The 2024 Sprint Series will consist of five meets, with the final meet of the series being the Championship Final. Dates and locations of the meets are:
8/21: Earthquake Park
8/28: Bartlett
9/4: UAA
9/11: Kincaid
9/25: CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL at Ruth Arcand
Each meet will have two courses set, a short course and a long course. Anyone wishing to compete for a championship must run the long courses, must compete in at least two of the four meets prior to the Championship Final, and must compete in the pursuit race of the Championship Final, not during the “open to any racers” period of the Final. To be eligible for a Championship, competitors must race alone, without a partner in at least two of the Sprint Races before the Final, and in the Final.
Overall champions and places will be named for both men and women, and participants will compete to be age group champions in the following age categories for both men and women.
- Under 18
- 18-29
- 30-39
- 40-49
- 50-59
- 60-69
- 70 and up
Age group and overall champions will be decided in the Sprint Final. To compete for overall or age group awards a participant must compete in at least two of the four meets of the series prior to the Championship Final. The Sprint Final will be run in pursuit format, with the competitor having the best two performances in the four previous meets going out first (the “hare”), and other competitors starting at times after the hare based on their best two performances in the four previous meets.
To determine a competitor’s two best performances in the previous meets, his or her time in each of the meets will be compared to the Best Possible Time of each meet. The Best Possible Time will be calculated by using the fastest split time among competitors for each leg of the course. The Best Possible Time of a meet will be assigned a time of 0 seconds and the participant will be assigned the time in seconds that they finished after the Best Possible Time. For example, say, the Best Possible time is 32:05 or 1925 seconds, and the participant’s time is 43:36 or 2616 seconds. The Best Possible Time will be assigned a Sprint Series Time (SST) of 0 and the participant’s SST would be 2616 less 1925 or 691. This time will then be multiplied by the normalizing ratio for that meet to account for the varying difficulty of the four different meets.
The normalizing ratio for each meet will be calculated by multiplying the Best Possible Time of each meet by the average of the Best Possible Times of the five meets. For example, say the Best Possible Times of the four meets are: Meet A: 32:00 (1920 seconds), Meet B: 43:49 (2629 seconds), Meet C: 52:28 (3148 seconds), & Meet D: 28:17 (1697 seconds). The average of these times is 2348.5 seconds, and the normalizing ratios are: Meet A: 0.818, Meet B: 1.119, Meet C: 1.340, & Meet D: 0.723.
Then the two lowest normalized Sprint Series Times for each competitor will be averaged, with the competitor having the lowest normalized average being the “hare”, who will start first in the Championship Final at clock time 0. Each competitor’s time will then start at the clock time that is the difference between the average of the two best normalized times for the “hare” and the average of the two best normalized times of the competitor. For example, if the two best normalized times of the hare are 1937 seconds and 2256 seconds and my two best normalized times are 2356 and 2892, then I would start 527 seconds, or 8 minutes, 47 seconds, after the “hare”. So, if the “hare” started at 6:00 pm, I would start at 6:08:47.
Go fast, with a lucky rabbit’s foot in your pocket!