Make Sense of Your City to Surf Results

City to Surf Results

Each year I receive lots of text messages and emails after our runners have finished the City to Surf. And each year, these messages convey a mixture of elation and disappointment. This year of course was no different.

As coaches, we probably view your results differently to the way you view them. I thought I’d share a few of the things you should be looking at when you’re analysing this year’s results.

Your Start Group

The City to Surf is like no other race. It’s tough, it’s hilly and there are lots and lots of people. If you’re a front runner, the crowd factor isn’t going to impact you too much. If you’re running with the back of the pack, you’re unlikely to be able to get much of a rhythm going. You also have  the disadvantage of coming through the water stations after 50,000 people have slurped, spilt and thrown their paper cups on the ground.  You need to slow down a bit through the water stations, just for safety’s sake.

The Weather

Even though the City to Surf is a winter run, it can get pretty hot. Yesterday it was 14 degrees at 8:30am, and 16 degrees at 9:30. Last year the temperature was 9 degrees at 9am, and the top of 16 degrees wasn’t reached until 3pm that day. If you’re comparing this year’s run to last year’s,  you need to take that temperature difference into account. Research done on some of the big city marathons has shown that performance decreases with a rise in temperture.

For the top three placegettes, the decrease in performance was a bit less than 1%, for every 5 degree rise in temperature above 10 degrees C. For slower runners, this drop in performance increased exponentially. Unforutnately, the reasearch only looked at the first 300 runners. The 50th placed runners’ performance dropped by 1.5%, the 100th placegetters by 1.8%, and the 300th place getters by 3.2%. 300th place would be a time of around three hours for the marathons in the sample. 

If you’re comparing your time from this year’s City to Surf to last year, unless you’re a three hour marathoner, you should expect that your performance would have dropped by more than 3.2% due to the difference in temperature. To put that into perspective, a 3.2% drop in performance on a 70 minute run last year, is equal to about a 72:15 this year.

They Have Age Categories for a Reason

If you were at maximum fitness level in your prime, as you get older, your performance will naturally decline. If you weren’t at peak fitness in your younger years, you’re more likely to be able to maintain your performance simply be increasing your level of fitness. 

Age graded performance tables are a great way to evaluate your performance against previous performances, and also across different events. Your age graded percentage show you how you compare to the world’s best of your age and gender. Our coach Richard Sarkies, who has a City to Surf best time of 48:12, set 12 years ago, ran 52:12 yesterday. Comparing these two runs on the age graded tables actually shows he went slightly better this year. 

You can use this calculator to compare your own age-graded times. 

Make sure you press “Age Grade” next to where you enter your time to get your result at the bottom.

Analysing This Year’s City to Surf Result

Once you’ve established that your time is actually pretty good compared to last year’s cooler weather time or your time of 20 years ago, you can start to learn from your results.

Firstly, you should check if your goal was realistic. When I asked Richard if he was happy with his result, he replied he “couldn’t have gone any faster”. I thought he’d been aiming for around 50 minutes, and when I asked him about that he said something like  “that would’ve been nice, but what you hope to get and what you’re able to achieve are two completely different things”. After having quite a long time off rehabbing an Achilles injury, he knew he probably didn’t have the endurance to get him through to the end.

My Race Goals

Not being a massive fan of crowds, or spending hours getting home when I’m sweaty and cold, I’d never done the City to Surf before, so I didn’t really know what to expect. For various reasons, my training over the last 2 years has been intermittent at best, and I knew I didnt’ have the sort of base that’s required to do the race any justice. On top of that, I developed a nasty sinus infection about three weeks out and was laid out, unable to train. So I had a few things to take into account when setting my goals for the race.

My goals were:

  • To run on feel rather than use any kind of GPS device. (I did use my stop watch to roughly keep track of how I was going at each km marker).
  • Run conservatively for the first half of the race, and run the second half of the race after heart break hill faster than the first half
  • Be prepared to walk some of the race if I felt I needed to
  • As far as time went, I really thought I’d be lucky to run under 90 minutes (my pre-sinusitis goal had been under 80-mostly likely too ambitous)

Goal number one was pretty easy, as I don’t have a GPS device at the moment

Goal number three – I was definitely prepared to walk –in fact I did walk through a couple of the drinks stations to make sure I rehyderated (confession – I had a couple of champagnes the night before-why not since I was treating it as a training run, right?)

Goal number three-the numbers aren’t pretty, but my results do show I ran a fairly even race.

My City to Surf Splits - not pretty

Looking at the split rank (S/Rank) and the race rank (R/Rank) you can see that I moved through the field as the race progressed. Not so rapidly in the second half of the race. 

You can also see I ran 36 seconds faster over the back half of the course. I’m not entirely convinced the course measurements are accurate, but they wouldn’t be too far out.

Look at How You Handled Heart Break Hill

Everyone slows down up heart break hill. It’s a reasonably steep, long,  relentless 1.4km in the middle of the race, so you should expect to slow down a bit. But how do you assess whether you slowed more than you should?

Looking at my figures, you can see that I pick up nearly 2000 places going up the hill. This means that I ran faster up heart break hill than 7% of the people who were running faster than I was before heart break hill. 

These figures alone don’t tell you much, other than I was slower up the hill than 21,082 people. But, using those figures, along with how I felt throughout the race is useful. I felt ok going up the hill. I felt that before heartbreak hill I was running at a pace I’d be able to maintain for 90 minutes. The fact that I slowed down up the hill definitely helped me maintain my pace in the back end of the race. I was exhausted for the last 2 km of the race due to lack of fitness, but it wasn’t running up the hills too hard that did it to me.  I was conscious of my form going up the hill, shorter strides, quicker turnover to put less strain on my legs. I used the tangents to make sure I ran the shortest distance possible. All in all, I was happy with how I handled this part of the course. 

Another way you can guage how you went with heart break hill is by comparing yourself to some of the front runners.  The first few place getters slow down by about 8%, Richard (208th place) slowed down by 21%, and I slowed down 15%. I still think I have a lot of room for improvement on my up hill running, but comparing these figures, I think it shows I’m heading in the right direction.

What To Do With the Data

Use your City to Surf race stats to help you learn for next time. Good race or bad race, you can take note of the stats and how you were feeling on the day, and learn a lot. If you started out at 4:30 pace, and finished up at 5:30 pace, think about how you felt for your first few kms. Remember that feeling, and know that next time, that feeling is tricking you into running faster. You have to feel as if your effort is easier than that next time you race.

If you slowed down dramatically up heart break hill, was it because you’d gone too fast early in the race?  Was it because you deliberately slowed down to conserve energy?  Or was it because you’re not great at running up hills and you need to build some strength in your legs and work on your hill technique?

If your’e planning on improving next time you race, make some notes now on how you ran, how you felt, what you did leading into the race.  What did you do well, what would you do differently next time?  When you start to plan your training for your next race, you’ll know what you need to work on.

A Good Day Out

At the end of the day, whatever your result, it was a beautiful day out with nearly 70,000 other Sydney-sider, celebrating living in this awesome city of ours.

And it was a VERY good day out for Hooked on Runing teams. You can see our team results here. link to our results page

City to Surf 2016: Our results

Hooked on Running singlet

This year we had our biggest teams ever. Our 50+ women led the charge with 13 team members, and we had two men’s teams this year, open and 50+.

We had some great results, but I’m far more excited about the number of our runners who enjoyed racing under the Hooked on Running flag.

Hooked on Running City to Surf Results

Open Women: 4th

Open Men: 10th

Women 40-49: 2nd

Women 50+: 2nd

Men 50+: 3rd

The Teams

These are our official teams lists, but we had quite a few other runners running for charity or with a work team. Fantastic turnout people. Richard and I are over the moon. Details of celebration dinner to come!

Hooked on Running women 50+
Hooked on Running women 40-49
Hooked on Running Open Women
Hooked on Running Open Men
City to Surf Hooked on Running 50+

City to Surf 2013

Congratulations to our Open Women’s Team on placing fifth in the 2013 City to Surf. 

Great to see a big contingent of “Hooked on Healthers” at the City to Surf this year, both as runners and also as volunteers manning the drinks stations with the scouts and other volunteer groups.

 

Our women’s open team placed 5th with an overall time of  3 hrs, 45 mins and 7 secs. This in spite of Jane Raftesath running in odd shoes. Somehow the last minute shoe lace change left her wearing one old shoe and one new shoe to the start line!

 

Tara McNamara (Sat 6:45am Frenchs Forest) had a great City to Surf. This is how she saw the race

 

I had 3 goals for the race this year..

1) run up heartbreak hill

2) run the whole 14 kms

3) run in under 90 mins

I managed all three!!! I felt good through the race (after my normal warm up 3kms and dodging the people in the early stages helped me stay …calm and not try go too fast – the hill was great – head down, feet moving, looking at the next corner and all of a sudden it was over!
The most frustrating section was the the last km – then having to dodge people did bother me – I stopped looking at my watch cause i knew I was close to getting under 90 mins and tried not to yell at people to get out of my way and, as much as possible with the crowds, I ran as fast as I could.

Smiling as I crossed the line and finally looking at my watch…. 87mins!

Happy with it all, I met some work colleagues and drank a lot of water before joining the queue for the bus home.

Thanks so much for making me a better runner

 

Here are all our results.

Tara McNamara: 87:47

Courtney Heyden: 73:53

Petra Thallmayer: 89:12

Jane Raftesath: 72:26

Sam Evans: 72:26

Sam O’Connor: 104:41 – fastest walker in the north

Pamela Martin: 116:44

Leanne Forster: 89:50

Susanne Lewis: 82:38 – 292nd in category

Bernice Woodbury: 82:33

Trish Pavely: 80:14

Dave Spencer: 67:59

Megan Mouradian: 71:47

Cathy Stockwell: 83:10

 

 

How much of your fun run entry fee goes to charity?

Let’s face it, it costs a bit to enter a fun run these days. You’d be hard pressed to enter a marathon for much under $100 anywhere on the eastern seaboard from Brisbane to Melbourne (the Sydney M7 is a bargain at $80), and most half marathons are around the $90 mark. The city to surf is $65 if you get in early, the shorter runs associated with the Sydney Running Festival (better known as the bridge run) will set you back $55 and $40 (early bird entry) for the 9km and 3.5km respectively.

Let’s face it, it costs a bit to enter a fun run these days. You’d be hard pressed to enter a marathon for much under $100 anywhere on the eastern seaboard from Brisbane to Melbourne (the Sydney M7 is a bargain at $80), and most half marathons are around the $90 mark. The city to surf is $65 if you get in early, the shorter runs associated with the Sydney Running Festival (better known as the bridge run) will set you back $55 and $40 (early bird entry) for the 9km and 3.5km respectively.

I often hear my runners say they don’t mind the high fees to enter fun runs, as it’s helping charity. So I thought I’d take a look at just how much of your fun run entry dollar goes to charity.

I approached the organisers of a few events via email, to get a feel for what money goes where. Here are some of the responses.

EMAIL FROM HOOKED ON RUNNING

I own a  running training and coaching business and many of my runners are interested to know where their entry fees for various fun runs go to. Just wondering if you could clarify a few things for me.  Does any of the entry fee go to charity? and if so is that tied to people connected to that charity volunteering -eg the SES.

We’re also interested to know what percentage of the entry fee goes towards the actual running of the event, and what goes to the event manager? Any light you could shed on these questions would be apprectiated. thanks Kirsten Todd Hooked on Health Hooked on Running www.hookedonrunning.superfasttests.com

Reply from GOLD COAST MARATHON (and half marathon, 10km, 5km and 4km and 2km kids dashes).

All entry fees go to running the event. Our organisation is a not for profit organisation and as such we seek commercial sponsorship and government funding to heavily subsides our entry fees. As a consequence, we do not have the surplus to be able to designate any of the entry fee towards Charity. (My emphasis)

 We are however heavily involved in promoting Charity Organisations such as Cancer Council Queensland and enlisting Every Day Heroes. To date we have managed to raise over half a million dollars for Charity.

Reply from FAIRFAX EVENTS regarding City to Surf
(they also run SMH Half Marathon, Australian Running Festival which includes the Canberra Marathon, Cole Classic Swim, Sun Run, Run4Fun). 

It took a few goes to get any real information from them at all, and that was simply that they couldn’t give me any information!

Across all events run by Fairfax Media, In return for your entry fee into our events, you will receive a range of items depending on the event:

– A chest bib and timing tag (attached to the back of the bib)
– A finisher’s medal
– Public transport to and from the event, on event day
– Baggage transport from start to finish line
– Gatorade and water during and immediately after the race
– The Sun-Herald newspaper (on race day, whilst stocks last)
– Entertainment along the course and at the finish line
– Downloadable certificate

An event as large as the events that we coordinate, is very expensive to organise and execute each year. Without the support of there partners and over 3,000 volunteers it would not be possible to run such a large community event.

Representatives from various community organisations all over Sydney such as Rotary and Lions Clubs, Scouts and Girl Guides, various sporting groups, volunteer bush fire brigades, State Emergency Services, St John Ambulance and school groups help out on the day. Each of these organisations receives a per volunteer donation in appreciation for their assistance. 

HOOKED ON RUNNING:
Hi Zane

I did read all of this on the city to surf website, but thanks for sending it through again. So can I clarify, that any money from entry fees that goes to charity goes to organisations who supply volunteers for the event, and any profits from the event goes to Fairfax media, or I guess Fairfax events?

FAIRFAX EVENTS

Thank you for your email. Entrants do have the opportunity to fundraise for a chosen charity or make a one off donation during the registration process. Volunteer groups do receive a donation per person for their efforts throughout event day

HOOKED ON RUNNING:
Thanks once again. We were already pretty clear on that. What is of interest to us is whether or not these events are a profit making venture for Fairfax media or Fairfax events.

FAIRFAX EVENTS

Thank you for your email. I’m afraid we won’t be able to disclose this information to you. If you do have any other questions that we might be able to help with feel free to get in contact. 

I don’t know about you, but I’ve taken that to mean that Fairfax Events might well turn a profit from these events, and there is absolutely no reason why they shouldn’t.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love these fun runs. They are a great community event, they get people off their bums so they feel better physically and emotionally, and a lot of money is mobilised for charity because these events exist.

But know this: For most of the larger fun run events, little or none of your actual entry fee goes to charity, unless a donation is being made on a per volunteer basis to charitable organisations such as scouts, SES, surf lifesaving etc, who provide manpower on the day. If you want all your training and your run on the day to help a charity, you need to donate to your chosen charity during the entry process, or actively raise funds by seeking sponsorship for your run, or by some other kind of fun raising.

Or……….. you could enter some of the smaller local events, which tend to cost less. A fair chunk of your entry fee can be donated to charity, due to the volunteer of the event organisers. 

I asked a similar question of some local event organisers. Here are their responses:

ROSEVILLE CHASE ROTARY FUN RUN

Hello Kirsten,

The Roseville Chase Rotary Fun Run is organised primarily as a Community event to encourage good health and provide an opportunity for local family to participate in a community event.  Our event caters for serious runner and of leisurely walkers.

 Regarding the the Registration fees, approximately half the fees collected are used in expenses associated with the event.  The other 50% all goes to support local , National and International causes and project that our Rotary Club is directly supporting or that Rotary International is supporting. 

 Rotary does not use any of the charity funds it raises on administration, marketing or promotional costs.

 If you require more information go to www.rotary.org

MINI-MOS FUN RUN

I received a really helpful two page document from the organisers of the mimimos (thanks to Cherelle Martin). The mimimos is 100% run by volunteers, so no salaries need to be paid from your entry fees. Mosman Public School has been running the Minimos for 30 years now, so they are pretty efficient at it. It’s always a really well run event which I can highly recommend.

Here are some interesting facts about the Mini-Mos

  • The break even point where the fun run costs are covered is roughly 1600-1800 entrants. Entries vary from year to year,  so it’s not possible to say exactly how much of your individual entry fee goes directly to the school.
  • At $45 for 10km, $35 for 5km, and $22.50 for 2 km, entry fees compare favourably to larger events
  • As well as raising money for the school, the fun run provides a platform for raising funds for other charities. Like most runs theses days, participants can set up individual sponsorship pages and can make a donation online during the registration process. Other initiatives also raise funds for charities such as the Tony Abbott Challenge and items provided by high profile Minimos ambassadors for auction.
  • In 2013, the Mini-Mos Fun Run raised nearly $50,000 for the school and $30, 000 for charity

Just wanted to set the record straight.