Green Mansion Race Recap

The Green Mansion Golf Course in Chestertown hosted its first NYSSRA Nordic race on Saturday, December 27. 

Green Mansion Golf Course

Peru Nordic’s Mike Wynn won the mens 10 km race, beating teammate Chris Rose by almost two minutes.  Southern Adirondack’s Eric Seyse captured third overall.   In the women’s 10 k race, Saratoga Biathlon’s Carly Wynn out sprinted Anna Crawford for the win.  Ann Seyse captured the bronze. 

In the junior 5 km races, Andrew Nevins paced the boys, finishing ahead of Adam Swayze and Austin Huneck.   Ashley Forshey won the junior girls’ race.  Matthew Forshey outdueled Aaron Huneck in the boy’s 2.5 km race.

The 2.5 km course was undulating with mostly quick rolling climbs, but was highlighted by the signature climb and descent of “Rene’s Run”  (Rene’s Run is named in honor of Veteran NYSSRA master, Rene Clarke, who unfortunately had to sit out today’s race with a broken arm).    The conditions were wet but relatively fast, and flouros ruled the day.  The race was run out of the Green Mansion Golf Clubhouse, which had a full service bar and grill… a great way to end a race. 

Dave Burt captures the big prize!

 The highlight of the post race awards ceremony was the raffling off of a new pair of Swenor Rollerskis.  This was won by Southern Adirondack’s Dave Burt.   Kudos to Doug Diehl and the crew at Green Mansion for putting on an outstanding event.  A great time was had by all, and  NYSSRA hopes that Green Mansion becomes a permanent stop on the NYSSRA calendar.

Full Results

Boy’s 2.5 km

Forshey	Matthew	5105	Scotia Glenville	J4M	M	0:14:19
Huneck	Aaron	4173	Shenendehowa	J4M	M	0:15:39

Boy’s 5 km

Nevins	Andrew	4778		OJM	M	0:18:26
Swayze	Adam	4978	RNR	J1M	M	0:18:52
Huneck	Austin	4172	Shenendehowa	J3M	M	0:20:14
Trainor	Mac	4850		J1M	M	0:22:02
Tomko	Corey	4925	Saratoga Biathlon	J2M	M	0:23:49
Trainor	Jake	4944		J3M	M	0:28:54

Girl’s 5 km

Forshey

Ashley

4996

Scotia Glenville

J2F

F

0:25:55

Men’s 10 km

Wynn	Michael	3413	Peru Nordic Masters	M3M	M	0:34:37
Rose	Chris	3789	Peru Nordic Masters	M2M	M	0:36:27
Seyse	Eric	2961	Southern Adirondack	SRM	M	0:37:00
Diehl	Doug	1310	www.adirondacknordic.com	M5M	M	0:37:12
Donnelly-Heg	Martin	3380		M2M	M	0:37:17
Kobak	Jim	3186	Peru Nordic Masters	M2M	M	0:37:27
Kvam	David	2751	Peru Nordic Masters	SRM	M	0:38:14
Ruoff	Mark	1319	Shawangunk	M2M	M	0:38:39
Hatch	Stan	3574	Peru Nordic Masters	M4M	M	0:39:01
Huneck	Tim	2973	Shenendehowa	M4M	M	0:39:57
Maswick	Bob	4012	Peru Nordic Masters	M5M	M	0:42:02
Farry	Andy	1032	Team NJS	M2M	M	0:42:42
Bailey	Steve	4741	Peru Nordic Masters	M4M	M	0:44:32
Burt	Dave	4502	Southern Adirondack	M6M	M	0:46:51
Stegen	Art	185		M7M	M	0:47:45
Swift	Dan	5208		SRM	M	0:52:22
Dixon	Richard	1580	Southern Adirondack	M7M	M	0:54:10
Hamilton	Eric	1231	Shenendehowa	M7M	M	1:02:54

Women’s 10 km

Wynn	Carly	3976	Saratoga Biathlon	J1F	F	0:37:05
Crawford	Anna	3603		SRF	F	0:37:06
Seyse	Ann	3756	Southern Adirondack	SRF	F	0:49:31
Dixon	Sherry	1581	Southern Adirondack	M7F	F	0:58:45
Huneck	Gina	4408	Shenendehowa	M4F	F	1:09:38

How Competitive was your race?

NYSSRA races are fun, but we all know that ski racers are a competitive bunch.  They are always looking to ski faster and do better with each race.  And, they are always scanning the results sheet to see how they did compared to the rest of the field.  It is easy to look at overall place or age-group placing to evaluate your race.  But, is finishing 3rd in the Reindeer Roundup require the same effort as finishing 3rd in the NYSEF Season Opener?  Skiers know that some races are tougher than others.  What makes one race more competitive than the other?   If a race has lots of  fast skiers that all finish within seconds of each other, then that is a tough field to compete against!

One way to determine the quality of the race field is to look at how fast the skiers were.  Simply put, if the skiers are fast, then the race was competitive.  To determine the “relative competitiveness” of NYSSRA races, look at how the top seven skiers did in the race.  This group of skiers includes all of the medal winners and represents the pace of the head of the field.  Chances are good that these skiers were in the lead for the majority of the race, and set the pace for the pack to follow.  Using the average speed of  the top 7 skiers as a measure, the first NYSSRA races of the year stack up as follows:

NYSEF_opener_10M		00:02:48
NYSEF_opener_5M		00:03:22
NYSEF_opener_10F		00:03:23
Rochester1_10M		00:04:05
Reindeer_Roundup_10M		00:04:13
NYSEF_opener_5F		00:04:17
Osceola_Xmas_5M		00:04:21
Rochester1_5M		00:04:48
Rochester1_10F		00:05:06
Osceola_Xmas_5F		00:05:15
Reindeer_Roundup_10F		00:05:47

Using this measure, the NYSEF 10 km men’s race was the fastest.  The problem with using this to evaluate competitiveness is that ski race speeds are notoriously influenced by snow and weather conditions.   The Reindeer Roundup took place during a massive snowstorm.  And, typically, top male skiers are faster than top female skiers. The NYSEF women skied the exact same course and distance as the men.  To eliminate this gender and weather variable, evaluate the %back of the top racers.  The %back statistic does a good job of eliminating variables like distance, course difficulty and weather.  If you analyze this season’s races using the average % back of the top 7 finishers it looks like this.

NYSEF_opener_10F		3.75%
NYSEF_opener_10M		3.96%
Rochester1_10M		5.21%
Osceola_Xmas_5M		5.91%
Reindeer_Roundup_10M		6.62%
Rochester1_10F		10.35%
Osceola_Xmas_5F		13.81%
Rochester1_5M		14.21%
NYSEF_opener_5F		16.69%
NYSEF_opener_5M		17.65%
Reindeer_Roundup_10F		33.69%

Now, the NYSEF women’s 10 k is the most competitive.  The top 7 skiers in the field were very close to one another at the finish.  The skiers were fast, and the top skiers were equally fast.  However, the field size was much smaller in the NYSEF women’s race, there were half as many skiers as there were in the men’s race.  If a race field is bigger, then a skier is more likely to be skiing against tough competition, especially to place in the top half of the field.  If you look at the average number of skiers that the top 7 had to beat to be better than the middle of the pack, it looks like this:

NYSEF_opener_10M		18.5
Osceola_Xmas_5M		18
Osceola_Xmas_5F		8.5
NYSEF_opener_10F		8
Reindeer_Roundup_10M		5.5
Rochester1_10M		3.5
NYSEF_opener_5M		1.5
Reindeer_Roundup_10F		0.5
Rochester1_5M		-0.5
Rochester1_10F		-0.5
NYSEF_opener_5F		-0.5

The top 7 skiers in the Osceola Xmas Mens 5 km race and the NYSEF opener mens 10 km race  had to beat an average of  18 other good skiers just to be in the top half of the field.  Typically, in a NYSSRA race, more skiers means more traffic and tougher race conditions.  However, just beating alot of skiers does not automatically make it a challenging race.

 To get a full picture of the “competitive nature” of a NYSSRA race, you need to look at a composite of the speed of the race, the % back of the race and the size of the field.  Of these values, %back should carry the highest weight. 

So I have devised the competitive index value for NYSSRA races.  For each racer, subtract the %back from 110 (the winners would have given 110%!) Then add the number of skiers that he/she beat to be in the top half of the field.  Finally, subtract the number of minutes per km.  Find the average competitive index for the top 7 skiers and you have a number that describes how competitive the race field was.  Our first set of NYSSRA races looks like this:

Race		Average of competitive_index_value
NYSEF_opener_10M		115.17
Osceola_Xmas_5M		112.91
NYSEF_opener_10F		110.11
Rochester1_10M		106.37
Reindeer_Roundup_10M		103.49
Osceola_Xmas_5F		100.22
Rochester1_10F		99.19
Rochester1_5M		95.34
NYSEF_opener_5M		92.96
NYSEF_opener_5F		92.88
Reindeer_Roundup_10F		76.32

So, the NYSEF 10 km mens race has been the most competitive of the season.  This was thanks in large part to the St. Lawrence University ski team who really “upped the ante” for this race.  Of course, you can use this stat to evaluate an individual’s race performance which takes into account %back, size of field and speed.  Using our race data, our top performing NYSSRA skiers have been as follows:

Day, Chad 2929	Osceola_Xmas_5M	120.33
	Rochester1_10M	113.09
Izzo, Elizabeth 3421	Osceola_Xmas_5F	115.56
Bencze, Charlie 3383	Osceola_Xmas_5M	118.61
	NYSEF_opener_5M	112.13
Johnson, Carl 2587	Osceola_Xmas_5M	114.21
Stevens, Dan 3482	Reindeer_Roundup_10M	114.09
Wynn, Michael 3413	Reindeer_Roundup_10M	111.85
Wynn, Carly 3976	Reindeer_Roundup_10F	111.57
Sapp, Maile 3715	NYSEF_opener_5F	110.35
Swayze, Adam 4978	Rochester1_5M	110.07

This is just another way for competitive NYSSRA skiers to evaluate their races and to see how they really stack up against the competition.

SLU Skiers Dominate Season Opener

12/14/2008-  The St. Lawrence University Skiing Saints stormed into Mt. Van Hoevenberg and captured the top three places in both the mens and womens 10 k races. Caroline Carpenter won the women’s race in a time of 0:32:35, while Steve Vargo outsprinted Zach Weatherell to win the men’s race. St. Lawrence coach, Ethan Townsend won the men’s masters division, outpacing defending points series champ, Mike Wynn. While Peru Nordic’s Janet Findlay captured the masters women race.

In the 5 km junior races, NYSEF Skiers dominated. Charlie Bencze, Joe Izzo and Nathan Capone finished 1-2-3 in the boy’s race, while Malie Sapp, Anna Izzo and Shenendehowa’s Becky Christoffel topped the girls’ field.

This was the first NYSSRA points race of the season, as well as the first ESG qualifier.  To clarify how scoring works, each event on the scedule potentally has multiple races, based on distance.  For example, in the season opener, there were actually four scored races, the junior boys 5 k, the junior girls 5k, the mens 10 k and the womens 10 k.  In each race, skiers are awarded points based on how they finished in thier respective age classes, and based on how they finished overall.  They also recieve bonus points for being NYSSRA members.  For ESG scoring, racers are scored using the world cup points system based on place in one of the two ESG divisions, scholastic (age 12-17) and open/masters (age 18+).

The top point scorers from the season opener are as follows:

name_adj	Club	Total
Sapp, Maile 3715	NYSEF	40
Bencze, Charlie 3383	NYSEF	40
Izzo, Elizabeth 3421	NYSEF	37
Izzo, Joseph 3420	NYSEF	35
Izzo, Anna 3839	NYSEF	35
Wynn, Mike 3413	Peru Nordic	31
Christoffel, Becky 4145	Shenendehowa	31

Notice, none of our 10 k race winnners have more than 30 points.  This is because the mens and womens winners maxed out at 30 points 10 points for 1st overall and 20 points for finishing 1st in their class.  They were not NYSSRA members, so they did not recieve the NYSSRA membership bonus.  Our womens masters winner did not finish in the top 10 of the field, so she recieved 10 membership bonus points, 20 points for winning her age category, but did not recieve any overall placing bonus points.

This was also the first ESG qualifier.  The top ESG points earners are as follows:

name_adj	ESG_status	Total
Sapp, Maile 3715	scholastic	110
Bencze, Charlie 3383	scholastic	110
Izzo, Joseph 3420	scholastic	90
Izzo, Anna 3839	scholastic	90
Christoffel, Becky 4145	scholastic	70
Izzo, Elizabeth 3421	scholastic	60
Halligan, Brian 3858	scholastic	60
Pepper, Bryan 3064	open/master	55
Huneck, Austin 4172	scholastic	55

Remember, for ESG scoring, racers are sorted into Scholastic and Open/Masters categories.  Skiers must be active NYSSRA members, so our mens and women’s race winners recieved zero ESG points because they are not members of NYSSRA.  However, they do displace skiers in the overall standings, so our highest scoring open/master skier (Brian Pepper) recieved points for being a NYSSRA member, and for finishing 5th overall in the open/master category.