Running with Moe September 19

I was cleaning out a desk drawer this week and came across an old calculator I hadn’t tossed out. This was a different type of calculator than the one on your iPhone.  This one does calculations in minutes and seconds instead of whole numbers. It is used for a timing system in road races that use an “age graded system” or “performance level percentage” instead of the usual age group categories that most races use today.

While the number of awards come close to the same in both systems, there are some important differences in “who” gets the awards.

The “age graded system” compares every runner in the race to the world’s best time for his or her age, versus the usual age group category race in which runners are divided by age-- in either 5 or 10 years, categories.  

In the age group category system, the top three runners in each group get an award.  This is good except in some of the fast age groups a runner who runs a very good time, but comes in fourth and doesn’t qualify for an award.  

Then in one of the slower age groups a runner comes in near the end and probably 20 minutes after the runner who finished fourth in the age group.  The slow runner goes home with an award because there were only three runners in that group.

In the “age graded system” rewards the faster runners over the slower runners.  Each runner is competing against every runner in the race, both men and women.  Beating that one person is your age group no longer guarantees you a place or an award.

The race that I recall from looking over the results gave the following results.  The first place runner was 32 years old and ran a 17:22 for a 5K.  His time to compare was with the world record of 12:57.  Dividing the record time by his actual time he had a performance level percentage of .7456.  As it turned out he finished first.  The change occurred with a 13 year old girl that ran a 19:43 time and finished in 7^thplace overall.  With the age graded system she was competing against a world’s best time of 14:22 and gave her a percentage score of .7286.  That was good for second place overall and ahead of the five runners who finished in front of her.  Another example was a runner who was 55 years old.  He ran a 21:17 time and was competing against a 15:21 time for his age. That time gave in a percentage of .7212 and moved him from 13^thplace to fourth.  The runner that finished second overall was 37 years old with a time of18:52 and came up with an age graded percentage of .7147 and ended up in fifth place.  A runner that was 41 years old and finished in 4^thplace in the race with a 19:05 time had a percentage of .7240 and moved up to third place.

We tried this system for several races and I remember in one of the races two women in the 30 – 39 age category took first and second overall. Even though both women were in the same age group, the age graded system is determined by each of the women’s individual age.   It rewards the better runners for their effort.  The one point that is good is that it doesn’t matter if you are a man or a woman, young or old.  Each runner runs against their age and sex and the world’s best time, and if a woman ran closest to that time she is the winner.

The difficult part of the “age graded system” for the race director is that you have to have that special calculator and an up-to-date book with the world’s best times listed.  The book has times from one mile to a marathon to use in races.  It takes some time to determine each runner’s time, compare it to the best time, enter the times, and come up with the percentage for each runner.  Then take the percentages and put them in numerical order to determine the winners. We used to go to 30 places so that took some time.  The one good thing is that we had two calculators, and people that knew how to use the calculator that could enter times, instead of numbers, and divide to get the correct percentage. Determining the place finishes worked best if one person read off the times and another person worked the calculator and wrote down the resulting percentage.

I haven’t seen, or heard, of this system being used recently.  It was some time ago that we used this system and it was met with varying degrees of success.  The better runners liked it because it rewarded their running a good time.  Even if they finished in fifth or sixth place in their fast age group they still had a chance to get an award over that slow finisher that took a first place in their age group with a slow time.  If the runner was a fast Masters’ category person the performance level percentage system made him or her equal to the younger runners. The usually senior age d slow walkers that used to get an award just for showing up went home empty handed and didn’t like the system.

If you’re thinking, “thanks but no thanks,” I think I’ll stick to the age group category, you’ll be glad to learn that my old calculator can be used for other circumstances. It can still be useful in situations in which you need to add total hours, such as in payroll. For example in a small business situation, with this calculator you can add up the hours and minutes an employee worked and determine their salary-- thereby giving you an easy way to check the output of the more sophisticated payroll computer programs.  For that reason alone, I think I’ll leave it in the drawer. You just never know when this “oldie-but-goodie” will come in handy.