Runner Triathlete News [ return ] From Message Jean 5/22/2002 20:41:48 Subject: Results IP: Logged Message: I never look at results unless a SPECIFIC AGE is shown. RTN magazine often leaves out pertinent information. Many other magazines also use the same format and they are simply wasting time and space for readers who do not happen to know who these ageless runners are. Results are meaningless without ages. SPECIFIC AGES. What good is it if I see the top five or ten in a race and all I see is a name and time and I do not know any of these runners. Are they age 20 or age 70? Where do they live? I like to compare my personal time to runners of my age in other states and also the times of runners of all ages in my state's races to runner in surrounding states. This is one of the interesting and fun items about road racing. I have family members and friends who run and would like to compare their times to other runners in other states. Results should ALWAYS include first and last name, SPECIFIC AGE above all else, and the city and state from where the runner lives along with the time, of course. Age brackets are not enough. There is a big difference in the top age in a bracket and the bottom age. For example, there is a big difference in slowing between a 59-year-old runner and a 55-year-old runner. I see Column after column with names and times and nothing else. Please make an effort to include the pertinent information. RTN Editor   5/23/2002 08:52:11 RE: Results IP: Logged Message: Funny you should mention that. We send an e-mail requesting the SPECIFIC AGE of every competitor for every race that we contact. We do this because we also supply all of the Texas road race results that are held on USATF certified courses to TexStats, which compiles the Texas State Road Racing Records. The Texas State Road Racing Records are kept not only for age groups (such as 55-59 males) but for each and every individual age (i.e. 55 males, 56 males, 57 males, etc.). Without the specific ages of the competitors, there is absolutely no way for us to accurately assess any potential record-breaking performances. Many races ignore this request (as you have seen). We often hear "My race is too small for any records" -- which is a common fallacy. Many times state records are set in smaller events -- you never know when a 13-year-old girl or 62-year-old male will show up to YOUR race and set a new record. So to answer your question, the results that you see on our web site are pretty much what you get. We post the results in essentially the same format that we receive them from the event directors (we make a few cosmetic changes to make them look "pretty" on the web, but we don't remove the participants' ages ever). As I said, we always request the ages of each participant for every set of results that we receive. And we will continue to do this. Hopefully, at one point the race directors will get on board and this will no longer be a problem. In the meantime, though, I suggest that you make the event directors of the events in which you participate aware that you (and others) want them to include the participants' ages in the race results sent to us. Sometimes hearing the paying customers requesting something will make it happen. Lance Phegley Jean 5/23/2002 11:41:39 RE: Results IP: Logged Message: Was referring specifically to the results printed in your magazine and not necessarily the ones posted on this web site. Some of your web site results list specific age and city and state, but not always. Don't recall seeing very many specific ages or rarely any cities and states in the magazine. Your columns seem to be too narrow. This is intended to be constructive criticism and a way to improve your publication. It would be great if every race would provide complete results or complete results of the winners. This should be a condition of race sanction. All other governing bodies of every sport have specific requirements for a sanction. John   5/23/2002 11:46:03 RE: Results IP: Logged Message: Jean, many of us agree totally with your sentiments. Have you ever made the effort to encourage race directors to post reaults? I didn't think so! Try it sometime; you may be unpleasantly surprised. Then, of course, there are those who will not publish race results if the race director does not advertise with them. I make it a point to always encourage race directors to submit results -- that alone is a challenge. Perhaps if more would also encourage or better yet, offer to submit results themselves we would see more postings. Jean 5/23/2002 14:56:27 RE: Results IP: Logged Message: I fully understand that some races don't send complete results. My question is on the results that are posted on the web site WITH ages and city and state..why is it that these same results are printed in the magazine WITHOUT any of this information??? Are you saying that on the printed results the races never provide ages and city and state?? RTN Editor   5/23/2002 17:28:37 RE: Results IP: Logged Message: Now we delved into two separate issues: 1) what information events provide when they submit their results and 2) what information can be conveyed in a reasonable format within an acceptable amount of space. Let's take these one at a time: 1) Really, this has already been covered. It is our policy to post as much information as possible (i.e. all that is provided) regarding results on our web site. Many events provide more than just age (of which you are interested), but hometown, chip time, pace, and splits (just to name a few). So I think that we're all on the same page regarding that. And I would still recommend that you ask the event directors to submit the participants' ages on race day with their results. 2) This one is a little bit tougher. We make considerable effort to create a results section in each issue that reflects the readership that we have. We try to maintain a balance between geographical areas, sport types, etc. And while there are some magazines out there that ONLY print results for events that advertise with them, we don't do that. Just as a race must make sure that they take care of their sponsors, we must make sure that the events that advertise with us receive as much exposure as possible. While advertising in our magazines will ensure that your race results are printed, we still print many race results every year from events that don't spend a penny with us. Unlike a web site, there is a specific amount of space in each issue of a magazine (the number of column inches multiplied by the number of pages in that issue). The number of pages in each issue is determined in part by the amount of advertising in that issue (nearly every magazine/newspaper/etc. has some sort of formula or percentage that they try to maintain). Printing additional information (such as age, hometown, etc.) for race results in the magazine takes up more space. So adding finishers ages to the results means that each set of results will take up more space -- so there's less space for something else. Deciding on what would have to be left out would be very tough. My initial guess would be that there simply be fewer sets of results in the magazine (i.e. keep the same amount of space for results but print fewer results, since each one would take up more space). The other option would be to increase the price of the magazine (subscription prices, single copy price, advertising rates). This would allow us to print more pages each issue, possibly making up for the additional space that adding ages to the results would take up. The flip side to this is that some people have suggested that we don't print results in our magazines at all. Their logic is that many results are available on our web site, so we could use that space in the magazine for other topics, columns, etc. At any rate, we feel that many people still want to "see their name in print" so we continue to print race results in the magazine, even those that have already been on our web site. And at this point, I'm not certain that changing the format of the race results would be a good idea, since it would negatively affect the overall magazine in some way. I appreciate the ideas -- and I encourage anyone who has a suggestion for us to please let me know. I don't claim to know everything about publishing a magazine or web site. In fact, I've always claimed that you don't have to change very many letters to go from "editor" to "idiot." So I greatly appreciate your input. Lance Phegley Rebecca   5/24/2002 13:47:36 RE: Results IP: Logged Message: Great reply Lance!! I love the magazine and the website. Keep up the good work! P 1

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