Quote Originally Posted by wycoller View Post
In 2011 there was a new junior pennine clubs competition in which we took part. That had problems because one of the races had different age groups so had to be discounted after the event and another race added. Personally I wouldn't use times from different races over the same course, kids run against each other, not against the clock.

I'm not aware of many clubs who have a junior champs. The problem being that the kids will already be running in Kendal winter league, BOFRA, FRA champs and their own local races. The first three all require a number of races for the championship so adding additional club champs races may get them running too much. My biggest concern as a coach is if they race twice in one weekend, which can happen
We ran a junior champs at clayton last year; best four from eight fixtures, prizes for age group best and for simply completing four races. It all went fairly well i think. We had some problems; the different BOFRA age categories, which I'll fix this year by not including a BOFRA race and occasional errors by race officials, putting runners in the wrong race.

We scored them in a similar way to kcac but we gave points according to how many from clayton ran in that age group; if five ran then the first clayton got five points, second got four points etc. That way, being first clayton when no-one else turned up only got you one point! We don't have a big junior section yet but it's growing.

I solve the problem of other championships simply by not pushing kids to enter them. We largely ignored the winter league and the BOFRA, FRA champs races unless they were local. As i said, we're fairly small as yet and i see little point exhorting parents to drive their kids all over the place to races where they will be hopelessly outclassed; where's the fun in that? We do have a couple of stronger contenders, they do travel a bit further and I support them for doing it but in general i think that local races should be supported first (that goes for seniors as well)

As we get bigger, we'll get more competitive and things will change. For now I'm quite happy with our runners just doing the local stuff as and when they feel like it!