Results from Winchcombe confirmed, it seemed to me, that as others had already argued, the ‘efficiency’ rating was somewhat biased against the fitter runners, who have to cover relatively more ground than the less fit if they aim to get all controls. So I have spent quite a bit of time trying to come up with another ‘handicap’, and have fallen back on the age old measure of age related relative speed ratios. So now we have three measures of achievement in our MapRun races – overall score, ‘efficiency’ which is based on points earned per kilometre run, and age related handicap.
The efficiency measure is the points you score per km run relative to average points/km for all runners in the event. I still feel this is a reasonable measure of both route planning and distance judgement, but is somewhat dependent on the shape of the overall course.
Your age related score is your nett score adjusted by an age factor which is the average of the 5km and 10km road running speed factors as defined for 2023 by World Masters Athletics. As a typical average distance run in a MapRun event is around 8km this seemed the most appropriate measure. However, it uses your YOB as specified in your MapRun App, so if you are economic with the truth there, this measure will be fairly meaningless! Your handicap shows against your name in the results, and if you want to know more about the WMA measures, you see all the detail here.
All this means loads of statistics to publish for each event, so henceforth, for each MapRun league race, you will see the basic MapRun results, with tracks, a sortable table which conveniently shows all three performance measures alongside one another, and the then current Standings tables for each scoring scheme. The sortable table will only be current until the next MapRun race, when it will be replaced by the results for that race and will disappear from the results of the previous race.
Have a look at the Winchcombe results here to see what’s available, and how you are doing.