Handicap

A spate of travel of late, some corporate, some fun, put my feet in ten states in a ten-day span. That won’t win me any awards, though it did push this tale of my latest adventure out a few weeks. And more importantly, it provided an interesting angle on what might otherwise be Just Another Race Story. That angle came to me whilst I was running down a somewhat repulsive in-your-face-display-of-wealth street bordering a ritzy golf club in one of those ten states. That angle was the concept of handicap. It was an intriguing concept, because I absolutely did not win a race a couple of weeks ago. But if running was handicapped, well…

The ritzy and repulsive bit needs to be reported because it was central to making me think a lot about golf, and thus equity and comparisons in competition – which is where this is all going – rather than just run on by as I otherwise would have done. But please, don’t beat me up for beating up golf a bit, as I’ve got nothing against the sport. Sis golfs, her husband golfs a lot, many of my friends and co-workers golf, and decades ago I too golfed a little. Not well, mind you, but I did, and I liked it. Yes, I wish more golfers would walk the course rather than putter around in those electric carts, though I recognize that many clubs, in search of faster play and more revenue, require them. No, it’s not golf that I’m lambasting, it’s that unfortunately, golf is one of those things that elitists use to display their elitism.

Back home I run past a golf course almost daily, a pleasant place surrounded by a pleasant neighborhood of pleasant homes and (mostly, I presume) pleasant people. That’s not the Disneyland I found in this certain southern state. No, this was McMansion after McMansion, completely alike in their attempts to be unique and more impressive than their neighbors. Obscenely in-your-face. A lifestyle so uber-comfortable that many residents lay rubber mats at the entrances to their driveways so as not to feel (horror!) a bump while pulling in the Benz. A collection of estates (I hesitate to use the word neighborhood) so manicured and yet so lifeless that I longed to see a plain old front porch, but alas, that’s just not the culture. I know I digress; that’s not golf, that’s people who think they’re high and mighty, and those people aren’t limited to golf.

But here’s the thing: the whole reason I was running through this neighborhood was because it was the only street of some length near my hotel that was safe to run. This particular area, seemingly awash in money, doesn’t seem to believe in spending money to build roads with basic safety features. Twisty rolling roads top blind rises and hidden turns with literally two inches between the edge line and uncertain unpaved space. The only picture I came away with was a straight and flat version of this rather deficient design, but you get the idea.

And so I found myself on this long and winding road of rococo estates, thinking about inequality, thinking about golf, and thinking about how at least the sport of golf tries to come up with a way to deal with that problem within the game so that it can be a somewhat level playing field for all comers. Golf has something that’s quite interesting to runners: the handicap. It’s the recognition that in this sport, talents, whether honed or innate, vary considerably, and if it’s going to be any fun playing, there should be a way to compare those people of varying talents. It’s an imperfect system, because the calculation of that handicap is dependent on each player’s previous performances, against which their next performance will be judged, and of course each person’s previous experiences differ from the next person. But it does allow the duffer to have a shot to top their local league standings or win a tournament now and then.

Running’s closest match is the masters age grading tables, though it’s not equivalent by any means. Golf uses that person’s actual performances, while the masters tables just count the number of times you’ve travelled around the sun. The masters tables do nothing to make it easier for the mid-packer to ‘beat’ the elite, but they do give the aging runner the ability to compare their performances against both their previous, younger-days performances, as well as those of other competitors, both younger and older. They are an admission that we get slower as we get older, but since we don’t all do it on the same timetable, they’re just a good guess.

Golfing style handicaps would be nearly impossible to administer in the running world, where courses aren’t nine or eighteen holes and aren’t finite in number, so they can’t all be rated for difficulty. And on the flip side, golfers don’t vary quite as linearly relative to age – think of some of the aging legends of the sport, or even that retirees finally get more time to hone their game – so age-grading tables wouldn’t make sense for them. Given all that, we’ll keep our respective systems and recognize that they both have similar goals – comparison across unequal competitors.

So how come we don’t hear more about age-graded performances in races? Certainly most races have age group awards, but really, how did the winner of the masters, the seniors, the veterans, perform relative to the young whippersnappers who broke the ribbon? Did that lady who won the fifties run a killer race, relative to what the accumulated statistics of millions of races by people of her age would suggest, or was she just the only one to show up? That’s where the tables step in.

If you’re not familiar with them, as I hinted, these tables are based on literally millions of race results, statistically analyzed by some method which I do not know. What I do know is that they were developed at least in part by Alan Jones, the same Alan Jones who brought the running world the Jones Counter, the internationally recognized standard for measuring and certifying courses. If you see a pattern from this esteemed gentleman, I can personally attest that you are right. I ran in high school with Alan’s son and knew Alan through the Triple Cities Running Club, where he was putting out race results in computerized documents in the late seventies. Yeah, a little ahead of his time. And as we’d say in New England, wicked pissah smaht.

Alan is my Patron Saint of Getting Older. I’m at the age where my times are inevitably slipping. Without the age-grading tables, that would be the end of the story, and I’d have to admit to decay. But by running results through the tables (it’s easy, do so at this link), you can compare this week’s race against those run years ago. It’s not a perfect system, because every race is different based on the course, the weather, and so on, but in general, it’s easy to see if you’re slipping, holding steady, or improving on how you should perform relative to you some time ago.

What’s wakes up the crowd is when a race director or a scorer applies these tables to an entire race. The first time I ever saw this was in a local 5K I dropped into while on a business trip. Enlightenment! Of course, I wasn’t quite as old then, so it didn’t carry quite so much weight. But still, sure I got beat by some local kids that evening, but based on the tables, did I?

Back in March at the New Bedford Half Marathon, the spreadsheet wizard who compiles the USA Track & Field New England Grand Prix results and statistics did just that. In that star-studded gathering of blazing speed, I justly got my butt kicked, soundly walloped into two hundred and sixtieth place. Ouch. For a guy who occasionally wins a small race, that really put me in my place.

But ranked by age-graded performance, that two-sixty rose to spot number one-oh-five. Yeah, I still got my clock cleaned by over a hundred people, but it was pretty comforting to see that I wasn’t acting my age. Note that’s not one-oh-five against the old folks like me, that’s one-oh-five against everyone, age eight to eight-eight.

All of this was on my mind a couple weeks ago when the results rolled in from the Clinton Tribute five miler, a local favorite that we often refer to as the Hill From Hell race. In truth, there are three Hills From Hell in this brief race, plus another right out of the starting gate, and only one stretch flat enough to allow you to gather your wits. This being my fifth Tribute, I’m ready for those trials; I’ve got a pretty good mental map of the pain to come. And Mama Nature laid out fast racing weather: chilly with the threat of rain (which did roll in around the halfway mark), but nearly windless, so no repeats of Boston’s Monsoon Monday. In short, there were no excuses for this one, just the chance to turn in a decent time.

As Tributes go, this one rolled out with a predictable story line and a happy ending. The usual local kids bolted off the line and spent themselves by the third block of the uphill kick-off, though one, a bit older, and who I’d later hear was a solid local trackster, would hang on through the first mile and run a solid race overall. I couldn’t seem to find my racing gear in the first mile, but that may have been a blessing as I didn’t burn out on adrenaline but instead settled in to crank out what may have been my most consistent Tribute, holding steady splits through the quasi-alpine terrain.

At the second turn, the spot where the field is usually sorted out, I counted nine ahead of me. I eclipsed that somewhat older kid and dropped into the single digit place zone, then took out another pair by the time we topped the first Hell Hill around one-point-five. A mile later, in the midst of that blessed flat stretch, I put on a surge to assure that when I passed what would turn out to be my final victim of the day, he wouldn’t have any thoughts about debating the topic. Being somewhat fond of hills, I didn’t expect any further arguments, and since clubmate Matt – same of last race fame – was far enough ahead to reach the next time zone, there was no chance to close that gap, so I just ground it out for a sixth place finish and another Slightly Fossilized (a.k.a. senior) division win.

It’s worth noting that after the previous weekend’s race, where I looked like Utter Hell in the finish line photo – even worse than my usual Death Warmed Over look – this time I made a conscious effort to try to crack a smile while screaming into the downhill finish, since I knew they’ve always got a photographer poised. On a relative basis, I’d say it worked out; small children probably won’t run from that finish photo.

It’s also worth mentioning that the Tribute knocks itself out for the runners. This event exists to honor the annual Tributes, folks who have knocked themselves out for the community (and thankfully, aren’t forced to subsequently kill each other a-la Hunger Games) and raise funds as well. But unlike many of these events, the organizers haven’t forgotten that it’s a race. The trophies are bigger than Mt. Rushmore, and each divisional winner gets their mug recorded and published in the local paper, which as it turns out, one of my professional colleagues, a native of the town, happens to read and forwarded a snapshot of the page (first pic in this adventure) with a nice pat on the back – thanks! But the point is, competition still matters here, and that’s one of the big draws.

It was on that note that when the results rolled in, I churned the numbers, as my perpetually nerdly demeanor demanded. After finagling for a course measurement discrepancy (how a course I’ve measured as accurate in the past was coming up a tad short was a mystery, and no, it hadn’t changed, but apparently Google had, and this is precisely why you can’t certify a course that way, thank you [Alan] Jones Counter), I opted to adjust my time upward a bit for, let’s call it, personal integrity. Even though this adjustment put this one at a disadvantage compared to my four previous outings on this course (I didn’t retroactively adjust those), to my surprise found my age grade rating still made this my best Tribute, and in fact my best five-miler since hitting my fifties. Who knew? Praise be to Alan.

I took it a step further. I scanned the results and spot-checked the obvious suspects: runners nearly my age who’d beaten me (there was only one in his late forties), and runners older than me who’d come in relatively close behind. My suspicion was confirmed: nobody attained my age grade rating or higher.

So, did I win? Obviously, no, that’s not how races work; this isn’t golf. Was there an award for this? Clearly no (though I have heard of races that do this, but I got a hunk-o-hardware for my division, anyway). Should there be? Probably not. But is there some quiet satisfaction (admittedly less quiet after publishing this column) in this micro-achievement? Of course, he said, grinning. Does a golfer smile when she wins the tournament, even if that win was based on handicap?