Stretton 27 Apr: Champs Race 2

[jtinnion]

The maps are available to scrutinise, the routes are in accordance with the FRA's distance limits, the guidance given to me as RO, and the Scottish Hill Running guidelines on junior course design which are the most comprehensive I can find. I apologise for the reference to "last year" which was in error. The routes are almost entirely on good paths and will be runnable for strong juniors with the exception of sections of th Caradoc climbs on the U16 and U18 courses. They are certainly interesting and there are no sections I would regard as "dangerous": in fact there are few objective risks other than a couple of sections of grassy path that can be a bit slippery when they are wet.

I hope this clears things up.

With regards to the travel issue I'm sorry Shropshire is so inconveniently far from the traditional epicentres in Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cumbria. Don't let the distance put you off, come and have a cracking day out and discover some new hills...

Jim (who will happily respond to any more queries individually by email - [email protected])

[Mowgli]

My thoughts are that best runners usually run well on all distances and terrains. (1 mile or 10miles I expect the order of Rivington results would be similar from age 8 to 18)

The only difference is that they are further ahead on the long courses.



The Implications for motivation and participation might be worth discussing.

Along with LTAD (Long Term Athlete Development).

While winning a race by a long way might make a youngster feel good, (+ his/her supporters), what is the impact on those behind ?

And usually, the longer the race the further they are behind. (with no one to run with because gaps can get big) in small championship fields that sometimes occur.

However, philosophically speaking, the great thing about being near the rear, is that you may have the greatest potential to improve, while those winning may have the least potential to improve.?

[jtinnion]

My thoughts are that best runners usually run well on all distances and terrains. (1 mile or 10miles I expect the order of Rivington results would be similar from age 8 to 18)

The only difference is that they are further ahead on the long courses.
...
And usually, the longer the race the further they are behind. (with no one to run with because gaps can get big) in small championship fields that sometimes occur.

Yep, I get that. If we have a very small number of entries (<20) for the U18 and U16 in total I will consider using the U16 course for both (I can make the decision on the day easily enough), but the bit we'd cut out includes some lovely running downhill on a sharp grassy ridge, a sunken green road typical of Shropshire, and the bottom half of the classic Caradoc climb done by 300 and odd people every December in the Cardington Cracker. We've had a bit of feedback from local juniors and they like it: in fact on of our U16s is gutted he's not old enough to do the full monty...

We do want to give all the juniors who travel down a taste of what fell running in our area is like, and not to just have them run effectively cross country courses which they could do at home. Also we're expecting big turnouts from local schools etc. and need to offer something distinctive and exciting to lure some of the athletes away from their x-boxes or football games.

Glad to answer any queries. PM me on here, Facebook message me, email at the address on my previous post.

Regards
Jim

[Witton Park]

My thoughts are that best runners usually run well on all distances and terrains. (1 mile or 10miles I expect the order of Rivington results would be similar from age 8 to 18)

The only difference is that they are further ahead on the long courses.

Whilst 1 mile and 10 mile might be too wide a range the point made is absolutely spot on and I have this debate a lot around cross country as well.

What does make a difference is the technical nature of the terrain, how many climbs, where the climbs come in races, underfoot conditions.

To give you an example, Shuttlingsloe used to throw up some unusual results due to the downhill start and uphill finish and Wansfell a few years ago was just too extreme for many juniors.

But we best lay off Mowgli otherwise we'll get slapped wrists for going off topic

Any juniors, I'd urge you to go. It's usually an hour at least to your FRA race, so what's an extra hour each way to go and experience something new, fantastic terrain and maybe somewhere you'll want to return to again.

[Corniceman]

With regards to the travel issue I'm sorry Shropshire is so inconveniently far from the traditional epicentres in Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cumbria. Don't let the distance put you off, come and have a cracking day out and discover some new hills...

Jim. You shouldnt apologise for that. We travel hours and hours almost every week of the spring/summer to go to fell races as indeed we generally have to for Young Athlete Track and Field meets, eg Bristol, Cardiff etc. Its an English Champs. Hopefully they will hold more in The Midlands in the future.

[withaY]

we shall be there from rochdale.. please can we be off on time as i have a football match in castleford at 3 o clock..
regarding the length of races debate.. short and sweet is what the kids at our club prefer.. like speed limits.. just because a figure is quoted doesnt mean you have to go that speed..

as rightly commented whether a race is 1 or 10 miles the winners will be the same the only difference being the rest will be much further behind, and that benifits no one.

[Clash City Rocker]

we shall be there from rochdale.. please can we be off on time as i have a football match in castleford at 3 o clock..
regarding the length of races debate.. short and sweet is what the kids at our club prefer.. like speed limits.. just because a figure is quoted doesnt mean you have to go that speed..

as rightly commented whether a race is 1 or 10 miles the winners will be the same the only difference being the rest will be much further behind, and that benifits no one.

This has to be tongue in cheek surely, please tell me it is.

[AndyA]

This has to be tongue in cheek surely, please tell me it is.

Which bit?!

I'd agree with the comments regarding the length of races; longer is not better, it's just different.

Longer will test muscular endurance; something which is easily developed fairly quickly at any age with a fairly uncomplicated training regime (go out and run continuously in the hills for as long as you can, repeat as often as you can). It's certainly a test of ability but it mainly tests access to training time and commitment from parents.

Shorter will test technical ability far more; leg turnover, posture, stability. These are attributes which are harder to coach but are fundamentals that should be developed in preference to ability to plod along.

n.b; If anyone wants to pursue this discussion; please start a new thread! It's a debate that's worth having and I'm happy to contribute but not here, this is a race thread.

[jtinnion]

we shall be there from rochdale.. please can we be off on time as i have a football match in castleford at 3 o clock..

Please note it's races FROM 12:00. We are starting with the youngest age groups and sequentially working through to the older age groups so with five races in total we anticipate the U16/U18 race will start about 14:15. This should give the older runners the chance to do a reasonable reccie if they arrive for 12:00.

We've not given out specific times for each age group race as having lots of folks arrive at the specific times for their races will give us a problem - the car park is 300m up a narrow lane from the road so we don't want a lot of traffic in two directions to manage. Also our registration team will be working on producing results for the first race by 12:30 so we don't want too many of them having to multitask!

We will have toilets and a refreshment/registration marquee at the event field so there will be somewhere to take shelter in case of adverse weather for anyone waiting for their race to start or for the presentation.

Don't bank on being back in Cas by 3pm - I don't think I could do that leaving Stretton at 12pm anyway, it usually takes me about 2.5 to 3 hours to get to Leeds!

Jim

[withaY]

[QUOTE=jtinnion;537265
Don't bank on being back in Cas by 3pm - I don't think I could do that leaving Stretton at 12pm anyway, it usually takes me about 2.5 to 3 hours to get to Leeds!

(/QUOTE]

we should be able to get the girls out and back on the u8 and u10 and be at Cas for the second half! youngest is looking forward to the race she knows her contour lines and loves a steep downhill!! ( shes not keen at all on the uphill bits though!)