Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

How do you measure an 'average' club runner

2»

Comments

  • #32
    ecoli
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,762 ✭✭✭✭ecoli


    RayCun wrote: »
    Well, the problem with using the national championships to work out an average is one of selection - runners in a national championship aren't a representative sample of club runners.
    But if you're saying that 38 minutes is mediocre, it must be mediocre compared to something else, so there's another selection problem - what are you comparing it to?

    Think the times are being compared to previous standards set in previous generations


  • #33
    RayCun
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,704 ✭✭✭✭RayCun


    ecoli wrote: »
    Think the times are being compared to previous standards set in previous generations

    But are these standards being recalled through the hazy pink glow that accrues to memories of youth? Has anyone worked out what the average times were in national championships 20 years ago, or are people remembering the winning times? Was the profile of competitors the same 20 years ago or not? (Same number of entrants? more/less selection by clubs? were the championships more or less important in the running calendar? so how many possible entrants treated it like an A race for the year?)

    And if we're talking about your actual average club runner of today, compared to 1990 or 1980, are the clubs bigger or smaller than they were then? How many club runners then and now were involved in the sport from their schooldays?

    (Maybe standards are declining, I have no stake in it being otherwise. The 'common sense' explanations for why standards are declining seem reasonable to me, but sometimes the decline seems to be assumed so that everyone can move speedily on to the fun bit - complaining about the youth of today! :))


  • #34
    Gringo78
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,120 ✭✭✭Gringo78


    From what I can see, athletics Ireland website only has results back to 2000. The only difference between 2010 & 2000 is there was a higher participation 2010, but this probably all down to the fact that it was combined with the Great Ireland 10k Run. Apart from that, wining time, top 20 time and top 50 time are similar in 2000 & 2010.

    Looking at the results of 2010, it looks like very few runners travelled up from Cork for it...probably if you're not going to place it in, not much point in making the trip to Dublin. I wonder was that the same for other parts of the country. hence, national championships are really poor for statistical analysis as they are not a reflection of the depth of runners from say 32 to 36min who probably put a lot of time into their training but wouldn't do a round trip of 5 hours drive to finish 70th in a race at which their club wouldn't have the numbers for a team entry anyway.

    There were about 90 runners under 36min in 2010 national 10k - prob over 60 different runners in Cork area have broken 36min over last 3-4 years so if all those showed up for the national 10k the results would look well different. Again, this would be repeated around the country.


Advertisement