Lacctic is bad

I wonder if that effect holds true glfor the main pack? They probably let her go and just run their own race except for a few at the front, or who decide to chase her.

Hey, I think I've identified one possible source of significant error... although I'm not sure how you would really correct for it. Certain parts of the country *cough* the south *cough* don't necessarily have good track 5ks from most runners, I find a lot down here really don't run great 5k times, since the weather turns to crap by April. And when your races are filled with guys who don't run great 5k times (compared to fitness), it will throw things off quite a bit.

There probably is some ‘trickle’ down effect, from the top runners somewhat influencing their slower teammates, which in-turn influence the others around them in the pack.

For instance, the top seven runners at Nuttycombe this year ran faster times than the top seven last year, which is remarkable, considering how worse the conditions were. So if the top runners are stringing out sooner than normal, due to the rabbit up front, it allows the pack to free up sooner.

A more obvious example was the faster than normal times posted on the OSU course at Natty’s last year.

This is basically only a problem if the south is in a bubble. Races are not only scored based on the 5ks people have run — are scored based on an equal weighting of all of their performances that season. Some unbiased races eventually make it into the profiles of the southern runners, their fitness efforts update, which updates the ratings of the southern courses and make those ratings less biased, and so on.

This is, however, one of my main concerns about applying the algorithm to high school.

Lacctic is also weak when comparing across divisions. Some mid major d1 dude with a 15:00 track pr will have a better lacctic rating than a 14:20 d3 guy. Ethan Gregg is only decent until he runs at paul short etc. I just watched a d3 guy go 24:00 and run a course record (on a course that's held a national meet) and his rating is 14:42...making him a crappy d1 guy. I think the algorithm puts too much emphasis on division.

It has nothing to do with division. Gregg's rating is 14:05

Honest question: do you think the algorithm actually considers division or do you mean that guys like Gregg are probably just not running full tilt to win meets?

Hey Bijan, thanks for Lacctic, it has made XC much more fun to follow. A couple added features I would love to see:

A checkbox on the simulation to use each runner's MOST RECENT PERFORMANCE TiC instead of their overall rating.

A checkbox on the simulation to use each runner's ALL TIME HIGH TiC performance. I know this could get dicey with outliers factoring in but would be fun to think if everybody optimized on the day what would they get, rather than the weighted average TiC.

Does it make any sense that she would run her slowest race of the year at Regionals? It's much more likely that she ran one of her fastest races, being in top shape and presumably in the middle of a taper and running against better competition, but that her competition was really going hard for the first meet that truly counted in their best peaked or almost peaked race, to qualify for nationals, while she was guaranteed a spot and probably a win well before the end of the race so she may have eased in a bit. In other words, the gap was decreased to the competition because the competition was better and she wasn't 100% and the system equates that with a slower performance but it wasn't. It was probably worth about 18:40 6k. If, however, nationals performances for the top runners are usually rated by lacctic as their best of the season, despite competition and effort for the field being the best, I will eat my words.

It’s quite possible she ran slower at Regionals in prep for Natty’s. Some runners (e.g., Chmiel) didn’t even run Regionals.

Hello Grad Student.

I think there currently is a bug of some sorts at LACCTiC. When I click on an athlete name to see their 2023 LACCTiC Fitness Estimate (LFE), the latest NCAA Cross Country Champs is listed twice, and I think that is swaying the LFE.

* I’m referring to the 2023Season Fitness Estimate. In computing that number, I think LACCTiC is double-counting Natty’s, true?

In the list of races for the 2022 Season Fitness Estimate, the Natty’s race is NOT listed twice.

bump

it looks like it read data from "2" meets 1) "NCAA D1 Cross Country Championships" and 2) "NCAA Division 1 Cross Country Championships"

I can’t bear the 50 or more negativity posts against lacctic which is the best product I’ve seen! lacctic is remarkable. Have you tried the USATF website?! Lacctic runs circles around that joke. And have you tried the wtfa website which I believe lacctic is mirroring? Lacctic improves that website and they make $250M and run every diamond league race. Lacctic is free and created by a “washed up” grad student. Bijan might be washed up but seb coe, the pres at wtfa, needs to make bijan the head of website developm

If people think it’s inaccurate explain how lacctic predicted 4 of the top 5 women’s teams at xc natl with an avg deviation of 1.2 spots?

Thank you, Sir, for correcting the issue! The problem appears to be resolved.