Changes In LDR
This past Wednesday, the USATF New Jersey Long Distance Running committee held their “rules” meeting. It isn’t actually called that, but a routine has been established that if a rule needs to be made as pertains to the conduct of championships or the various grand prix, it will be voted on at the February meeting. The process begins in September when possible rule changes are proposed and discussed. If the committee feels that the proposal has merit it is approved for submission at the February meeting. Over the years since the first grand prix, now known by its sponsors’ name of New Balance Grand Prix, or NBGP, was established in 1992, several changes have been made, and sometimes the February meeting is filled with intense debate prior to the voting. From all accounts this past Wednesday’s meeting was quite sedate with only one proposal on the agenda. As runners have aged, the number of men in the 60 through 69 divisions has increased. The proposal would have allowed the M60 teams to declare six men, rather than five, and four of the six would score, not three. Had the time come for such a move? The consensus was that it had not and the proposal was not approved. |
A vexing problem in the individual grand prix was what to do, and how to handle the runner who changes age divisions during the year. Currently all runners are considered the age that they are on January 1 of the competitive year. If they will age up during the year into a new age division, they must notify the association office prior to January 1 that they do not want to be scored in any race they enter until after their birthday has arrived. The trouble with that is that some runners miss the deadline or the information entirely. A runner, who comes into the association mid year after celebrating that important birthday, automatically gets in the new age group by default. Isn’t that unfair? Should there be some rule that manages that?
It seemed like there were too many rules for a simple problem. After a bit of discussion the group looked at the problem in a different way, and voile, a solution was found. What if every competitor is judged to be the age he or she is at the end of the year, on December 31st, rather than their age at the beginning of the year? Every aging up runner will be in the new age group from the beginning. Problems solved. This change will not be implemented in 2010, but could be in 2011.
One note on this though. This only applies to the grand prix. Runners will always compete in the age division for their age on race day.
The two sub grand prix, Mini One, and Mini Two, have been tweaked more than once since their inception. This past year the number of races that had to be completed for Mini One was seven out of nine possible, and five of seven possible in Mini Two. After this one year of testing, the committee is evaluating if the standards are now set too low.
When I caught up with Division Chair Ed Neighbour of Sparta, he had a different take on it.
“People who won those categories, with maybe one exception, made all those races,” said Neighbour. “It just lets people be listed at the end of the year,” he said.
The current system drops those who have not completed the seven out of nine in Mini One and five out of seven in Mini Two from the year end listing.
“There are more people listed. I don’t see the harm in staying the way it is,” said Neighbour.
Team captains may cheer another change that is being made at championships. Currently the team declarations must be submitted in person 30 minutes prior to the start of the race if they have not been submitted electronically the day before. Changes could be made up to fifteen minutes before the start.
The problem with such leeway is that many of the committee members are also running in the race and the fifteen minute rule left them with scant time to get ready to race. By the same token, the team captains had the same problem. You could often see them scanning the crowd desperately searching for the face of some tardy post registering team members.
And that is actually the real problem. If all the team racers would pre-enter, the captains could scan the list on-line and have their teams made up the day before and be done with it. It’s a frustrating problem for nearly all of the clubs despite their entreaties to their runners to pre-register.
It will be interesting to see what happens at the Clinton Country Run 15K championship on April 24, the first championship of the season.
Originally published by the DAILY RECORD of Morris County, New Jersey on February 21, 2010
Copyright, Madeline Bost, 2010