BGR summary for 2022

[Bob]

I’ve updated the various files on the site with this year’s successes but a check in the code that prevents access to the current year means it won’t be available at http://www.bobgrahamclub.org.uk/index.php?page=members until the new year. We had three winter rounds bookending the year: one new member, one solo by Paul Wilson and one solo by a non-member. The list of winter rounds to the end of this year is available at http://www.bobgrahamclub.org.uk/index.php?page=winter

Annual summary:

There were 230 registrations (40 ladies) with 103 successful rounds (19 ladies).

There were 99 successful clockwise rounds (18 ladies) and 4 successful anticlockwise rounds (1 ladies).

Fastest times were 12:23 for the men and 21:39 for the ladies.

The average age of successful contenders was 37yrs 1months.

The age of successful contenders ranged from 21 to 61.

Previous attempts

Previous Count
0 90
1 10
2 3
Total 103


The success rate was a bit down on the usual 50%, not sure why. Generally we’ve had around 10-12% of successes being women but this year saw it rise to 18%, early in the year it was actually at 25% but there were few attempts by women in the latter part of the season so it dropped back.

+-------------+----------+--------+
| start_month | Men | ladies |
+-------------+----------+--------+
| Jan | 1 | |
| Apr | 5 | |
| May | 11 | 5 |
| Jun | 35 | 8 |
| Jul | 16 | 4 |
| Aug | 10 | 1 |
| Sep | 5 | 1 |
| Oct | 1 | |
+-------------+----------+--------+



I’ve begun to ask about reasons for failure, not everyone responds but those that have are tabulated below.

+-----------------------+----------+
| Reason | count |
+-----------------------+----------+
| Did not start | 6 |
| Completed out of time | 13 |
| Injury | 1 |
| Illness | 2 |
| Bad weather | 8 |
| Ran out of time | 2 |
+-----------------------+----------+


There's a bit more data at http://www.bobgrahamclub.org.uk/index.php?page=news

[Steve Chilton]

Bob Graham Round completions were slightly down this year at just the 4th highest ever. Breakdown and graphs for overall/men/women and completion percentages are presented here: https://itsahill.wordpress.com/2023/...data-for-2022/
I'd be interested in anyone's comments on why they think it might have been a quieter year in 2022 for numbers of Bob Graham Rounds.

Steve

[Bob]

Not really a "quiet" year Steve - as you say, it's the fourth highest ever in terms of completions. I think 2021 was a bit of a "bounceback" sort of year due to 2020 being effectively only half a year due to lockdowns - 169 and 281 registrations for 2020 and 2021 respectfully. Those average out at 225 which isn't a million miles away from this year's 230 and all but identical to the 224 in 2019.

Successes for the last four years are: 125, 84, 142, 103. Again averaging the middle two to give 113. So 2022 is lower than the past three years but not really by much.

Looking at the historical data then prior to the recent surge when there's been over 100 completions per year the most successful years were 1988 & 1989 with 76 & 79 successes then the following year there were only half as many.

The above figures are available at http://www.bobgrahamclub.org.uk/inde...s#record_lists then choose "general info" from the first drop down, "Rounds by year" from the second will display that info.

Looking at the dates people registered for then there were 17 registered for the first four months but only five were successful but 2021 had a similar big block of failures during May. After that there's no real pattern. Given that not everyone lets me know how they got on, especially if they failed for whatever reason, it's hard to say what if any factor was the cause. I've only started asking about reasons for failure this year so there's no historical data to compare. Note that even when explicitly asked only about 40% bothered to respond!

The big variable in any given year is of course the weather. The two winter successes in December were on the same day, there was another attempt by a strong runner with a strong support team just two days later (as that cold snap ended) that ended at Dunmail due to deep fresh snow. That said the above table shows weather being a factor in just over a quarter of reasons for failure. It could be that it was the factor in much more of those who didn't respond or maybe not.

I don't expose any data about non-successes other than the fact that there were X number. You'd have to correlate each attempt with the weather in the Lakes on that day to be certain of it being a factor.