Junior relays

[Lefty]

We are considering organising Junior relays next year on a similar basis as the senior FRA relays i.e. they are organised by a different club in a different area each year. I'm at present putting feelers out and seeking sanction from the FRA to call them the Junior FRA Relays. I'm looking at a date sometime after the Junior Champs and before the Cross Country and have chosen a date of Saturday 10th of August 2013. The format I would like to adopt is teams made up from each of the age groups that is u12s,u14su16s and u18s each running a leg of their required distance, this would provide a good indicator of each clubs strength and a club could enter multiple teams, boys and girls. ( we could also organise relays for the u8s and u10s if needs be )
With the race permit forms now out ready for inclusion in next years calendar I would welcome feedback from interested parties.

[Clash City Rocker]

Think its an excellent idea first thoughts are why arent we including the two lower age groups.. Would you be thinking of a long circular event or would each leg have to start and finish in the same spot.

[Clash City Rocker]

Then i would think how many clubs would have runners at each age group. We would next year but that would be the first year we have ever had two u18 boys at the same time. we are only fell so we wouldnt have any Xc runners etc to call on. Would it be mixed if so how or would you be looking at boys and girls teams in which case we along with a few clubs would struggle to get a girls team out.
Great idea. How do we plan it.

[Corniceman]

We are considering organising Junior relays next year on a similar basis as the senior FRA relays i.e. they are organised by a different club in a different area each year. I'm at present putting feelers out and seeking sanction from the FRA to call them the Junior FRA Relays. I'm looking at a date sometime after the Junior Champs and before the Cross Country and have chosen a date of Saturday 10th of August 2013. The format I would like to adopt is teams made up from each of the age groups that is u12s,u14su16s and u18s each running a leg of their required distance, this would provide a good indicator of each clubs strength and a club could enter multiple teams, boys and girls. ( we could also organise relays for the u8s and u10s if needs be )
With the race permit forms now out ready for inclusion in next years calendar I would welcome feedback from interested parties.

Great idea but from the way I read it you'd have one competitor of each age within a team. This would make it hard to field a team say with several U12 but no under 16 or 18. As you know older junior athlets get thin on the ground. Why not have age group teams?

[Lefty]

Thanks, just the sort of input I'm looking for. I was thinking of all age groups starting and finishing in the same place with a variation or extension of the route for each age group. This makes the logistics, planning, spectator viewing easier. We could include the lower age groups if clubs thought it a good idea ( the Fra junior champs don't include the lower age groups although races are run for them ) I think that having an relay with the full range of ages within the teams makes it more interesting and provides a good indication of a clubs all round junior strength and I'm sure most clubs could make up teams from the full age group spread. I think it would be a nice change as well for the runners to compete in a team with club members from other age groups unlike the Fell champs races or cross country. Relays are great for team spirit and I think doing it this way can only help. I think also that mixed teams wouldn't be the way to go and that separate Boys and girls relay champs races would be best.

[biara]

If there is the idea of a competitor from each age group, could there be 1 X U8, 2 X U10, 2 X U12, 1 X U14, 1 X U16, or similar. I believe from BOFRA etc races, those 2 have the most, they only go a short distance, so could have more than 1 person in? Just a thought.

[Witton Park]

Lefty - if you have any contacts at Helm Hill, they may be able to offer some advise as I think they used to also run a Relay which may have been a Champs. It was last held around 2004 before I got involved in fell and I think they had issues with the balancing of age groups and genders.
I think if you look through the FRA Champs table you'll find that only a few clubs can find 3+ athletes in some age groups and in many instances those clubs may not have cover in other age groups.

Perhaps go through the 2012 Champs tables and play around with the balance eg 2 x U12G, 2 x 14G, 1 x U16G and same for Boys and see how many clubs look like they could field teams.

[Corniceman]

As stated before, I think its a great idea but the format proposed to a certain extent favours the bigger clubs and the smaller clubs or those with only a few who take to the fells would struggle to enter a team. I would like to think that new clubs and introducing new athletes to fell should somehow be an incentive.

A thought might be for smaller clubs or areas where fell runners are spread more thinly would be to have participants in a relay team made up of a number of clubs? EG You could have Nottinghamshire County Team made up of reps from the Nottinghamshire Athletics networks...I dont know if UKA would allow such a set up. Another thought is where clubs are not big enough or cant field a full team, could other athletes represent those as second claim for a very short period of time?

[Lefty]

It would appear looking at the stats that there could possibly be a problem with going with the format I have suggested in that many clubs as you also say may struggle finding teams covering the full range of age groups ( thanks to Jim at Felljunior) Mixed teams from individual age groups could help more clubs particate which is what we are looking for. If we had 3 per team covering the full 6 age groups then that would be 18 legs or 18 separate races as it would prove difficult to run more than one age group race at a time. Whilst the lower age group distances would mean relatively short race times the sum total of all races may prove difficult and would need thinking about. More food for thought and discussion.

[biara]

Could there be 2 relays? U8/U10/U12, 2 per team and U14/U16/U18, 1 per team. If there was such a location, almost have them in opposite directions, younger ones in one direction, older ones in the other. Idea from Hawkswick springs to mind, where the field was, 'flatter' running in one direction, seriously steep hill over the road and up!! I would think that lots of teams would want to have a go, but as suggested numbers of athletes may prohibit total spread of teams. In this idea, a 'slow team could be done for the junior race in 90mins (2 X 10mins, 2 X 15mins, 2 X 20mins) , for the older ones, again a 'slow' team could be in 105mins (1 X 25min, 1 X 35min, 1 X 45min). Yes, these numbers are purely made up but aim to illustrate an idea.