As Has Been Pointed Out Earlier wrote:
Or in another thread, speed ratings at NXNYR and Feds were handled slightly differently than those at CA State.
In NY, Touhy's ratings are one point better than a boy who ran the same time. In CA, the ratings for the same time are the same for boys and girls.
Also pointed out once (or several times) earlier, 2017 CA State ran considerably slower than 2016 CA State (between 12 and 20 seconds, depending on how one looks at the results) - and yet the speed ratings are exactly the same. If the performance of fields matter, which is what Bill Meylan has stated in his essays and in many posts over the years, how can the 2017 and 2016 CA State speed ratings be exactly the same?
This is a valid observation that does require an explanation.
My first process when speed rating most races is to graphically plot the results of the current race versus the same race in previous years (I used the merged California results for both boys and girls 2017, 2016, 2015 to start) ... Initial look the graphs (what I call a race profile) said the 2017 race ran slower than 2016 or 2015 ... in the range of runners I'm interested in, I thought the difference might be in the range of 2 to 5 speed rating points.
My only concern was this ... the profile for 2017 was slightly different than previous years (more so for the boys than the girls) ... the slope of the 2017 profile "might" suggest (1) a slight difference in quality from previous years, (2) some weather-related factors affecting final times, (3) some pacing issues with more than one of eight races making the races slow compared to others, (4) some parts of the course got muddier or deterioarted, or (5) some other factor ...... Merging races can cause problems for speed rating ... and I will not rate each race separately unless absolutely necessary.
I hear concerns from California coaches every year about the change in temperature affecting times during the meet ... and that can certainly happen (and does).
No surprise, my main focus in speed rating the California State Meet is to determine the relative speed of the top teams that might be attending NXN, so that puts some limitations on which races get evaluated more closely than others.
The next process in my speed rating method involves using the prior seasonal speed ratings of individual runners to determine the speed ratings for CA State Meet ... this method always takes precedence over the graphical method ... typically, the results of both methods are very similar, but not always.
Much to my surprise, the speed ratings for the Division 1 and Division 2 races (a bit more for Division 1), as determined by known and/or expected speed ratings of individual runners, yielded race adjustments for 2017 that were the same as 2016 ... initially, I thought it was an error ... But re-checking by other criteria confirmed the numbers ... the numbers for my specific purpose (who are the fastest relative teams at NXN, and I want these relative numbers for betting and morning-line purposes).
Race adjustments are always determined separately for boys and girls, and are commonly different ... due to difference in speed, quality, etc.
Briefly to Amber Trotter ..... in 2001 entering Foot Locker Nationals, she was running at a cross country level almost identical to Claudia Lane this season at this point in time ... she then raced three runners who were near or approaching that performance level at FLN (Molly Huddle being one of them) ... Amber Trotter incredibly beat them by 40-55 seconds, while the other runners ran at their prior or expected levels).