2010 New Year's Day Run in honor of Harry Murphy

2010 New Year's Day Run in honor of Harry Murphy

By Ralph Yazzo

The 2010 Harry's Handicap was really a result of the 2009 Harry's Handicapwhere Tony Watson, Helen Dole and I started last and finished last and did not see anyone on the course.  This was my fault. The goal of the handicap is people start at different times and finish together.  This year there was more interaction between the runners and that's the goal of all races but especially the handicap.  We really should have input from the runner, but we also have to look at the runner results data and then make a decision.  Sometimes, it works and sometimes, it doesn't.  For example, Mark Crowther worked out because he ran almost his predicted pace (faster than his voted pace) and passed a lot of runners.  Some did not work out, but that's where the voting part has to be enhanced to allow the runner to explain their voted pace.  If you think about it, if a runner's data shows an average pace of 7:30 min/mile pace and the fastest pace is 7 min/mile and they vote that they will run a 9 min/mile in the race.  It's not fair to the other runners to put them in with a 9 min/mile pace because we know they can run faster.  That's where the explanation part of the voting form comes in.

This year we did everything, looked at the race data, got input from the runners, but it would be good if we had a group to help with this.

But in the end, it's just a fun race and we all do the best we can.

Many thanks to everyone that came out for an interesting run. Here are the results by Clock Time and Net Time and Pace - predicted vs. actual and Video