THE SCORING SYSTEM
Awards Dinner: The Mid-Pacific Road Runners Club will host an awards dinner in mid-January 2005 to recognize performances of participants in the Michelob Ultra Marathon Readiness Series. We will honor and acknowledge all award winners, as well as those who ran four of the five races in the series. The organizers will mail invitations in early December, 2004 to everyone that ran at least four races.
Awards Categories:
Anyone who finishes four of the five races receives a completion certificate.
Overall male and female winners (five deep).
Age group male and female winners (three deep, excluding overall winners).
The Following Rules Apply:
Low scores win.
Your overall score for a race is your overall place in that race (with first place receiving a score of one, and second place receiving two, etc.). Runners who are not entered in the series do not count in the scoring. Your Age division score is your place in your age division, excluding non-series participants.
You must have run four of the five races to be eligible for an award. If you run all five races, your four lowest scores are used for the final tally.
We will tally your scores and post them after each race on Mid-Pac’s website: www.mprrc.com. Scores will also be posted at the packet pick-ups and where results are posted at races.
You must alert the organizers of a discrepancy in your posted scores before January 1, 2005. Otherwise all scores will be final after that date. Call Bart at 732-3061 or email him at mathias@hawaii.edu.
During the series, some athletes will have run more races than others. Their scores will be tallied separately from those who have missed one race. Anyone who misses two races will be dropped from consideration in the scoring.
Tied scores will be broken by awarding first to those who completed the most races, and next to those who scored lowest in the longest race(s).
Age groups are based on your age on the first race day of the series, which is August 15, 2004.
PACING SERIES RACES & THE MARATHON
The Game: The marathon game can be summed up in one word: pacing. You must have the patience to start slowly when you feel you can go a lot faster. Here's why:
Your body runs on two types of fuel: Fat and glycogen. Glycogen from carbohydrate foods (like pasta) is the limiting factor.
When you are out of glycogen, you will hit the wall, which is no fun. You'll feel so exhausted that you won't be able to run at your normal pace. Even walking can feel like drudgery.
The trick is to conserve your glycogen by running slowly at the start of the run. It takes about an hour for your body to turn on fat metabolism fully. Meanwhile, it is burning mostly glycogen.
The Faster You Run, The More Glycogen You Burn! This is true for the beginning, middle, or end of a run, but especially the beginning.
It follows that you should go out slowly for the first hour so you will have enough energy to continue running until the finish.
After an hour at a slow pace, you can pick it up and maintain the pace for a much longer time on a combination of fat and glycogen than you would have if you went out fast and burned out.
Pacing the Races: Pay attention to your first mile time and your 5-mile time (a race official will call them for you). If they are faster than your average for the race you are going out too fast. If fatigue forced you to slow down before the end of the race, then you probably went out too fast.