Author Topic: Everything you ever wanted to know about starting wave assignments....  (Read 28946 times)

Tim Schumacher

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Re: Everything you ever wanted to know about starting wave assignments....
« Reply #15 on: August 05, 2015, 03:28:10 PM »
I hope those pulling at Barr and A-Frame are well aware of this because there will potentially be hundreds of people with compliant chip times easily capable of finishing under a 6:30 chip time who will could be 15 min over the raw clock cutoffs.

The "clock" for those runners in the last wave will be starting at 7:22, not 7:00. We are not that cruel. :-)
Great.  Thanks, John.

Mitch Walma

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Re: Everything you ever wanted to know about starting wave assignments....
« Reply #16 on: August 05, 2015, 07:29:55 PM »
A-Frame folks will know your start time based on your bib number. It's pretty simple math....

Vomastic

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Re: Everything you ever wanted to know about starting wave assignments....
« Reply #17 on: August 05, 2015, 08:33:49 PM »
If you look at last years results, there were a few runners that did not make the 4:15 cutoff at AF, but managed to finish below the 6:30 cutoff at the top.

John Garner

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Re: Everything you ever wanted to know about starting wave assignments....
« Reply #18 on: August 06, 2015, 09:26:51 AM »
If you look at last years results, there were a few runners that did not make the 4:15 cutoff at AF, but managed to finish below the 6:30 cutoff at the top.

One thing to keep in mind is that the cutoff folks are at the aid station, the timing split is two (or so) switchbacks above at the A-Frame Sign. A number of folks will get past the aid station and then take a break before continuing upward. 

This is why I waited until _after_ the A-Frame aid station to stop and put on my rain pants back in '08. I figured that with the weather as bad as it was they could call the race at any time and wanted to get above the last cutoff. The rough math indicates that I made it past the aid station by a few minutes. :-)

Vomastic

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Re: Everything you ever wanted to know about starting wave assignments....
« Reply #19 on: August 10, 2015, 02:07:45 PM »
Last year as I was getting my water bottle filled at A-Frame, a runner next to me commented, "I'm really glad to make the cutoff at A-Frame."  Another volunteer said, this is not the cutoff, the cutoff is at the timing mats, you still have a ways to go.  Then another volunteer said quite loudly so everyone could hear, this aid station is not the cutoff, the cutoff is at the timing mats.

khgfun

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Re: Everything you ever wanted to know about starting wave assignments....
« Reply #20 on: August 11, 2015, 06:24:31 PM »
That was my experience as well. In fact in 2013 the aid station folks at the lower level at A-frame passed me thru but I didn't make it to the mats in time. I didn't know they weren't at the same place.  Also I am a little confused now about the wave starts and cut-off times. The info packet states "hard" clock times not x hours from start based on chip time. Basically based on that I will have 20+ minutes less time to make the cutoffs than those starting well in advance of me.  Can you clarify?

Vomastic

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Re: Everything you ever wanted to know about starting wave assignments....
« Reply #21 on: August 11, 2015, 08:55:33 PM »
The timing mats were first introduced at A-Frame in 2012.  Before that the Aid station at A-Frame was the cutoff.  This is may be the cause of some confusion.

admin

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Re: Everything you ever wanted to know about starting wave assignments....
« Reply #22 on: August 11, 2015, 09:48:18 PM »
Here is the thing: the folks enforcing the cutoff have no way of knowing exactly when you started. You could have bib # 201 and start at 7:22 with the last wave to run with a friend. With a graduated system, one would get stopped and the other allowed to continue on.

So for this year, to keep it as simple as possible, all of the the on-course cutoffs are based on the old 7:30 start times. Oddly enough, this gives everybody an 8+ minute advantage from a cutoff perspective when compared to runners last year. We basically relaxed the cutoff times.

Ultimately, if you are near the cutoffs, you are in serious trouble of missing the one that is always enforced evenly for everybody: The finish line. At the end of the day, the timing crew knows when you started. If your final chip time is over 6:30:00, you will get a DNF-OCO no matter what.

Tim Schumacher

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Re: Everything you ever wanted to know about starting wave assignments....
« Reply #23 on: August 11, 2015, 10:13:54 PM »
Absolutely the best solution. Keep it simple for participants and volunteers.

Neil Nicholson

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Hi John--the mathematician in me is curious how you came up with the prediction equations.  I'm considering incorporating them into my course on math modeling (a non-majors 1st-year college course titled "Real World Problems & Math Modeling Solutions.").  Absolutely no rush on a reply--you've got plenty on your plate over the next few weeks.

Thanks for keeping this board running smoothly.

pmarasov

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I don't want to muddy things more - but the "cutoff" times at Barr and A-Frame are NOT, as I understand it, based on a runner's start time, but a raw clock time that starts at 7:30.  Since the last wave (which I'm in) starts around 7:21-7:22, there's still almost an 8 minute buffer for those cutoffs.  I'm a big fan of the staggered start.  Being at the back of the pack, and more of a hiker than a runner, in prior years I spent a significant amount of time behind folks who started out fast and slowed down and even took breaks on the "w's". 

Only the finish would be figured on a runners start time using chip time. Last year, a few runners made it to finish with a chip time over 6:30, got a medal, but did get a DQ once their chip time showed they didn't make the 6:30 cutoff. 


John Garner

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Re: Everything you ever wanted to know about starting wave assignments....
« Reply #26 on: August 02, 2016, 12:25:50 PM »
Hi John--the mathematician in me is curious how you came up with the prediction equations.  I'm considering incorporating them into my course on math modeling (a non-majors 1st-year college course titled "Real World Problems & Math Modeling Solutions.").  Absolutely no rush on a reply--you've got plenty on your plate over the next few weeks.

Thanks for keeping this board running smoothly.

The process was relatively easy and simple in theory but ended up being a bit time consuming. I had the registration database with all of the data going back several years. I also had the results database.

With that in hand, I was able to take the 2014 results and build up a <qualification time> -->  actual table. The folks who used a full marathon or half marathon  as their qualifier were rather straightforward. The recent veterans were a bit harder, as I had to lookup their times from 3, 2, and 1 year prior (and toss the slower of the two in any given year for doublers) and produce 3 tables. For the garden of the gods qualifier, I used the TCR series result to get a decent number of datapoints vs just using the folks who used the Garden as their qualifier.

Once I had the qual -> actual times for each qualifier, I just pulled it all into excel and plotted a simple x/y chart for each qualifier. Then I had it compute a regression line (2nd degree polynomial usually looked best). It is not a perfect solution, as the raw data often looked like a shotgun blast. As a result, the  R^2 values in the 0.6 (half marathon times) to 0.7 (peak vets) range.

Vola, runner qualification time ranking. (Just don't let a real statistician find out what I did, they would probably cringe. :-) )