Get Your Points On!

Blogmaster's Note: Often in our race discussions, both on and off the blog, we refer to the NYRR's club points races. But what is a points race? Why should I do points races? If we go back to our trusted forums, where intelligent discussion and good advice run aplenty, we find a great explanation by our own super-speedy Eduardo F., who himself has been quite a benefit to the Flyers, scoring points many times for our men's teams. Knowing I can't do any better in explaining how the points system works, I've taken the liberty to repost his great description here, with some minor edits to bring it up to date. Here's Eduardo, and hopefully after you read this, you'll check the points race calendar and sign up for the next one:

OK... everyone who is interested, the explanation is fairly long but I'll try to be concise. Here we go.

1- There is a team competition going on in the NYRR races; not everybody knows this.

2- Every calendar year, there are approximately 10 races designated as "points races". These are the only races that count toward the team championship. Points are awarded to each team according to their overall placement (see point 6 below for scoring). At the end of the year, each team's worst-scoring race is dropped, and the team with the most points of their 9 remaining races wins.

3- The points races for men are not necessarily the same as those for women.

4- The team competition takes place in 3 categories for either men or women: open (everybody), masters (40 years of age and older), veteran (50 and over) and super veteran (60 and over). Notice that a masters runner can score also for the open team, a veteran runner can score also for the masters and open teams, and a super veteran can score also for the masters, open, and veteran teams.

5- A team is composed of 5 runners for the men and women in the open category, or 3 runners in all other categories (men or women). Some races, notably the Club Team Championship, are designated as "double points" races. For these races, an open men team requires 10 runners, open women and masters men teams each needs 5 runners, and all other categories still need three runners. As its name suggests, a double-point race awards twice as many points as a regular race (see below for scoring).

6- I don't know all of the subtleties in the scoring system, but I will give you the general idea. Each Team (capitalized, as in the Flyers) can score one "team" in each category. For this, the fastest Team runners of that category are automatically chosen AFTER the race (i.e., we don't have to pick a team before the races). The total team score for that race is the sum of the overall chip time of each individual runner; this means that lower scores are better. For example, in one instance, the three fastest women for the Flyers in a 5 miler were timed at  35:31, 37:39 and 38:10, and when added together you get 1:51:20, our time for our Flyers women's open team, putting them in 10th place. (In this example, Central Park Track Club was in first place with a time of 1:30:10.)  To get the master's team, you do the same, but this time you cannot include runners under 40 years old. The veteran team is scored in an analogous manner, but the cut age is 50 (and 60 for the super veterans team).

For each points race, the first team gets 15 points; the second, 12; the third, 10; the fourth, 8; fifth, 6; sixth, 5; seventh, 4; eighth, 3; and the ninth, 2. From the 10th place on, every Team that has the required number of runners is awarded one point. This is important because it means that we all should show up for points races because anyone could be critical to complete a team and score a point, regardless of speed. As indicated above, in the "double points" races each team is awarded twice the number of points that I just described.

All this, for what? For the fastest teams, to get an award in the yearly NYRR award ceremony. For everybody else, just like in individual running, because it is fun. In addition, it promotes team spirit, which I think is good.

This was a long explanation, but I hope it was clear. So let's show up for points races. This might also earn you a "Frequent Flyer Award" from the Flyers at the end of the year. And yes, no matter how slow someone might think she or he is, everybody is important. We have had races where we don't have enough runners, at any speed, to score a team. 
-Eduardo F.

The Flyers Women's Veteran Team was honored with a 3rd place overall award at NYRR's Club Night in 2010