2025 Club Championship Rules

Below are the 2025 rules.

1. The championship will consist of 14 races we’ll aim for 1 per month plus 2x bonus races

2. Your fastest 3 races classified as ‘off-road’, fastest 3 classified as ‘road’ and fastest one classified as ‘fell’ will count towards your final score. You may do more, but only the fastest 7 as listed before will count.

3. You must wear your Chepstow Harriers race vest/t-shirt - though you can wear extra layers if you’re cold.

4. For the division race, you must submit your fastest 5K time by 5th January 2025. Any false representation will likely result in you being publicly humiliated and then banned from the divisional race. Do not bring this shame on yourself.

5. Virtual marathon - you must enter an official virtual marathon and use their official timing app. You will need to provide a link to your time once completed. You may walk, run, shuffle, line dance, plod, hop, skip or jump - it doesn’t matter - as long as it involves two feet on the ground, repeatedly and simultaneously. Don’t cheat and ride/scooter/whatever - you’ll only be cheating yourself and the club. Same rules about humiliation apply as above.

6. We will look to announce races as early as possible to ensure all members can plan their year accordingly. Please bear with us though, as of 22 December many races we are looking at have still not confirmed their dates for 2025 - so we a little stuck. As soon as they are out, we will let you know.

7. Prizes:

·        There will be prizes for the top 3 female and male overall, the top 3 age graded again in both female and male.

·        The winner, and runner up in each division will receive a prize.

·        You will get a memento for doing any 7 of the championship races.

8. The decision of the championship coordinators is final.

·        Any grievances will be settled by a duel; likely to involve running up a big hill, fast whilst wearing a pair of Shari’s legging (not the good/new ones).

If you don’t like our races etc, that’s absolutely fine we won’t be able to please everyone all of the time, no matter how hard we try. We will be asking for race feedback midway through the year so that will be your chance to have your say. Please remember though this is our first year and we’re trying new things and aiming to be more inclusive. If you’re convinced you can do a better job, then we invite you to put yourself forward in 2026 😀. 

There are two types of Club Championship:

1. The Open Championship

2. The Age Graded Championship

What is an 'Open Championship'

This is a first past the post system where you get recognition for the position you achieved in the race regardless of age. 1st Chepstow Harrier back gets 100 points, 2nd gets 99 points, 3rd 98 points etc. This system tends favour younger members of the club.

What is ‘age-grading’?

Age grading is a way to adjust an athlete's performance according to age. The age-grading tables were developed by the World Master Association (WMA) - the world governing body for track and long distance running for veteran athletes. The tables work by recording the world record performance for each age at each distance, for men and women. Where necessary, the world record performances are estimated. The time you achieve in a race is then expressed as a percentage of the world record. The higher the percentage – the closer you are to the world record.

Click here to go to the WMA Age grading calculator: Calculator

Why have an ‘age-graded Championship?

• Age grading analyses your true performance - since it's based on time and not your club position in the race. Eg: If you were 2nd placed club member in a race,  and say just 2 seconds behind 1st place person and 3 mins in front of 3rd placed club member, you would get 99 points in the standard or 'open' championship - there is no reward for being so close to winning, and being so far in front of 3rd. In the age graded championship your percentage or age adjusted time is based on your time so the narrowness of defeat  from 1st is less marked.  You are rewarded for keeping it close and performing at your best. 

• Age grading can be used to compare performances across different ages - so the performance in an event of a 75 year old can be compared to that of 35 year old. The age-adjusted time is particularly useful for this purpose. Age graded scores 'level the playing field'. 

• It does away with the need for separate age categories and does not mean that the younger athletes in an age category will have an advantage. E.g. A competitor aged 49 in the Male Vet 40 category is often at a disadvantage when competing against a 41 year old.

•  As you get older you are still able to try and improve your performance every year - rather than working to improve your time you just try to increase your percentage/age adjusted time.

• Older members are able to compete against younger members. This is a particularly important advantage with a small club such as ours, since members will not just be able to compete against others of similar age (if indeed there are any in their age category) but with everyone within the club

• You can identify your best ever performance in your running career.

• It highlights those members of the club who are 'good for age' and achieve great times considering their age.  

• You can set goals and targets for future events and years - older athletes can try to better their age adjusted time rather than just be content with slowing actual times for races as they age. 

• Our club used to have only an age graded championship at one point - the open was introduced to cater for younger members who were not scoring well in the age adjusted championship
  
  

Championship guidelines for co-ordinators resulting from 'mini-review' in 2023