The WTW is all wrong

High School Running

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7 years ago 12/07/2016 7:56am EST

This weeks WTW talking about speed ratings is all wrong. They compare Brie Oakley's performance to speed ratings of the past. This does not really work. All this shows is that she is not as dominant in comparison to her competitors as some previous runners. The best way to compare performances of past to now is still by time. Speed ratings will never be as high as they once were, as the average runner continues to get faster and faster. Please edit this Brojos. It is really an uneducated article as you can not use speed ratings to have a hypothetical matchup of two great runners from different times; it is not their intended purpose. They compare runners of that current season, that is all. You cannot say that Amber Trotter would have beaten her by 15 points, which is 45 seconds. They are different times, and therefore the speed ratings were derived from a completely different talent sample. No female will ever run a 180 speed rating ever again as the general competitiveness of the sport improves, just like no male will ever run a 215 speed rating ever again. Edit the WTW maybe?

7 years ago 12/07/2016 8:29pm EST

re: qwe

I'm understand what you are saying as at some level he's comparing everyone to the average runner of a given year. So a runner being totally dominant 15 years ago may not be as impressive if you are less dominant now but the quality of the field is better.

That being said, I'm not sure though if you are correct, however. If what you said was the case, why would he produce a document like this?

http://www.tullyrunners.com/XC2015/FLspeed2014to1997.htm

7 years ago 12/08/2016 4:59pm EST

re: rojo

I think that document can only be interpreted to see the comparisons of how dominant people were in a given year. Doing speed ratings for a forty person race is very different than a larger one, because the 'average' runners are MUCH faster. I believe that at the top-end of running, the individuals making NXN and Footlocker are faster than they used to be, based on faster track times and faster xc marks at consistent courses. I think that an article he posted in 2007 shows this pretty well, which is a statistical relationship between track times and speed ratings. It is a "best fit line", so a linear relationship, just as his speed rating are based on. Here are some of the numbers:

SR 1600m 3200m

215 4:01.3 8:38.4

214 4:02.1 8:40.2

213 4:02.8 8:41.9

212 4:03.6 8:43.7

211 4:04.4 8:45.5

210 4:05.1 8:47.3

209 4:05.9 8:49.0

208 4:06.7 8:50.8

207 4:07.4 8:52.6

206 4:08.2 8:54.4

205 4:08.9 8:56.1

204 4:09.7 8:57.9

203 4:10.5 8:59.7

202 4:11.2 9:01.5

201 4:12.0 9:03.2

200 4:12.8 9:05.0

How many underclassmen ran those times last spring? Plenty. How many have run a 200+ speed rating this season? 2. I think this shows that speed ratings are overall slower for top runners now, and for every runner for that matter. A time at a consistent course could be ten points lower than it was ten years ago. That's the way it is.

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