As we've said before, we're continually trying to improve the ranking system. We knew it would be a few year process when we started them.

We've recently implemented several new changes to the system that we believe will make the rankings more quickly reflect the performances of the athletes.

A week or two ago, we lowered the standard to be included as a ranked runner. We did this in an attempt to have more people ranked and get a truer picture for the RunWV Power Rankings. The result of this is that everyone who was ranked at the time gained 30 points. Generally speaking, this lowered the standard to get ranked by 15 seconds each race.

We have also implemented the Breakthrough Provision. We initially included three ways to trigger the Breakthrough, and each would generate an extra 50 point bonus. This created some different problems, and while we still want to keep the Breakthrough, we've lessened the effect. It is now a tiered Breakthrough. If you show consecutive 30 point gains, you will still gain the 50 point bonus, If you show 3 consecutive 20 point gains, you will gain a 40 point bonus. 4 Consecutive 15 point gains will yield a 30 point bonus.

One of the problems that plagues the rankings at the beginning of the year, is that people who come into the season with high rankings who are in lousy shape artificially inflate the scores of their competitors. We have done two things to combat this. The first is that outlyers, those whose difference in ranking score and race score are way out of whack compared to the other ranked runners, are stricken from the calculation. They will still lose their 25 points, but they aren't going to inflate the scores of the remaining runners. For example, if Runner A has a ranking score of 100, but has a race score of -300, his difference is -400. If the average difference of the ranked runners in that race was only -20, then Runner A is an outlyer. The second item we've implemented is the Breakdown provision. If a runner loses 25 points in consecutive races, they trigger the Breakdown provision. Triggering the Breakdown Provision will result in a loss of 1/2 the runner's remaining points or a loss of 50 points, whichever is less.

Another thing that crops up from time-to-time is that sometimes the winner of a race didn't have to push himself or herself to win. We don't really want to penalize someone when they win a race. Thus, we've instituted the Winner's Provision. The Winner's Provision states that the winner of any race can lose no more than 10 points instead of the possible 25.

We have another implementation in mind, but we're hesitating adding it. This change would cause a 10 point deduction to anyone who missed a meet. This would help get rid of people that are injured for the bulk of the season, where previously their ranking would not change. The problem with this implementation is that we do not wish to penalize someone who misses a meet to attend a funeral or an academic function. We also do not always receive JV results for meets, and there are ranked runners that run JV from time to time. These people would be unjustly penalized simply because we did not receive the JV results. This could also penalize runners that compete for teams that schedule more meets. We're interested to hear what you think about this possible implementation.

Again, we believe the above changes to the Ranking System will improve the rankings as a whole, and should result in Rankings that more quickly reflect the current level of the runners involved.