Mid-Atlantic USATF Grand Prix - Club Challenge

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SJAC Participation

USA Track & Field (USATF) is the National Governing Body for track and field, long-distance running and race walking in the United States. USATF encompasses the world's oldest organized sports, the most-watched events of Olympic broadcasts, the #1 high school and junior high school participatory sport and more than 50 million adult runners in the United States. There are 57 local USATF associations. The association SJAC belongs to, Mid-Atlantic, covers the state of Pennsylvania east of and including Potter, Clinton, Centre, Huntingdon, and Bedford counties and the State of Delaware. Until a couple of years ago, it used to "share" the southern counties of New Jersey with the New jersey USATF association. After this change, SJAC decided to continue our affiliation with the Mid-Atlantic association.

For more than 10 years Mid-Atlantic USATF has held an annual Grand Prix including from 10-13 races. In these races, Mid-Atlantic members could earn points on an age graded basis. At the end of the year awards are presented to the top 10 males and females with the highest overall point totals, as well as the top 3 scoring runners in 5 year age groups. Several of the races that are part of the Grand Prix are designated as annual Mid-Atlantic USATF Championship races at specific distances (e.g. 5K, 8K, 10K, 15K) and medals are awarded at the end of the year to the top Mid-Atlantic members overall and also in age groups in these races. SJAC members typically earn awards in many of these categories each year.

In 2002, Mid-Atlantic USATF added a Club Challenge competition to the Grand Prix. Using the same races as the Grand Prix, any club which is a member of Mid-Atlantic USATF (as SJAC is) could have any of their members who have also joined Mid-Atlantic USATF as individual members as possible team scorers for the club in these races. There is no limit on the number of runners from each club and as long as a runner has designated their specific club affiliation on their USATF membership, their race performance will be recorded as a possible score for their club. The top 5 age graded scores count for each club providing at least one runner is a master (40 & over) and at least one is female. Each of the 5 runner's age graded scores are counted for the club total for each race. The best 11 out of 12 club performances will count for each club's total score. The club with the most points after all the races wins! There were 13 races in 2002 and 2003, 11 in 2004 and 2005 and there will be 12 in 2006. At an annual awards luncheon after the conclusion of the year, the 1st thru 5th place clubs are awarded cash awards from $500 for 1st place to $50 for 5th place. The cash is nice for the club but it has also promoted a spirit of friendly competition among the area clubs that participate. We've actually become better acquainted and thus more friendly with runners from the other area clubs because of the Club Challenge. We've also done quite well, winning the Club Challenge in all four years it's been contested so far!

In 2004, Mid-Atlantic added an Off Road running series with a smaller range of individual awards than in the Grand Prix and also a club competition. The 2006 edition of this series includes 6 events, 4trail and 2 cross country races. Club scoring is similar to the road race Grand Prix. The best 5 out of 6 club performances will count for each club's total score. For 2005, the top 3 clubs gained cash awards from $300 for 1st place to $100 for 3rd place. SJAC has not previously competed in the Off Road series but intends to during 2006.

SJAC traditionally has a substantial membership in Mid-Atlantic USATF (78 currently during 2006). A fringe benefit of Mid-Atlantic USATF membership is a set of coupons for a $2.00 discount off the pre-registration entry fee for all the Grand Prix races. A runner can make back much or all of the $20.00 annual USATF membership fee by using these coupons which include many of our area's most popular races!

Here is a link to the Mid-Atlantic USATF website: http://mausatfcom.readyhosting.com/ There's a link on that page to the 2006 Grand Prix schedule. There are links on that page to the results of Mid-Atlantic USATF members for these races. You can even use links from those results to see details of each club's runners results for the race. We have a pretty good turnout of SJAC members for these races so it's also another good opportunity to meet and socialize with members of our club.

The "WAVA" column is the score each runner attained. In layman's terms, this score is a percentage representing each runners performance relative to the world record for that distance, adjusted for the runner's age and gender.

If that's confusing, here's a link to a site that has a calculator in which you can plug in your time for a specific race distance, along with your age and gender and it will compute your WAVA score http://jick.net/~jess/track/grubb/wavalookup.html I've found this calculator to be accurate to within one decimal point of the official WAVA scores so it should be good enough to give you more than a representative idea. WAVA stands for World Association of Veteran Athletes and subsequently changed to World Masters Athletics but the term "WAVA" is still commonly used.