Via Bill Meylan, Tully Runners
Below are Performance Profiles for 14
top national high school male runners entering the 2015 cross country
season ... I find it interesting to examine profiles of the top national
boys and also compare them to the top NY boys (Profiles
for the 2015 New York Boys) ... Performance data helps evaluation
... and knowing the performance level of the best national runners is
always interesting ..... Opinions will differ on the ranking position of
individual runners, but that's a good thing ... It's also a "necessary
thing" for serious handicappers
... The order of the runners below is my current pre-season opinion ...
And a bunch of NY runners are included below (the most I have
ever seen during pre-season at this level).
How To Read the Table
Information: The number following the
name is the school grade for the 2015 XC season. The XC data listed
below the name are, in order, the race name,
race date, place, actual race time, and speed rating
(higher is faster). Selected track data is also
shown.
What is a Speed Rating? -
Quick Explanation:
Here is a brief step-by-step
explanation of how a speed rating is made:
(1) Get the results of a cross
country invitational (the actual race times), as deep as possible ... (if
enough sequential race times are not available, it may be impossible to
make a speed rating for that race).
(2) Use the actual race times
to determine how fast or how slow the race was compared to
a "standard race" ... For example, I might determine the race
was 15 seconds slower or 15 seconds faster than a standard race ... I can use several
different
statistically methods to determine how fast or how slow the race was ... this number of seconds is the race correction.
Updated definition of a Standard
race ... I have a library of "standard races" ... Usually, my
first choice is to compare the race being evaluated to the
same race from the previous years (I have already determined their
relative speed) ... Other standard races for comparison include any
races of similar overall quality ... I typically use multiple
races for the comparison.
(3) Whenever possible,
derive a separate race correction based solely on the
individual runners in the race ... I use my individual runner
databases to make statistical comparisons between their previous speed
ratings and the final times of current race ... This yields a second
race correction to compare to the standard race correction from above
... usually they are similar ... I derive a final race correction
based on both.
(4) Add or subtract the final race
correction number from the actual race times ... for example,
if the race correction number is +15 seconds (meaning the race was 15
seconds slower on average than the standard race), I then subtract 15
seconds from all the actual race times to get "corrected" race times ...
(as an example, if the actual race time was 20:00.0, the corrected race
time would be 19:45.0).
(5) I could just post the
corrected race times ... but, for comparison purposes, I find it easier to
convert the corrected race time to a simple number (a speed rating) ...
Speed Rating = (1560
- (actual race time in seconds) - (course correction factor)) / 3
where 1560 is the number of seconds in 26
minutes ... 26 minutes is used because it corresponds to zero in the
standard race ... the course correction factor is how fast or slow (in
seconds) a race course is in relation to a standard course
... the entire expression is divided by 3 because I decided one point equals three
seconds in this method.
Bottom-Line ... a speed rating is
just a corrected race time (that's all) ... it allows speed comparison
of any race to another race ... it's nothing more than that!
My Articles-Page
contains links to several articles that describe my speed ranking method
and speed ratings more fully.
One article to view:
"Early
Season Speed Ratings and a Brief Overview of Speed Ratings"
How Is It Possible? ...
Here's a common question I receive ... "How
is it possible to compare the speed of one race to another race,
especially when you don't know who the runners are??" ... perhaps an
analogy can help explain:
Consider school grades ... A, B, C, D, F
... the majority of students are "C" (average) students ... the ability of
average students in one school may be different from average students in
another single school (so you may not be able to compare them directly)
... But, if I take a large group of schools from central NY (small, medium
and large schools; good, mediocre and poor schools) and compare it to a
large group of schools from any other part of State, you'll find the
"average" students (in these large groups) are roughly equivalent in
ability.
Often, it is necessary to make the
following assumption for XC ... the ability (race speed) of the
"average" runners in a large invitational race is equal to the ability of
"average" runners in a different large invitational race ... I don't need
to know who the "average" runners are, only their ability as a group ...
If I can identify the "average" runners (and how fast they ran), then I
can approximate how fast one race is compared to another ... It's just
statistical sampling, but you really need the correct sample!
Some people use charts that compare one XC
course to another course (in terms of speed) ... I rarely use this method
... It may work OK sometimes, but it usually fails when the weather turns
bad ... The only race course where I use this method (if the statistical
methods can't be used) is the 2.5 mile course at Van Cortlandt Park - for
some reason, it never seems to vary more than 10 seconds despite the
weather!
