• Unintended consequences for one SRC-er •
[1½ MIN READ]
I was thrilled to read Mango Marjo’s Facebook post about placing 5th for her AG at Broad Street Run on 05’05’U. We have amazing runners in Shawmont Running Club! And as individual club members, we are always happy to improve.
MM’s results were a little bittersweet, though. It seems that she’s developed the practice of looking at various other runner’s results and their race pictures. She was already thrilled to place 7th when she started looking at the efforts of the faster racers in her AG. One was a guy. Uhh. And one’s splits looked suspiciously inconsistent. Hmm. She notified the race organizers who concurred that some disqualifications were in order. Phew. Thus, our gal leapt ahead of 2 other competitors without any physical exertion. YAY!
When we pay googobs for race fees, it makes sense not to waste one when we end up not being able to run as anticipated. The question of what to do with the bib raises conundrums. Give it to someone else on the condition they take off the chip so the results don’t show? Accept the registration as a donation and toss the bib altogether? Demand the race organizers implement an easy method for trading unwanted bibs? Put AI to true utility and have it analyze pictures and results for disqualifiers? Personally, MM and I think all the options merit consideration. We agree there certainly needs to be more educating about the implications of a practice as simple as not wasting a bib. Consider yourself educated.
That runner with the inconsistent race results, though. SRSLY?! That’s not how runners with integrity improve.
-CtCloser (Calvinthe) “Negative Split or Positive Splat” #dothedue
FINE PRINT ¶Text by Calvin Wang (Wäng), CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. ¶Cross-published: Facebook Shawmont Running Club (ZY Weekly Newsletter 5/11/24), Shawmont Running Club website, Ruminations by CtCloser. ¶This website posting: Rumination with added caption.
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