2018 Fall Runner Rankings Lots of Rain; Lots of Mystery Distance Races

2018 Fall Runner Rankings Lots of Rain; Lots of Mystery Distance Races (September 8, 2018 – November 11, 2018) Maryland RRCA State Championship Series 50 Plus Club Best of 2015 Best of 2016 Best of 2017 Best of 2018 By James Moreland The Regional Runner Rankings is looking for more sponsors and contributors. We want to acknowledge the help, support, and financial contributions from the Friends of the Rankings: • Potomac River Running • Patricia Kelbaugh Dance Studio • Michael Mason of Horizon Landscape, established in 1969 in Silver Spring, serves Montgomery, Prince George's, and Howard counties. Horizon provides specialized gardening, clearing, forest improvement and landscaping services throughout the year. If you need assistance with your property, contact us online or at (301) 421-1800 and we will send you a landscape gardening expert to help create or maintain your outdoor paradise. • Alice Franks • Dan Devlin • Jerry Browne • Tommy Mason • Elena Mason • Fredericksburg Area Running Club • Jim Noone • RELS Landscaping Supply • Rachel Mason • TLC Daily Money Mentor, LLC ***************** With a B.S. & M.S. in Accounting Meryl Schaffer brought TLC Daily Money Mentor, LLC to fruition. The summit point, being the need to nurture individuals, families, senior citizens, and small businesses. Add her integrity, understanding, and compassion, there is another layer of protection from fraudulent activity and peace of mind that better financial decisions are being made. ***************** RELS Landscaping Supply. We are proud to serve central Maryland, carrying landscaping materials such as mulch, compost, and topsoil for lawns and gardens, as well as trees, flowers, and shrubs. We also carry hardscape products including concrete pavers, boulders, flagstone, and natural wall stone. We have locations in Frederick, MD, Silver Spring, MD and Martinsburg, WV. ***************** Patricia Kelbaugh Dance Studio 1976-2019 • Ballet • Tap • Jazz • Lyrical • Pointe Ages 3 to Adult All Levels: Beginner to Advanced 301-840-1849 E-mail: [email protected] www.pkdances.com 2 Professional Drive, Suites 218/219, Gaithersburg, MD 20879 Member of Dance Masters of America, Inc. Certified by test to teach, B.S. Degree A lot of races had trouble with distances. More than a few have the same problem every year but do not seem to care. Considering the hundreds and hundreds of races the numbers are small but it hurts a bit to have a great race and find that your time means nothing. Many races still have not figured out net timing versus official time so there is a lot of fake news with times. We have had one of the rainiest years ever and it definitely affected race times. Still, in general race times seem to get less competitive every year. Major races drooped to forty- seven races. Total race times settled back down from last year by 8 percent to 191,110. Total races almost reached 400 again with 389 and there were one hundred and fifty-four additional races with no qualifiers, totally more than 13,800 runners. Races come and go with close to a hundred races disappearing from 2017. The Across the Bay 10K, even with its staged multi starts, (making it really many smaller races combined together), is starting to lose ground, dropping nearly 3,000 runners to 16,749 participants. It joins the Marine Corps Marathon and the Army 10 Miler as one of the big dogs among the seven races with more than 5,000 finishers. Army remained virtually unchanged with 24,649 to lead the way. But when you count Marine Corps Marathon growing to 20,699 and their 10K with a solid 6,434, the Corps comes out on top with 27,133. Also, the Baltimore Running Festival’s three events added 1,000 runners, up this year to 15,517 as three of the top fourteen races with more than 2,000 finishers. The three Richmond events on the final weekend combined for 14,526, all with more than 2,500 finishers. The Richmond races all had more than 3 percent ranked runners, while the three biggest races failed to get more than .9 percent ranked runners. This season a mere five races had 100 ranked qualifiers, though sixteen races had fifty or more ranked runners. The American Family Fitness Half Marathon took the ranked runners title from the Army 10 Miler for the second year in a row, 257 to 223 and the times at Army were again unremarkable. The Anthem Richmond Marathon dropped slightly to 137 ranked qualifiers but stayed ahead of Marine Corps with its 122 qualifiers as well as holding a commanding lead over the Baltimore marathon with just 41 such runners. The third largest race, Across the Bay 10K, was fourth in qualifiers with 126. Baltimore did outkick the Parks for the second biggest half, 90 to 77 in ranked runners. The five armed forces races, that includes the third largest half marathon, the Navy-Air Force Half Marathon, and the second largest 5M, the Navy 5M, combined for 57,522 runners and 489 ranked times. Of the thirty-six 10Ks, just six had more than 500 finishers. The two biggest 10Ks, Marine Corps and Across the Bay, were the least competitive even compared to hilly cross country 10Ks. Of the races with more than 5 percent ranked only five had more than 200 racers. Of these, the rolling Rockville 10K led with 35, while the flat Run for the Parks 10K had 33 and the largely downhill Clarendon Day 10K a mere 26. The Veterans Day 10K, run the same spot as Run for the Parks was the fourth largest race and nearly five times as large, had slightly more than twice as many ranked runners with 75. The Anthem Wicked 10K was the third largest, twice the size as Veterans but with just 54 ranked runners. Marine Corps with 50 percent more runners had five fewer ranked runners. The Navy 5 Mile, with 1,911 racers, made a small gain from last year though it surged again to thirty-six ranked runners for second among the 5 milers and had 25 percent of all the racers of the seventeen such races run. The HCA 8K in Richmond easily led the way with 40 percent of the 7,400 5-mile racers and a third of the ranked runners. Downs Park 5M was short this year by who knows how much, halting its streak of competitive times raced. Twenty-eight races had more than a thousand finishers. Eight of these were 5Ks with the Community Bridges 5K leading the way with eighty-one ranked runners, followed by the swift Clarendon 5K at sixty-one, and the Baltimore United Way 5K with fifty-three. The Baltimore race was easily the largest 5K race with 5,595 finishers. Clarendon was the smallest at 1,076. The 8K was the most competitive distance with four percent ranked of seventeen races and 7,433 finishers. The 10M was 1.33% of their 26,619 finishers. Then came the 280 5K races; maintaining 2.25% while quantity dropped back down to 13 percent to 2016 levels with 61,536 finishers. Though the thirty-six 10Ks rose to 1.69%, they dropped severely by 20 percent to 34,450 finishers. The half marathon closely matched the average of all the races (2.0%) with 2.22% of their 49,262 runners (a 60% increase) in thirty-seven races (ten more added). The toughest distance, the marathon, with seven races remained the same with 1.14% of their 27,644. Of the race finishers who ran at least one qualifying time, both sexes stayed very similar to last year. Women still topped the men by 45 percent with 1,710 to 1,176 different finishers. In total, there were 296 ranked men and 392 ranked women. Additionally, 88 runners qualified for the Elite Division this season, nearly 75 percent of 2017. The largest age groups are the seniors, women 65-69 with fifty-eight (the largest division), 60-64 with forty-eight, and grandmasters, 50-54 and 55-59 with thirty-nine. For the men, 60-64 with forty was easiest the largest division. In total ranked times, women led easily, steady still with, 2,347 to 1,722. Women had more ranked runners in every division from Open through 70-74 From and 75 and older, men led the way. *** New for the Runner Rankings we are posting in red all the runners with National Class times (80%) of the top-rated time for each division based on their best time in 10K equivalence. The times are based on the youngest in each division except for the 19 and younger which is for the strongest time. There will be some runners who are up to the 80% level by being on the older side of the 5- year division that get missed. However, in this manner, everyone in red will be at least 80%. *** For this period, all the women’s divisions save three had at least one National Class racer ranked, a total of 45. In the Open division, there were 21 though eight double dipped from other groups. The men were even more impressive with 58 National Class racers, though there were six age groups that had none. In the Open division, there were 33 though four double dipped from other groups. In the “you got to play to win” category, i.e. you only ran one event an impressive additional 26 men and 17 women ran a National Class race. Below is the 10K equivalent time you need to race to get a National Class ranking. Age Men Age Women Group 10K= Group 10K= 19 00:33:24 19 00:38:01 20 00:33:24 20 00:37:55 35 00:33:42 35 00:38:11 40 00:34:39 40 00:39:03 45 00:36:02 45 00:40:34 50 00:37:33 50 00:42:50 55 00:39:12 55 00:45:33 60 00:41:00 60 00:48:36 65 00:42:58 65 00:52:08 70 00:45:11 70 00:56:10 75 00:48:27 75 01:00:55 80 00:53:37 80 01:06:45 85 01:01:52 85 01:16:40 90 01:15:50 90 01:35:26 95 01:42:57 95 02:17:03 Runners who win the race or win their division in a race earn an asterisk beside their name.

Load more