- Wednesday 14 February 2024
Our Vets category is changing!
After much deliberation we have decided to change our Vets category! At the moment, we have one Vets category which starts at 40 and isn’t very relevant. We want to change this. Read on to find out what we are proposing and why. We don’t necessarily feel like we have the perfect answer but doing something is better than the status-quo. We would also like to get feedback before finalising so please do get in touch.
What are we proposing?
We intend to increase the starting point of our Vets category from 40 to 50 and to weight points above this age with individuals receiving a 1.5% increase for every year they are over 50. An example of how this works is below:
|
Age |
Score |
Vets |
Calculation |
|
50 |
500 |
500 |
500+(500*(0*1.5%)) |
|
55 |
500 |
538 |
500+(500*(5*1.5%)) |
|
60 |
500 |
575 |
500+(500*(10*1.5%)) |
|
65 |
500 |
613 |
500+(500*(15*1.5%)) |
|
70 |
500 |
650 |
500+(500*(20*1.5%)) |
|
75 |
500 |
688 |
500+(500*(25*1.5%)) |
Why are we doing this?
When looking at our eight summer and winter races that made up our 2023 Series, of a total sixteen overall winners (eight open and eight female) thirteen were classed as Vets. When Vets are winning the overall categories, it shows us that our Vets categories are wrong and are not recognising the true Vets of the sport.
Our current Vets category starts at 40 and that is too young for adventure racing. Adventure racing rewards strategy as much, if not more, than it does speed. For that reason, as participants build experience, they tend to also improve their scores. Endurance is also a factor, our summer races last for up to six hours which again increases the ‘peak performance’ age.
What have we looked at?
We have analysed the race results of a number of our more advanced competitors to see how their scores change over time. The data set was probably not large enough to mask individual circumstances so we looked at other events as well, such as half-iron man and 50-mile road race results. Finish times for these events average out at just over six hours giving a more relevant comparison to our events than say a 5k parkrun. The data showed that finish times started to drop off more quickly for participants over 50 and a weighting at around 1.5% seems to level out the playing field to ensure that all of our Vets whether 50, 60, 70 or 80 can compete against each other.
Other questions to answer
As well as competing as individuals, a number of our participants compete in teams which raises the question as to what to do with team entries. Here we looked at a couple of options:
- all team members having their own individual score based on their age
- all team members taking the weighting of the oldest team member
- all team members taking the weighting of the youngest team member
- all team members taking the weighting of the average age of the team
We didn’t feel that each member of a team having a different score was right but we could make an argument for using any other method. In our opinion calculating the age of the oldest participant seems right.
These is also a question as to when to take an individual’s age, either on race day or the start of the series. Once again, we could make an argument for either. We will likely take an individual’s age at the start of the series (specifically the first day of the month of the start of our summer series – March for the 2024 series) as this makes calculations easier for us to calculate and for everyone to understand!
What’s next?
We would love to hear your thoughts on these changes so please provide any feedback to us at info@questars.co.uk. We will consider all feedback before finalising the rules for the Vets category to be in place for the 2024 Series. We aim to finalise the rules by 15 March so please submit your comments by Sunday 10 March.
