Oddball Races

Each year I put on a cross country race where I stagger people's start times based on their gender and age group. This works out well because we can then use straight cross country scoring for the team results. There is no need to have a masters division or even a women's division, and teams can be made up of any combination of men, women, and ages. It kind of puts everyone on an equal footing.

A couple years ago in this staggered start race, I tried a thing where I gave each team 5 popcycle sticks, numbered 1,2,3,4, and 5. Each team member carried one stick during the race, but their team sticks had to finish in order. The first team member to cross the line had to be carrying stick #1, the next stick #2, etc, but it was OK to exchange sticks during the race. If stick #2 finished in 5th place overall and stick #1 finish in 8th, the penalty would be that both would score 8 points for their team.
Determining how you should distribute sticks to your team members at the beginning of the race isn't straight-forward. There are different strategies that can work, or not.

Oddball enough for you?

We do a cross country series every summer. After the first 3 or 4 "standard" races, we hold some special events.

Predicted time: no watches allowed, runners closest to their predicted 3 mi. time win. Generally, the overall winner is usually pretty close to his pace, like this year, but second place went to the last person across the line. You usually have to be within 10 seconds of your prediction to win.

Figure 8: The field is split in half, with runners starting in opposite directions. They criss cross 3 times during the race, then approach the finish from opposite directions. One year the first 2 guys took each other out in a big crash.

Women's Shortcut: At 4 points on the course the women veer off to take an alternate trail that shortens their distance. A couple years ago Lindsay Scherf, who went on to set the Jr. AR for 10k on the track, was the overall winner.

We also do a handicap race (slower runners start first, based on their performances in earlier races), as well as a 2 person (3 alternate 1 mile legs) and 3 person (1-3-2 km) relays.

Most of our races are simple, but a few are a little diffrent. In the Run for the Roses the women get a 5 minute head start, then the men catch and run through them, if they can. It's an out and back so you also get to see every one comming and going. The women like being out front for once and the men like running through the pack of women and saying hi as they go. It's fun to have the faster women come accross the line first, being chased down by the first men. (Race of about 450)

We have a couple of courses where we have two races of diffrent lenth, at the same time. For exampe on the New River Run we have a 5 mile and 5K running at the same time. The 5 mile group, dressed in blue race numbers starts, followed 17 minutes later by the 5K runners dressed in yellow numbers. They share the same course for the first mile, then split and wind their own loop, only to merge do the last 1.5 miles returning together. They all finish on the same line. (Sounds simple, but there are around 1,500 runners and the two races are cordinated to avoid each other until the merge).

One fun race, run by a local adventure race group is a 'bike leepfrog' race. Each team is two men and one bike. They start out together. One on the bike and the other running. After about a mile the one on the bike jumps off, drops the bike and continues running. The first runner, then he gets to the bike, jumps on and overtakes the one who is now runnning. They continue to switch off until the end of the race. The time for the team is the time of the last one crossing the line. This is a fun and tactical race.
Because of the worry of bikes being stolen the race is often done with pre-set and supervised bike drop locations, but when you can slect your own drops the tactics get more interesting, and you are never left waiting for your other half. Because it is run in a park with narrow tracks, the start times are often staggered.