So, I am taking this time to official offer a challenge to our friends over at penntrackxc.com (or pa milesplit as some know it). I'm extending the challenge to have a prediction contest for the state championships etrain vs. penntrack for this year's meet on November 7th.
My proposed set up is to predict the 25 state medalists in each division. Most correct medalist out of the 75 wins. Order doesn't matter. Simple and easy. Of course, I'm flexible with the rules, scoring and set up so there is plenty of opportunity to change it up to fit penntrack's preferences.
I'm even down to throw in a little side wager that would keep things fun. Maybe if we win, then Don and Lex have to wear etrain shirts to indoor states or if penntrack wins I have to buy a subscription to penntrack or write a rap song about how awesome milesplit is. Like I said, it's up to you PTXC.
I think this would be a fun way to make predictions and hopefully create some additional excitement around the state meet. I honestly think it would be a good-spirited way to benefit coverage of the sport.
However, I have no idea if milesplit reads this website (heck, who knows if they even know we exist), so that's where you come in blog readers. We need your help to spread the word and hopefully get these guys on board with the prediction contest! If you like the idea, spread it around on twitter, milesplit forums or even just comment and let us know you think this could be fun. Any support will go a long way towards making the contest a success and benefiting the sport on the whole.
Penntrack, if you would like accept the offer, feel free to get in touch with me via email (jarrettfelix1130@gmail.com) or comments on this blog. We can then finalize terms and conditions and put the contest in motion! I look forward to hearing from you.
But wait, don't think I am going to leave my readers out to dry on the prediction contest! Although (if it happens) this will likely be billed as an etrain v. penntrack prediction contest, once the rules of the competition are finalized, I encourage all readers to post their predictions to the site and play along as well! I'll score anyone who posts predictions and put them in an official results page after the meet. We can also split the predictions based on classification (if you only know AAA, only prediction AAA and we will have AAA only results as well).
Plus the time honored tradition of the etrain State Fantasty XC draft will continue. This has always been a huge success and I look forward to putting it together once again. If you are interested in joining in on the draft or just finding out more information feel free to reach out in the comments section, by email or on facebook.
So have fun, enjoy the stretch run of the 2015 season and, of course, stay classy.
train11
Yes.
ReplyDeleteLET'S GO ETRAIN!
ReplyDeletePenntrack goes strictly on times, but we all know that never works. GO ETRAIN!!!!!
ReplyDeleteTheir rankings are definitely strictly on times, but I think these guys know that's not a foolproof way to make predictions. They are just using the data they have on file. Hopefully if they accept this offer it will give them a chance to show off their knowledge of the sport!
DeleteThe scoring system should also give bonuses for getting place right, e.g. if you predict the exact place of a runner, you get an extra 5 points, 4 for within 1 place either way, 3 for within 2 etc. The numbers can be changed but there needs to be some sort of system like I described since at least the top 13, can easily be predicted to at least get medal, and you wouldn't need to know what order to rank them in. Just for AAA: Jaxson Hoey, Josh Hoey, Jake Brophy, Nathan Henderson, Henry Sappey, Nick Wolk, Jeff Kirshenbaum, Ryan James, Kent Hall, Marc Migliozzi, Kyler Shea, Spencer Smucker and Kevin Lapsansky all are essentially shoe-ins (barring injury or DTW resting some of their squad which I do not see happening at states) for at least a top 25 finish IMO. And if you can't agree that all 13 are shoe-ins for medals, than I can't see why anyone in their right mind wouldn't agree that Jaxson Hoey through Nick Wolk in the list above are medal shoe-ins, which is still a decent amount. The other 12 are bubble spots that would take some research to figure out. This is just over half of the contest that doesn't even factor in to the result, so basically its only predicting the bubble spots (which is not easy in its own right), therefore the other half of the field should have some weight in the prediction contest as well.
ReplyDeleteYou do make a good point. I didn't want to overcomplicate things (which I've been told I often do) with predictions so I left it simple. The only thing I will say is that, I prefer doing a "how far off" scoring system rather than a "get the place right scoring system".
DeleteWhat I mean by that is if hypothetically the actual order is Brophy-Hoey-Henderson and one person has Hoey-Henderson-Brophy and another has Felix-Zatlin-Henderson in the "get the place right" scoring system, person #2 wins, but really person #1 was much more accurate in their predictions
Thoughts?
yea that was just a suggestion, and if you want to make it simple then the way you proposed it originally is the way to go.
DeleteI did include points for being close to the place as well as getting it exactly, my wording may have been unclear, but from what I was suggesting, in your scenario person #1 would win because they guessed Hoey would win, but he actually got 2nd, so their guess would have been within 1 place of his actual place (4 points), Henderson was predicted to finish 2nd, but actually finished 3rd, so the guess was still within 1 place of Henderson's actual place (4 points) and Brophy was predicted as 3rd, but won, so the guess was still within 2 places of Brophy's actual place (3 points), totaling 11. Even though person #2 would have gotten Henderson's place exactly (5 points), the other 2 guesses wouldn't have gotten him anything, for a total of 5 points.
My mistake, you are completely right I just misread your statement. Looks like we are on the same page!
DeleteThey probably won't do it unless there is a lot of hype on Twitter.
ReplyDeleteStart the hype on Twitter!!
DeleteAs much as I would like to see this happen, I don't think it will. Pa.milesplit stats and comments have very little behind them other than a computer query to evaluate times.
ReplyDeleteWhat that site needs, and frankly a huge opening for this website is state times listed with adjustments for course difficulty. You could start with the major courses in the state, and a "plus seconds" rating for course difficulty. For example, pick a course for a baseline, like Hershey poop out hill. Then rate every course in the state with a "plus or minus" in seconds as it compares to Hershey. (Heck you could even make and entire page devoted to public opinions on course speed adjustments. Think of the debate that would spawn)
Then use these adjustment ratings to compile a weekly list of the top 100 runners in PA with their times adjusted by course ratings. Now you have a real rankings list with plenty of room generate discussion on this site.
Great idea. It is extremely frustrating watching runners being rated based solely on their times. It' s ridiculous actually. When I see kids times running Lehigh being compared against some of the western pa courses, it's absurd.
DeleteThis is a really good idea. I think if this info was available in a reliable source it would be huge for the rankings posted on milesplit. Maybe when I get some down time after doing all the districts/states predictions I'll be able to start pulling something together on LXV+ and gathering feedback and opinions from readers
DeleteActually before milesplit went to their new format this year, if you clicked on the course the meet was held at there was an actual attempt at this rating system. However when they went to the new website this year they blew out the old course ratings. It was crazy to figure out, but as I remember it was something like this...
DeleteThe baseline was a course that was flat, basically a grass track, they assigned a speed rating of something like 16 minutes. Then the assigned additional seconds to other courses. So Lehigh might be a +30, and Hershey might be a +90. They even had a graduated higher scale for slower 5K's.
So then you basically subtracted the two course times to get a comparison adjustment for the runners. It you just did the top 100 runners then you wouldn't need a graduated scale.
So the result would be something like this:
Jarret Felix 16:30 at Paul Short = adjusts to 16:00
Joe Doe 17:00 at Hershey = adjusts to 15:30
They have speed ratings at Tully Runners which are based on the course. They do it for some of the PA courses. They're really on point for the NY courses(it's a NY course). It think the site is Tullyrunners.com.
ReplyDeleteDoubt you'll hear from those guys, they're too vain over there.
ReplyDeleteLooking at District 1 results over the past 10 years it seems as though to make it to the state meet teams must average around or below 16:30 (exception was two years ago when it took a 16:16 avg. to make it to the state meet.
ReplyDeleteToday we saw a FANTASTIC 16:00 from CB West, a 16:16 from CB East, and 16:24 from CR North.
With strong teams like Henderson and DT West joining the fight next week I think we'll see averages under 16 flat from both West squads. I can't see Henderson and CRN's coaches letting their teams not make it to the state meet and I'd be shocked to see anything worse than a 16:20 average from either team. I think CB East grabs the final spot or beats out CRN for 4th, since they've got such a young squad (North does as well, but Coaching experience has proved to trump this from North).
Don't forget Spring Ford, they looked pretty darn good this week
ReplyDeleteGreat point E-train! Looking at the past few years the average drop from PAC 10’s to Districts for most runners is 45 seconds. This makes Kirshenbaum look like a threat against the 15 flat mark as well. Paul Power ran 16:10 here last year before his 15:31. Conway was further away from Jeff than I expected, but him and Dylan Smiley (wow this senior is having a breakout season) are looking strong to get around the 15:45 mark. The 45 second drop puts two Spring Ford runners right under 16 minutes and another one just missing it. Plus they’ve got two juniors coming in at 16:25. Look for a 16:09 spread from this squad if the predictor stays true, which puts them in a solid third slot! That would leave Henderson and CB East fighting for 4th and North looking for a big race to stay in contention.
Deleteany league week results post coming soon?
ReplyDelete