A need for clubs?
| Author | Date | Message |
|---|---|---|
| Conor Murphy | May 13 2017, 5:38am | Was over at the Stuc a Chroin 5000 last weekend, part of the British Fell Running Championships. Brutally tough course, like running up a ladder for much of the 1,500m ascent. But one thing that struck me was the sheer number of clubs over there, and in particular clubs that seemed dedicated to mountain/trail running...I almost felt left out by being around with no club affiliation, it added so much colour and I suspect the rivalry was partially linked to the quality of athletes. Obviously that cannot be replicated here that easily, given the number of runners. But could or should IMRA look at promoting clubs and getting a bit of inter club rivalry going? It would also increase competition and drive, someone who may never win a race might say "but I could be one of the top 5 from the Kerry Mountain Running Club". The club scene may well exist in Leinster, but races I've run there seem primarily based on individual effort. I see few singlets in Munster and know of few clubs that are even affiliated with mountain running, I guess Balboa and Mourneabbey are exceptions. |
| Rene Borg | May 21 2017, 5:37pm | there was a club competition in the Leinster League and later (less formally - no prizes) in the Winter League from before 2006 and until a few years ago. I used to do the results up in a manual Excel sheet and the club results basically died during a period where I didn't have the time to continue compiling them. The competition was reasonable well attended in the Leinster League on the men's side but with very few teams able to get points on the board in the women's. The Winter League was likewise a small affair. Rules were 3 first runners across the line to score and 5 best team results from the Leinster League's 13 results. Unlike what you would have experienced over there there was a good few clubs that were not formal or were sporting clubs belonging to other sports. There was also slightly less of a culture of wearing the club singlet for all those races although this practice varied a lot by club or by the rivalries existing at the time. When the website was done over in 2008, we compiled a long list of requirements and one was to create automatic club championship calculation and club pages similar to what the Scottish Hill Running website has. Unfortunately, other requirements were more critical so those changes didn't make it in. Gerry Brady also used to do a National Inter-Clubs and National Inter-Counties as part of European and World Trials but attendances were too low for it to really take off. |
| Brian Leddin | May 22 2017, 12:46pm | I guess if there's a club league set up then maybe you'd find clubs forming over time. I'm unaffiliated and while not good enough to feature in the top few places of any race I wouldn't mind having a club to run for. There's plenty of activity down in Limerick City (with Moreabbey in the county) and I could see there being interest there. Something to think about alright! |
| Rene Borg | Jun 24 2017, 8:45am | Here's a link to the Leinster League club standings as they would be in the official scoring as it looked before they were discontinued. With new women's scoring (best of 2): https://www.dropbox.com/s/7x10wwf9aewj1g3/LLOverall2017%20new%20womens%20scoring.pdf?dl=0 With old women's scoring (best of 3): https://www.dropbox.com/s/hyzxx9vy02xj7hx/LLOverall2017%20old%20womens%20scoring.pdf?dl=0 The scoring system precedes my own time in IMRA except for one later amendment. Teams score 'best of 5' instead of the 'best of 7' for individuals and the three first runners across the line accummulate the score. It is not the overall position that counts but the gender position - so 1st woman scores '1' for her female team and not her overall. This change was made primarily to give the female teams a proper score and eliminate 'males from their equation' but for 'cleanliness' was also implemented for the men's score (so if a runner finishes 11th and the first female finishes 10th, then the runner in 11th has a score of 10 for his club). I have added in two different female calculations here - one based on the old '3 to score' and a new proposed '2 to score'. The men's competition always had good on the men's side but with few or no female teams being able to create scores with 3 finishers. I therefore put together a version with best of 2 which gives a more vibrant competition. the main issue with doing the results is data clean-up as there are spelling errors in some team names and other clubs go by multiple names (so for instance Gap Trail Runnres show up with that name and as GTR and 'The Gap Trail Runners' creating a manual step of cleaning up the names before each scoring which is otherwise quick once the Excel is setup). A long-term solution to the latter would be to create a cleaned up table of current clubs and have the club setting for runners be a drop-down. If a new club needs to be added the webmaster should be asked to add it to the list and that way it will 'keep it clean'. In the absence of an automated calculation the website doing this requires: - An Excel sheet template set up in the right format - Importing the results of each race into Excel and cleaning the club names - Creating a Pivot Table (preset in my template) to quickly calculate 'best of 3' scores - Manually entering the numbers into the formatted template - Exporting the results into PDF and uploading them to Dropbox Once the template is setup it does not take a million years but automation is obviously better. For now - feel free to have a look and welcome a discussion about whether people feel it's worth the time bringing it back. |
| Conor Murphy | Jan 18 2018, 2:06pm | New AC in Beara and telling all on the West Cork Trail Runners page if they're around that part of the country, and not affiliated, to sign up. Would be nice to have an AC with a lean towards trails and mountains... |
