis should win the award because her victory was so convincing and she performed so well even in her weaker events". It is not okay to say, "I think Ennis should win because Farah didn't really run well and he was just lucky that the race tactics suited him". Clear? I will mod this with a hammer. Boardsies have no control over whether they are nominated or not, so if they are put in the spotlight like this they shouldn't be criticised.

Pisco Sour

Bazman's is clearly the best performance but seen as these things come down to people picking their favourites (without any sort of logic or knowledge of the sport), I am going to do the same. RandyMann's performances this year have been fantastic. Taking up sprinting (rather falling into it after a brief attempt at middle distance running) at 39/40 is something that 99.99% wouldn't have the balls to do. Then the performances themselves are very impressive. In only his second year in the sport has run comfortably sub 12 for 100m, and almost 24 dead for 200m, 2 silver medals in National Masters, and some very respectable performances at the National Seniors, throwing himself in there against Steven Colvert and the like. His performances have inspired me and his advice is always appreciated and helpful.

Enduro

Pisco Sour wrote: »

Bazman's is clearly the best performance

There is no such Clarity. It could easily be argued that Ultrapercy's performance is clearly the best as it was achieved at the highest possible level, the world championship of the event.

This is an awfully hard one to vote on! So many excellent preformances.

Pisco Sour

Enduro wrote: »

There is no such Clarity. It could easily be argued that Ultrapercy's performance is clearly the best as it was achieved at the highest possible level, the world championship of the event.

This is an awfully hard one to vote on! So many excellent preformances.

I'd be much more impressed with a performance which gets close to qualifying for the Olympic Games. Just like I'd be more impressed with Jessie Barr, Mark English or Brian Gregan's performances this year over Catriona Jennings or Ava Hutchinson, even though the former didn't get to go to the Olympics. It is all about level of difficulty.

But you are entitled to your opinion. It is a good performance no doubt.

Enduro

Pisco Sour wrote: »

I'd be much more impressed with a performance which gets close to qualifying for the Olympic Games.

Which could only possibly count for olympic events. Several of the (very excellent) performances in this category are for non-olympic events. So olympic qualification couldn't possibly be used as a standard to judge them. The equivalant olympic standard for Ultrapercy's run would be an athlete who won a very competive olympic qulaifying event and went on the just miss out on the medals at the olympics itself. That's a pretty high standard!

Pisco Sour wrote: »

It is all about level of difficulty.

Which of course depends on how you define it! E.g, whilst it would obviously be easier to run Myflipflop's time for the marathon than Bazman's, it could be argued that the level of difficulty of that task that MFF faced in achieving his time was outstanding, given his starting point. And that's before I even begin to bring up the level of difficulty in PabloT's nominated run.

TRR

Enduro wrote: »

Which of course depends on how you define it! E.g, whilst it would obviously be easier to run Myflipflop's time for the marathon than Bazman's, it could be argued that the level of difficulty of that task that MFF faced in achieving his time was outstanding, given his starting point. And that's before I even begin to bring up the level of difficulty in PabloT's nominated run.

+1.In the context of this award it isn't necessarily who ran the fastest or finished the furthest up the field. It's a relative award. No doubt in terms of athletic performance Bazman's is awesome but some others may have performed above their ability etc.

TRR

TRR wrote: »

+1.In the context of this award it isn't necessarily who ran the fastest or finished the furthest up the field. It's a relative award. No doubt in terms of athletic performance Bazman's is awesome but some others may have performed above their ability etc.

By the way I went for MFF's melbourne run. He had no right to run as fast as he did, I seen his half way split and was convinced he was going to explode. Some other amazing performances including Bazman obviously and also special mention to hop along a.k.a clarlara but I kind of expected them to run the times they did. Their performances met my expectations. MFF's exceed them so that's why he got my vote.

menoscemo

TRR wrote: »

Bobviously and also special mention to hop along a.k.a clarlara but I kind of expected them to run the times they did. Their performances met my expectations. MFF's exceed them so that's why he got my vote.

I have to say I didn't expect CL to Run so fast in the longford half (didn't she do a session a week before where she couldn't even hold 7 min/mile for 4 miles?) but yes the Berlin result was expected.
I voted For CL in Longford (winning the race made the performance a bit better) but I suspect the CL vote might be split between the two races.

ecoli

Mod: Keep the thread about performances not the comparison of events. That discussion has been done to death

rom

Pisco Sour wrote: »

Bazman's is clearly the best performance but seen as these things come down to people picking their favourites (without any sort of logic or knowledge of the sport), I am going to do the same. RandyMann's performances this year have been fantastic. Taking up sprinting (rather falling into it after a brief attempt at middle distance running) at 39/40 is something that 99.99% wouldn't have the balls to do. Then the performances themselves are very impressive. In only his second year in the sport has run comfortably sub 12 for 100m, and almost 24 dead for 200m, 2 silver medals in National Masters, and some very respectable performances at the National Seniors, throwing himself in there against Steven Colvert and the like. His performances have inspired me and his advice is always appreciated and helpful.

I agree. I picked DAVID AKA MACKY as he is running 4 years and was running 40 min 10K's and PB'd by 4 mins in that race which is huge. Obviously the best IAAF rating is the best run race but is performance improvement or single performance as Bazman wins everyday of the week if it is the latter.

pconn062

Tunguska 13th place finish in Santry gets my vote!

ultrapercy

Pisco Sour wrote: »

Bazman's is clearly the best performance but seen as these things come down to people picking their favourites (without any sort of logic or knowledge of the sport), I am going to do the same. RandyMann's performances this year have been fantastic. Taking up sprinting (rather falling into it after a brief attempt at middle distance running) at 39/40 is something that 99.99% wouldn't have the balls to do. Then the performances themselves are very impressive. In only his second year in the sport has run comfortably sub 12 for 100m, and almost 24 dead for 200m, 2 silver medals in National Masters, and some very respectable performances at the National Seniors, throwing himself in there against Steven Colvert and the like. His performances have inspired me and his advice is always appreciated and helpful.

These type of polls are subjective and voters are more likely to side with a performance they have most understanding of. Someone who has trained very hard to achieve their marathon goal is more likely to be inspired by Bazmans 2.18 marathon than RandyManns 24 sec 200m simply because they dont have an understanding of what it took RM to achieve. I myself know how fast it is and I understand how good Bazmans performance is because thats my bag. I can even get my head around MFF loosing a lot of weight turning his life around to run a top class marathon.What Il never comprehend is the physical and mental(literaly) strength, concentration, courage,knowledge, awareness, disregard for comfort, drive,dedication and many other attributes required to complete The Bob Graham Round. To complete it inside 24 hours is yet another story. Pablo Ts performance for me is the one that required the largest range of qualities that we admire in athletes.We have a good few of these type of athletes in the country at the minute and they give a different definition to the word hard.

village runner

rom wrote: »

I agree. I picked DAVID AKA MACKY as he is running 4 years and was running 40 min 10K's and PB'd by 4 mins in that race which is huge. Obviously the best IAAF rating is the best run race but is performance improvement or single performance as Bazman wins everyday of the week if it is the latter.

I would go for David aka too. Ran 31.30 odd in raheny 09 67 min dungarvan 10 miler 2009. Just shows what hard work brings. Also he hadn't weight on him. Ran 72 odd for national half in 2011 so 69 is huge improvement.

PaullBradyy

For Me hands down its RandyMann. To run sub 12secs for 100m at 40 years of age in your first full season is truly phenomenal.

I think this performance must be put in proper perspective against the better distance performances that have been nominated. While I think running fast times over longer distances requires greater self-discipline than over the sprints, i also think they are far more achievable than those of RandyMann's. I don't wish to undermine what are also great achievments, i just feel that a smaller percentage of all runners could achieve what RandyMann than could be achieved
in the distance events. And most especially of all in the context of it being his first full season.

bazman

Some interesting thoughts in relation to comparing performances - I won't vote as I'm short-listed, but if I was to rate my personal performances I would pick Hanover over Dublin, as was a faster time 2:17 + a Olympic B standard.

If was purely on high-standard of performance then PainIsTemorary should be included for his Dublin marathon run.

In terms of the world championships argument - not all world championships are equal so it certainly has to factor. 5th is truly fantastic, but the competition wasn't top level in my opinion.

When voting for these types of awards, I'd trust shock value - a performance that you didn't think possible. From the list of performances above RandyMann would probably get my nod. I don't know the man, but those 100m/200m runs are inspirational if it is true that he is only new to the sport ...

Pisco Sour

bazman wrote: »

In terms of the world championships argument - not all world championships are equal so it certainly has to factor. 5th is truly fantastic, but the competition wasn't top level in my opinion.

THIS!!