2011 Synopsis

And we thought 2010 was a record "for the ages", with the most Honor Roll times ever.  But 2011 left 2010 in the shade by a whopping 135 more – 815 new times to be exact.  The big reason was that a record 122 sets of race results were obtained, thanks to two new helpers.  Kevin Miller of Olathe scanned most of the Kansas City area for Honor Roll times and Keith Long of Beaumont handled the Wichita area.  That left only the outlying areas for your compiler to pick up.  And of course, Gene Wee of Lawrence did another great job of putting the data on the internet site, including catching many of my stupid errors.  And it looks like we may hit our St. Patrick’s Day goal of getting the 2011 website up and running despite all the extra times to handle.

And as you could guess, State and State Resident records fell like hot cakes off a fresh griddle. Almost too many to mention individually, but you can check the State Records file for the details. But we did have 28 new records plus one tied and also 7 new State Resident Records.

And as usual, the ladies put the men in the shade with 20 of those 28 as well as the tied record. However, the guys got 5 of the 7 SRR's. Also many of the records broken had been in the book for many, many years. The 10 mile male 80+ record had been set 28 years ago, but broken this year by Marv Metzer of McCook, NE. The oldest ladies record was set in 1986 and broken in 2011 by 71 year old Rowena Hinshaw of Wichita. And there were at least 10 others broken that were set more than 10 years ago.

Even my busy new helpers found time to get on the record bandwagon, Keith picked off  three SR’s plus a SRR and Kevin got a new SRR.  Keith’s records keyed him to the top of the men’s Master’s Age Graded performances (See Master’s Analysis).  It should be noted, however, that Keith was given credit for breaking the 50-54 5K record last year which turned out to be a bogus time.  So he had to knuckle down this year and "legitimately" break the record.  Besides Keith, only one other male abolished three records this year.  That male was a rejuvenated Paul Heitzman of Eudora.  At the beginning of this year, Paul still held 15 state records that he set during his illustrious career starting in 1996 but took a well-deserved vacation from running in 2007.  This year he turned 80 and decided to make a comeback and now has 18 records in the books. Wow!

You would think that with women breaking the most records this year, that there would probably be several individuals setting multiple records. But that list was really well distributed over 17 gals, with only two that managed to crack more than one record. Raquel Stucky of Pretty Prairie picked off 3 bests, but two of those came in the same race - a rare occurrence. In the 15K at Goddard’s new Tiger Trot event, she broke both the OPEN age record and the 35-39 record as well; her third best came in the Half Marathon. Unfortunately, she missed the 35-39 10 mile record by a mere 4 seconds - a record set in 1997 by Deborah Torneden. And this year Deborah picked up two new records in her 50-54 age bracket. She also managed a new SRR in the 10K; the overall record there is held by the great Jane Hutchinson, set in 1996. Deborah missed it by just 7 seconds. Deborah also dominated the ladies Master Age Graded performances. (See Age Graded Analysis).

I owe an apology to those runners in the Kansas City area who ran the Farmstead Stampede race in Overland Park in 2008 thru 2010. That course was certified in 2007 but no results could be found for the race. In 2008, the race was held and results did show up, so I tried to contact the race director to see if they ran the course that had been certified in 2007. But was unable to get any reply, so I assumed it was not. However, I did screen the results for Honor Roll times, just in case. Same story in 2009 and 2010. This year a new course for the race was certified and this time we were able to contact the director. Turns out the 2007 race was never held because of weather problems, but in 2008 through 2010 the race was run as certified. So runners will now find their Honor Roll times for 2008 thru 2010 in the ALL TIME BESTS or APPENDIX, whichever is appropriate, albeit a little late.

And now it’s finally time to bid the running community sayonara.  We never got moved last year due to spending most of the summer in the Olathe area. Our son-in-law was in and out of the hospital or rehab all summer due to a leg amputation which put a lot of stress on our daughter. So she needed our help. Her husband has not been able to work for several years now so our daughter has taken on two part time jobs to make ends meet. Also we needed to find a new apartment for them that was wheel chair accessible. That education led us to realize what we needed for our re-retirement. And we have finally boiled down the possibilities to just three. All will require us to downsize by half and we have already started the "throw away" process. And is it painful. 

As far as race records, I'm looking at 10-12 boxes of paper records that need a new home. Some of these date back to 1972 when course certification basically started in Kansas. The oldest “record” in the current files is Dennis Smithhisler’s 10 mile SRR in the 10 mile, 12 & Under age group, set in 1977.  But the oldest ALL TIME BEST is Mark Eagan’s time in the same age group and distance, set in 1973. Dennis is still running, and just last year broke two State records; so his record breaking career spans more than 30 years - Phenomenal!

Anyway, finding a replacement for me has always ended in a dead end because it entails too much work. So if this important data collection job is to be continued, I think it needs a working committee approach requiring no more than a dozen people.

• Overall Coordinator - develops a matrix of certified races that that need to be looked at for HR times. This matrix includes race date, name, distance, & town. This matrix gets distributed to the Honor Roll times collectors. Finally this person will work on problems for the team and write the Yearly Synopsis.
• Race Honor Roll times collectors – about 3 people (two have already volunteered)
• Honor Roll times collector to consolidate the data provided by the 3 collectors into one overall file - one person.    Called a “Detail file” for each distance.
• EXCEL entry people to take the detail and build a file for each distance that can be used to load the internet. 4 to 5 people.  The primary job here is to take the 2011 files and add in the 2012 new times.
  
  

  2 mile, 4 mile, 8K	1 person
  5K	1-2 people (this file is huge so may be split by sex.)
  10K, 12K, 15K	1 person
  10M, HM, Marathon	1 person

  
  
• Master’s calculation and analysis plus STATE RECORDS file update - 1 person

Of course, I hope to still be around to help organize this system and work the tough problems.

Most of these jobs, except the Coordinator, should take only 2 -3 weeks of effort, spread over 2 to 2½ months. I started this year right after Christmas and worked about 4 – 5 hours a day thru March 10th.

Contact me, Millard “Jack” Crook, at  m-crook@att.com.