No your right again Matt, the Trial should have been 2 weeks before the World Cross. Plenty of time for the athletes to have their jabs, heat acclimatise and run really well in Mombasa. So stupid to hold them earlier than normal.
Or perhaps it was a good idea to have the trial on the date of the BUSA, but it should have been held in a different race, and sod BUSA ?
I suggest that the people who thought about the TRials either gave it more thought than you did, or just did a better job.
I think the national should have been held on the date the busa's was schedueled for (early feb) which is when the busa indoors should have taken place, and the busa xc should have been last week, makes more sense to me
If the national were to double as the WXC trial, then would it need to be on a terrain similar to what was expected for the WXC?
Most of the leadng enduro nations seem to hold their WXC trial between 2 and 5 weeks beforehand usually but this year isn't usual. Not sure there's a definitive answer on this one .For Euro nations, the sort of runners likely to make any inroads at WXC - and there's precious few now - are the sort who would have no probs bypassing any trial race with agreement from their Federation.
Anyone know what the likes of France/Italy/portugal ie the other Euro nations most likely to send fairly full teams to WXC, or USA, have done re trials/selction/acclimatisation? Spain held their trials within 'closed' national champs on Sunday 11 March, chose teams y'day, and they all fly to Kenya, from a cool climate, via London on Weds 21st. V diff approach from UKA, and kind of surprising that they are bypassing any significant acclimaisation.
you're all missing the point. There is no need for a trial - there aren't enough good runners to warrant it. All the selectors need to say is that will take into account all the results from all races from October onwards.
Why not have the intercounties/world trials 4 weeks before worlds? That would leave tons of time for plans to be finalised etc...
Then have the national 2 weeks later, 2 weeks before worlds. This could be used as a final tuneup race for the guys/girls getting ready for world cross. Perhaps even a last chance for anyone to shine just in case someone has to pull out?
Then have the area champs 2 weeks before the intcounties and and the county champs 2 weeks before that. That would be 12 weeks worth of racing for the guys going to worlds, 10 weeks for those of us not quite fast enough...
People need to book time off work. Majority of the current GB XC team have full-time jobs, employers aren't going to be too happy with a week or so's notice
9-5 wrote:
People need to book time off work. Majority of the current GB XC team have full-time jobs, employers aren't going to be too happy with a week or so's notice
So book the time off prior to the trial, explaining to your boss what it is for. If you are an important enough employee, the company will be understanding!
UK Boy wrote:
9-5 wrote:People need to book time off work. Majority of the current GB XC team have full-time jobs, employers aren't going to be too happy with a week or so's notice
So book the time off prior to the trial, explaining to your boss what it is for. If you are an important enough employee, the company will be understanding!
r u 'avin a laff???
Trails is for the great britain team not the english team so why the f*** would you have it at the english natinals?
Because England IS Great Britain ;-)
Well it likes to think so.
916 finishers in the National!!!!!!!!!!! FFS! We used to get more than that in the southerns alone.
God, things have got really, really bad.
Lots of sensible things have been said on this thread, and a few not so.
BUT, why does fewer runners choosing to run the National in recent years have any (causual) relationship with the state of distance running in this country?
well the two things do seem to be going hand-in-hand... I would guess that fewer numbers in the national is a more a symptom than a cause but the fact that 'good club runners' in particular seem to be deserting the event also highlights (in my view) the lack of desire among the current crop of runners to really push and test themselves.
The suggestion that there should be a simple format for races up to and including the World Cross and the Trials would be fine if it were not for a number of variables. The last two years show why - 2005/6 winter had to take account of the CG immediately before the World Cross, and this winter the senior Trials were brought forward to allow the selected athletes time to prepare to race in the heat of Mombasa.
When the group I mentioned in my first post sit down to try to sort the fixtures they try very hard to keep everyone happy but it is very difficult to fit everything in to the calender without clashes of some sort.
Between New Year and the World Cross there are 4 significant indoor fixtures, Glasgow + Brum plus AAA's and major Indoor Championship. Two (or even 3) schools events - county schools, National/English Schools then an International Schools. There are 3 dates reserved for Leagues and Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast take 3 more weekends. There is a recommended date for the County Champs, then there are Territorial and National Champs plus the CAU and BUSA.
Every attempt is taken to avoid major events on consecutive weekends, so a sort of pattern is applied over the whole list.
That is what happens now, but some people on this board seem to want the English National to replace the CAU as the Trial event. If it did all that would happen is that a different group would probably complain that the CAU wasnt being supported as well as it was.
CAU is likely to retain the Trials as it has more sponsorship, an established (fairly) central base at Nottm and is very well organised. UKA support the CAU event as a Trial event and it is part of a sort of cross country challenge. That is also why the CAU gets more publicity than the English National.
Next year the English National will be 3 weeks before the Trials, and the Trials are likely to be 2 weeks before the World Cross.
There should be a meeting soon to sort the 2008/9 cross country programme so if you have any thoughts you would like taken to that meeting..............
I said it earlier and I'll say it again. There is no need for a trial race. Both the national and the inter-counties are worthwhile enough in their own right. To be picked to ru ni the inter-counties used to be a really big deal. I once finished in the top 200 in the inter-counties adn then the national and i was over the f***ing moon for weeks.
All the selectors need to say is they will take into account all major races from october onwards and if they did that they would end up with a team very little different to the one that will end up going under the current system.
The Grand National wrote:
There should be a meeting soon to sort the 2008/9 cross country programme so if you have any thoughts you would like taken to that meeting..............
May be a switch to a 78 week year would work? That would give more clear weekends and give us longer to prepare for major champs too.
Alternatively someone could suggest ripping up the entire fixture list and starting all over again? They might think there are:
- too many clashes (events don't have to be on the same day or even weekend to clash - how many were missing from Sunderland due to half marathons on 11th or 18th?)
- too many competitions that are just duplication and dilute the meaning of each other (particularly at local levels)
- league structures based on what the realities of the participation, demographics of the sport and even ease of road travel were 20 years ago
- so many clubs that there are loads of random little competitions that are all trying to find a space on the calendar.
I'd never suggest any of that of course but it would be funny to see what happened to anyone who did. I stick by the more sensible 78 week year solution. Any suggestions for the new month names?
I ignored the suggestion earlier, but now that you have repeated it I will try to address it.
You acn of course pick most of the team without a Trial. We can all do that. What we cannot do is decide which of the athletes on the fringe of the team should be in and which out. Would we have included Wicks and Ward or Bannister and Payn. It doesnt make much difference to the team but it makes a world of difference to the athletes concerned.
There must be a Trial for an event where 8 or 9 athletes are selected.
Barberuary?
I think the situation we have now is more sensible that previously when there WAS a seperate trial race. At least when the trial is incorporated into Inter Counties it doesn't leave us with another race to shoehorn in.
I don't see any harm with having a trial race as part of the selection procedure as at least it ensures that the bottom half of the team is in form at the right time. Performance in November has limited relevance to a race in March.
Do the juniors not have to have jabs and acclimatise as well because they seemed to have their trial at the inter-counties which makes a mockery of the whole rationale!
Seems to have been a popular move anyway as the race was really well supported with 13 non-university runners in the mens race! I did'nt realise there were only 13 runners outside university that were good enough to do the trial!
How long does it take to acclimatise and why not acclimatise in the place where the race is actually being held? Im sure its very nice in south africa but its not mombassa!