Recent Charger Records 2021.10.31
F8084 8k Road Estelle Hahn 1:19:58 8/19/2021
M8589 10k Road Sam Graceffo 1:28:12 10/16/2021
Estelle Hahn improved her own 1:23:06 set on this same Onondaga Lake Park course. Sam boldly went where no 85-year-old Charger man has gone before: not into weightless space on a Jeff Bezos rocket, but along 10k of road carrying the full burden of one-g. His age-group standard was set at the Great NYS Marathon Weekend.
Embarrassment of Riches?
Our Chargers Records site currently lists records for 202 distinct events. Some of these are obscure distances (45m, e.g.), obsolete distances (60y), variations (50k trail), combined events (weight pentathlon), and field events conducted with unusual equipment (turbo javelin). This large number of events is down from a high of almost double that amount, as I’ve been trying to streamline our site by adopting more consistent event name conventions. For example, we once had listings for 5k, 5km, 5 kilometers, and perhaps further variations. A decision to write all these distances as just 5k goes a long way towards eliminating redundancy.
Standardizing distance terminology still left us with separate categories such as 5k, 5k track, 5k road, 5k trail, etc. Further streamlining is possible if we recognize that certain events are traditionally run on the track, and others are most often associated with the road. Thus, a record listed as simply 5k will be understood to have been run on a track, since 5k is a “standard” track distance. If you set a record at this distance in a road race, it would be listed as 5k road. On the other hand, a listing for a 10M record would be understood to represent a 10 mile road run. If it had been done on a track (some people actually do that), it would appear as 10-mile track. (10 meters if, god-forbid, we ever had such an event, would be written 10m.)