Minnesota's "Runner of the Year"

Run Minnesota has started a system of tracking who's the best runner in different age groups for each year. It's VERY technical, and I don't fully understand it all... but I can appreciate it. I noted in a post late in 2021 that I had acquired some points in the "USATF MN Runner of the Year" for that year, and I thought that was pretty great. I was going to be more aware of it while racing in 2022, but I forgot about it for maybe the first half of last year.

Well, I recently thought of it and looked up some info, and it turns out I have some points for 2022 as well. I did a little better in 2022 finishing 11th overall with 8 points based off of 4 races. (Whereas in 2021, I was 15th overall with 6 points off of 2 races that scored points.)

Overall points for the 40-44 age group. CLICK HERE for a larger view.

There were 82 runners that broke the "standard" time for any race that earned points in the 40-44 age group.

If you're faster than the predetermined "standard" time, you get 1 point for sure. But then you can earn more points if you have a faster time AND more people are under the "standard." For example: if 5 people run faster than the standard time in a 5K (about 18:20 for the 40-44 age group), the fastest time earns 5 points, the 2nd fastest earns 4 points, the 3rd fastest earns 3 points, etc. And the number of points a runner has earned can be seen by the small number in parentheses behind their name in these results below.

I've always said I'm not as good at longer races, and that really can be seen in this "runner of the year" scoring:

27th fastest half marathon time, getting the basic 1 point. (Needed to run
1:17:40 or faster to earn more than 1 point as opposed to my 1:22:46.)


Moving up to 16th in the 10 mile, but still only the basic 1 point.


More proof that I just did NOT have a good day at the Gear in Gear 10K:
I earned NO points (just 0:01 faster would have earned me a point!!).


BK 5K earned me 1 point in 11th. 0:06 faster would have earned me 2 points.


My big points scoring race (5 points) was the Raspberry Run 1 mile.
I put in a lot of "mile specific" track workouts to make this happen.
But only 0:00.2 faster would have earned me ANOTHER point!

So all of that adds up to 8 points and 11th overall as seen at the top of this post. I earned 2 more points than the year before and moved up 4 spots. If I can keep my running going strong, maybe I'll try to do well at a variety of races this year... and that's what it takes: posting FAST TIMES (not *placing* well) at DIFFERENT race distances.

And just for fun, here's some of the graphs that appear with some of the results for different races with regards to the "runner of the year" finishes. These show PACE up the left, AGE across the bottom, and then the BLUE LINE is the "standard" time that you have to beat (be under) to earn points. Here's the BK 5K that shows I had a lot of 20 and 30 year olds faster than me:

(I'm the pink dot in these.)


The Halloween Half shows that I placed pretty well overall - 14 dots below mine.


This 1 mile was my best race for the year, but it doesn't really scream that
looking at these results. I beat a lot of 10 year olds. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


And look at the SHEER NUMBERS in the TC 10 Mile!