Good, solid logic that highlights a flaw in the current grading system, though I can't imagine it going down well with some of parkrun's more vocal advocates who see any competitive element as archaic and needing to die out. Any action by parkrun to correct it would be a tacit admission that "rank still matters" when it's a mentality they want to move away from. Records? No such thing! Positions? You're all number one! Gender grading? What's gender!
Think you're right about it not going down well with some vocal parkrun advocates! 🙂 If the data sets used to do the calculations are not kept up to date then the flaw will very likely get worse over time.
Great video. I have just subscribed. It's always good to watch other running UA-camrs. Regarding age grading, you are absolutely spot on. And if anything I would say men age quicker than women so they have this completely the wrong way round. But unfortunately as with most things in the modern world, things tend to favour women. Can you imagine the uproar if they changed the age grading so it reduced the grades of women . There would be protests at every parkrun, women burning their sports bras 😂. I will check out some more of your videos.
Such a shame that parkrun have now taken down all the gender and age records. They were part of the fun. The answer to the problem was not this, but a simple open category for those that have issues with their birth gender.
It's the nature of the datasets used. We use the world records for every age to calculate it. Women have not been allowed to run competitively for that long. So as the first generation of women who were running professionally age, the age grade records will drop for women and it will gradually get to a more similar percentage. We just need to be patient and update the tables regularly. I wouldn't compare both genders here, just look at how well you are doing compared to the best of your age. Due to the different datasets available for both, comparisons don't really make sense.
To summarize what I just said: the age grade records are not doing what they are advertised to do. You can't really compare both genders unless the conditions for the capture of both datasets are comparable, i.e. having (former) pro athletes in there. So we'll have to wait until the first pro women have reached the oldest age groups. And even then I would still have reservations whether it's fair to compare two datasets of very different sizes. So I would say that the WAVA grading as they use it would only be useful within your own gender. I like your breakdown of the performance gap across distances. I find it interesting, that it drops below 10% for the extreme ends. I'd agree that using around an 1/8 is an easy way to quickly calculate what the equivalent performance would be. E.g. if a male team mate at the same age runs 40 min in a 10k, I would have to run 45 min for a comparable performance.
Good, solid logic that highlights a flaw in the current grading system, though I can't imagine it going down well with some of parkrun's more vocal advocates who see any competitive element as archaic and needing to die out. Any action by parkrun to correct it would be a tacit admission that "rank still matters" when it's a mentality they want to move away from. Records? No such thing! Positions? You're all number one! Gender grading? What's gender!
Think you're right about it not going down well with some vocal parkrun advocates! 🙂 If the data sets used to do the calculations are not kept up to date then the flaw will very likely get worse over time.
Great video. I have just subscribed. It's always good to watch other running UA-camrs. Regarding age grading, you are absolutely spot on. And if anything I would say men age quicker than women so they have this completely the wrong way round. But unfortunately as with most things in the modern world, things tend to favour women. Can you imagine the uproar if they changed the age grading so it reduced the grades of women . There would be protests at every parkrun, women burning their sports bras 😂. I will check out some more of your videos.
Agree, women tend to live slightly longer than men and so the age-grading is definitely back to front.
Such a shame that parkrun have now taken down all the gender and age records. They were part of the fun. The answer to the problem was not this, but a simple open category for those that have issues with their birth gender.
In most cases men invading womens sports who cannot compete with men in their own age cat. They simply identify as female.
It's the nature of the datasets used. We use the world records for every age to calculate it. Women have not been allowed to run competitively for that long. So as the first generation of women who were running professionally age, the age grade records will drop for women and it will gradually get to a more similar percentage. We just need to be patient and update the tables regularly.
I wouldn't compare both genders here, just look at how well you are doing compared to the best of your age. Due to the different datasets available for both, comparisons don't really make sense.
To summarize what I just said: the age grade records are not doing what they are advertised to do. You can't really compare both genders unless the conditions for the capture of both datasets are comparable, i.e. having (former) pro athletes in there. So we'll have to wait until the first pro women have reached the oldest age groups. And even then I would still have reservations whether it's fair to compare two datasets of very different sizes. So I would say that the WAVA grading as they use it would only be useful within your own gender.
I like your breakdown of the performance gap across distances. I find it interesting, that it drops below 10% for the extreme ends. I'd agree that using around an 1/8 is an easy way to quickly calculate what the equivalent performance would be. E.g. if a male team mate at the same age runs 40 min in a 10k, I would have to run 45 min for a comparable performance.
Under your new data set is it enough to beat your wife?
Often finish ahead of her on age-grading now. Although not the last time. She's still first in her age category more often than I'm first in mine.