It's always good when something goes perfectly but it can also be said that saving something that could have been a disaster is even better.
Well round one of the Running on Old Legs AaGA Challenge Trophy was just that, a disaster saved by quick thinking and decisive action by our Race Director, Mike Grover.
Is it possible to eliminate every potential problem?
How about this one: At around the six kilometre mark our course enters an orchard through the 'Blue Gates', shortly before the start the marshal on duty at that point reported that the gates were locked, a few quick phone calls to the orchard owner who confirmed that instructions had been given to a worker to leave the gates open, he gave permission for us to cut the gate chains and gain entry.
The race was started and the RD made a bee-line for his hacksaw and bolt-cutters. Before he was half way to his tool box another message, the worker had arrived and opened the gates, panic over, game on.
The RD made his way out onto the course to ensure everything was in place and under control.
Twenty minutes into the race and the third message, the gates are locked again.
No time for tools to be collected the RD ran to the problem area, no sign of the worker and no safe way into the orchard.
Runners were now, literally, bearing down on him. Fast thinking and safety very much in mind he made the choice, cut the distance and divert all the runners through the cut off loop back to the finish. Five runners were just too quick and determined and they thrashed their way through some very heavy growth to get back on the trail, the remainder diverted onto a short course but safe and for the most part happy that the right decision had been made.
The postmortem: It turns out that a very well meaning neighbour saw the unlocked gates, they are never left open he told himself. As all good neighbours would he duly locked them up and went off about his business having done his good deed for the day.
The trials and tribulations of a race director.
So the downside of the misfortune is that the event results were thrown into total confusion as the on-site timing system was unable to cope with times from two distances and consequently threw out some very strange results.
The AaGA results are later than I would normally have hoped for as I needed to rebuild the points system to allow for the two distances that had been run.
But here they are.
Let me first introduce our top ten, all of whom ran well.
Placing Name
AaGA Event Gender Given Family Age Nationality Bib Points Time
1 1 Male DAVID JOHN SPENCE 57 British E142 8167 00:54:51
2 16 Female YASUKO HOSOTANI 56 Japanese K292 8033 00:51:27
3 7 Male MUNIANDY A SHUNMUGAM 59 Malaysian E149 7468 00:48:45
4 24 Male JAMES WILLIS 70 British F163 7446 00:54:23
5 9 Male CHAI KEIN FOH 55 Malaysian D136 7058 00:49:47
6 6 Male STUART MENDEL 51 Australian D126 7030 00:48:16
7 11 Male SINASI EREN 54 Turkish D133 6998 00:50:28
8 2 Male MOHD ASDI WEDING 36 Malaysian C032 6843 00:55:31
8 10 Female CHANDRA PIKE 34 American G215 6843 00:49:52
10 26 Male CHAI KEN CHOY 61 Malaysian E155 6654 00:55:43
The Age and Gender Adjusted timing system not just enables us to see just how we performed against the whole field, men, women, young and old.
Those that devised the system also have a rating system that roughly equates to 9000+ points being World Class, 8000+ points being to International Standard and 7000+ points is said to be to State Level.
So as you will see we had some pretty good performances out there on Sunday, congratulations to everyone who ran and enjoyed our first event, but, special congratulations must go to our two 'International' athletes David Spence and Yasuko Hosotani.
Make sure you check further down the list as there were some remarkable achievements by runners of all standards. AaGA gives you the possibility to assess your effort rather than just your time and by way of example let us look at the race run by our biggest gainer of the day, Jeanin Loh.
Jeanin crossed the finish line in 128th. place overall, but, when we factor in this not so young as some ladies age and gender it shows that the effort she had made and her AaGA result pushed her a remarkable 55 places higher to number 73 overall.
So very well done Jeanin and congratulations to each and every athlete who took part.
You are all awesome!
The full results for the Running on Old Legs AaGA Challenge Trophy round 1
