Frozen Foot Race #3

Here it is, the first week in April, and I'm just now getting to the final report on the Frozen Foot Series. There is a reason for this.

The weather for race #3 was perfect, cool, but not cold and windy. My plan was to try and go under 19:00, but my primary goal was to win my age group. Going into the race, I knew I only needed a solid race at about 19:30 to secure it. I also knew that if one of the masters ahead of me didn't show up, I'd be the masters winner. There was another individual in the masters hunt, but he was a full 2:00 behind me in the standings, so I wasn't too concerned.

When we stepped to the line, I realized that both of the masters ahead of me were not in the race, and they weren't there when the gun went off. I planned my race to start a little slower to compensate for the hills, so I didn't go out as hard as the previous races. At the turn around, I discovered no one was pushing me, and the individuals out in front, while in striking distance, didn't pose a threat to my standings, so, instead of putting down a kick, I cruised the rest of the race, knowing that I had a lock on the masters win.

After waiting over an hour for the awards to be called, it was announced that there was a timing/computer error and that we could stick around if we wanted, but it might take awhile. I decided to leave, but in hindsight, I should have stuck around.

For a chip timed series, the results were always slow in being posted. They went up on Facebook first, and usually not until a week after the race. I knew it would take awhile to get race #3 up, but I used the time to carefully check my standings. In an email from the race director, I was told that in order to win the series you had to run all three races, and that it was based on cumulative time. I raced all three races, and my cumulative time was :40 seconds faster than my next closest competitor despite being beaten by him in race number #3. But, it's a series, and not one race, so I didn't even think about it.

On Friday, April 1st, April Fool's Day. The results were posted, and I was not the master's winner. Why, because the race director decided to use only races #1 and #3. Now, I knew there was a problem with race #3, but at no time prior to the start of race #3 was I, or anyone else that I know of, informed that there was a problem with race #2. Dropping race #2, to me, was equivalent to dropping the first quarter of the Super Bowl, which would have given the win to the Steelers.

I emailed the director stating my case: 1) I raced all three races; 2) my cumulative time was faster than any master that ran all three races; 3) by XC scoring I would have won 4-5.

After three days, he finally responded:

"You are correct to be considered for series awards participants must compete in all three races or all the races we have. That is independent of the scoring of the series. We do not designate the number of races we use to score the series. Because it is a winter series we have had races canceled due to weather. Early in the history of the series we had a race that the timer we hired did not show up so we had no times. At that time we used time to calculate the series results. So we are never certain we are going to have three sets of race results to calculate the series awards.

We do try to score cross country style. This year we did not score cross country style because both in race 2 and 3 we had people who jumped out of line before we got their tag. We had reports of people cutting in front of others in the chute and one person who crossed the finish line multiple times. Race 2 we did not have chip times, so we would need to use gun times. Gun times are inherently less accurate than chip times especially if there are runners leaving the chute.

Race 1 and race 3 we have chip times and finishing order. I am confident the results and positions for race 1 and 3 are accurate. That is why I chose to score the series with these races only. I will not change the scoring for the series. However, I will send you $75 for the masters series ."

My response to him was essentially, "please don't send me the money. It's not about the money."

So, I won my age group which was my goal, and almost won the masters, but for a decision by the race director that I don't agree with, because, as stated earlier, at no time prior to race #3 was it ever announced that race #2 was tainted. Even if the times were not accurate, the standings were never in question, or at least not that anyone was aware of.

With that said, The RACC 5K is this weekend and Kyler and I are competing in the Hibernia Off-Road Duathlon the following weekend. It's time to move on, but next year, if I run a winter series it will either be in York Co., or the Shiver by the River series in Reading.