Filling Out A Race Application 101
By Steve Moland
Reprinted from the Striding Along
- the Newsletter of the Gate City Striders
(with permission and slight modifications)
Here are the rules for filling out race apps:
#1 - Always write PR Moose Milers somewhere on the application, even if there is no specific place to write it.
#2 - If there doesn't seem to be an area on the race application to write
your club affiliation and/or
the race literature doesn't mention team scoring, so you figure it is not
needed -- see rule #1.
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There are many reasons your club would like you to remember to do this. There
have been a surprising number
of races where the PR Moose Milers didn't have all of its runners known (thus
losing out on
team titles, trophies, ca$h prizes, etc.).
See the 2003 Bedford Rotary 12K, Medical Center 6K, Yankee Homecoming 10
Miler, Norwood Thanksgiving Day 4 Miler,
and the Millennium Mile races for 5 examples where we lost out on team prizes!!!.
Some of the reasons to list your club are:
· Winning teams get prizes, money, trophies, medals, race series points, brownie points, and recognition.
· Quite often middle to back-of-the-pack runners can score points for their
team, but only if that runner puts down their team affiliation.
(See note A1 below if you don't believe YOU make a difference)
· Extracting race participation data for the press, our website, and our
newsletter is a messy, detailed job.
We will thank you for putting your club name on the application.
· Your teammates may be on a winning team at a race because you showed up
and put your club affiliation on the race application.
You might enjoy that feeling also.
Now remember rule #1!
Your teammates are depending on you! We are the PR Moose Milers Racing Team. USATF Club #235.
Note A1:
The difference between a Nashua PAL team placing 2nd or 3rd in a National
Champion-ship race was decided by the
104th runner out of a field of 230 runners in Georgia in 2000. The Nashua
runner got spiked and tripped at the start
and was the last runner away from the starting line. However, that Nashua
runner battled back and passed just ONE
more runner at the finish line relegating the unlucky 105th runner as the
last scorer on the 3rd place team. The Nashua
runner had every excuse to bag the run, but didn't! Rare occurrence? Not really
- If you watch almost any team race
series you will see that, yes, you do need some fast runners, but the winning
point difference for a team is very often
the middle to the back of pack runners who hang just a bit tougher than the
other guy.
Note A2:
The 2004 New Bedford Half Marathon was an excellent example of what happens when you forget to put down the team name on your race apps: 5 of our teams would have moved up in the standings if every PR Moose Miler had put their team name on their race apps. Total amount of prize money lost: $275!!!