Performance indicator

[Ady In Accy]

When racing you end up with a time and a position but how do you quantify this into a performance rating? 10th sounds good but in a field of 40 it's not quite as good, conversely 120th sounds bad but in a field of 1000 it is good.
I have started using the formula 100%-(your position/number of runners). This gives you a score as you would get in an exam (10th out of a hundred earns you 90%,etc) so in effect you score yourself for each race. This gives you somthing other than a time to compare your performance with.
You could also do it is a time differential between the course record or winning time and your time I guess.
Just wondered if anyone else uses somthing similar to monitor/record race performances?

[Mountain Hare]

Have you seen the WAVA scales for ranking performances - very useful for road running - no good for fell races.

I guess the only drawback with your system is that say, top 10% in a local race is not really comparable with top 10% in a Championship counter?

[marty mcfly]

It's tricky.

I only started racing last year and have been logging percentiles - my finishing position as a % of the field.

It doesn't work well though - I've gone from the 5th percentile with an ok run in the Leeds Abbey Dash to the 35th percentile with a run I was really pleased with in last night's Saddleworth FR.

Percentiles can only work if you can benchmark against yourself - you need to repeat the race the next year to see a relative performance.

I like the idea of percentage of the winner's time, although again this would be skewed if comparing the winner of a village fete race against Felix Limo in the London Mara!

[Grouse]

I just try and go quicker than I did last time .

[Ady In Accy]

It's tricky.

I only started racing last year and have been logging percentiles - my finishing position as a % of the field.

It doesn't work well though - I've gone from the 5th percentile with an ok run in the Leeds Abbey Dash to the 35th percentile with a run I was really pleased with in last night's Saddleworth FR.

Do you mean you scored 95% in one race and 65% in the other? This must mean you had dramatically different placings and performances. I have messed about with a few figures and the percentage formula I use usually works out OK for similar performances over varying size fields. It would take a dip in championship races although with the field being fairly large it does not alter massively - hugh fields would cock things up a little but for your normal weekend fell races...........
I know it's a stat thing and not eveyones cuppa but with not having the same standards in fell running as road running it's one way to monitor your performances.

[Wylie Coyote]

I just try and beat my friends, which I know is crap but I also do what has been suggested which is to compare my time with the winner's. If they finish a race in 30 mins and me in 33 (3 mins behind) that's 10% which is not as good as finishing 3 mins behind in a 3 hour race (that would be 2%) (I would be ecstatic if I were 3 mins behind in a long race).
I think this is a good enough measure and it is not dependent on the size of the field and so what if the best runners weren't playing that day, the margin between that day's winner and the best in the country wouldn't be that great as a %. Some top runners never compete in the Peak District and Lloyd Taggart et al. has to travel to compete against them but when Lloyd wins races in the Peak District you can't say "Oh well he wouldn't have won if so and so was here"

[marty mcfly]

Do you mean you scored 95% in one race and 65% in the other? This must mean you had dramatically different placings and performances.

Yep, but the 65% performance felt better!

Leeds was top 400 out of 4000

Saddleworth was top 14 out of about 40.

Means that the average standard at Saddleworth was better - not so many funrunners dressed as scooby doo!

[IainR]

http://www.scottishhillracing.co.uk/Runners.aspx

Have you seen this site, it uses % of winners time as a way to do that. Quite a good system I think.

[Ady In Accy]

http://www.scottishhillracing.co.uk/Runners.aspx

Have you seen this site, it uses % of winners time as a way to do that. Quite a good system I think.

Nice site but don't understand fully how the calculation works. 100%+(your time-winning time)/your time is close but as you drop down the field there seems to be some sort of sliding scale. I think I just relate better to a score of say 86% in a race as this makes a little more sense probably because it is similar to exam result scores.

[jimbob]

Just been looking at this, and the % of winners time seems a bit more useful than the % finishing position that I was using before. I used to take my position divided by number of finishers or entrants x100 to give me my finishing postion percentage (ie 102 out of 200 is 102/200x100=51%) but looking at the winners time it makes a lot more sense. For example I would do a local league 10K race where all competitors are club runners and I would therefore finish towards the back as I'm not very fast, giving me a finishing % of, for example 85% meaning 85% for runners are faster than me which is true. However, if I do a bigger open 10K consisting of a large amount of "once a year runners" I have a good finishing position in the top half of the field (despite my time being slow) and getting a finishing % of eg 45%. This in no way indicates how well I ran (other than the fact I beat a lot of slower runners/walkers). I could have run a lot better and faster in the club race but my % is lower

Now, if I use (my time/winners time x 100) I get a percentage result that better indicates my time and improvement. I have just tried this on about 10 or so recent races and the %'s are much closer, with my better runs coming out with the better (lower) percentage. Does this make sense?

At the end of the day they are just figures and you can make them tell you want you want them too