Discussion: categorizing Trail Running events

I was thinking of lobbying ken for a Trail Running event category on AttackPoint. What do y'all think?

For now, it appears that the best/only place for a trail running event is under plain Running. That seems clearly more appropriate than Other, which looks like the only other current category trail running could possibly fall into.

Of course, whenever you split a category, there will always be edge cases left dangling that don't clearly fit either subcategory (a half trail, half road race?). I think those cases will be rare, though, and easily tossed in one or the other. Splitting also wouldn't make sense if the the number of events in either or both of the resulting categories is very small.

But to me, as a (mainly forest) orienteer, the difference between a trail race and a road race is significant, the former being a noticeably closer approximation to the physical aspect of orienteering, the latter being, for me at least, mainly for occasional objective measurement of fitness. Actually, now that I think about it, the reason for most of my infrequent road races of late has been social: to join non-orienteering runners (typically my daughter and s-i-l) in an event.

Either one, trail or road, is a good way to induce race-pace-or-faster work by removing the "excuse" of map reading. I suppose that observation could be be taken as an argument for not splitting.

If there is sentiment for this, what do we call the resulting categories? One possibility is to add "Trail Running" and change the existing "Running" to, perhaps, "Road/track Running". Or, to make them sort together (not that there is a terribly long list of event categories!), "Running (Road/Track)" and "Running (Trail)".

Or just leave the existing "Running" category name alone explicitly, but implicitly it changes meaning to "Not-Trail". Especially if there's some logistical reason for ken to leave the current name alone so as not to mess up the large database of past events.

Hmmm, I just noticed that there are precedents both ways: Cycling and MTB are combined; Paddling and Rowing are separate.

Hmmm, maybe this is a can of worms: It might suggest we should also distinguish "Orienteering (Forest)" and "Orienteering (Sprint)". Or would it be "Orienteering (Urban)"? I didn't really intend to go there!

Of course paddling and rowing are different. When you are paddling you go forward and rowing is backward ;-) Rowing also uses significantly more leg power to propel the boat

Yeah, rowing and paddling are about as similar as cycling and rollerskating (they're both on wheels, right?)

Just leave it as running. It's not like there are enough events in the current 'running' category to overload the system (only 4-5 per month).

Fair enough.

I did just notice both rogaining and MTB orienteering now each have their own categories. They didn't previously, at least in September when I last checked. I was always tossing up whether MTBO should go under orienteering or cycling!

I actually requested the addition of Rogaining, recently, hoping to entice the US rogaine organizers to use it.

However, I've since learned that some of the US rogaining crew are put off by AP comments on US-based rogaines--especially from outside the US--and refuse to use AP, claiming it's more "attack" than "point." They may have a point.

Some people are put off by facebook and refuse to use that, but it's still probably a good place to list your events to get the word out to those who do use it.

Yeah it's hard to commit to any one platform because a) there are so many; and b) people don't look at them all (I only started a profile on FB for my specific employment job advertisement reasons, which immediately ceased to exist right after I started using it).

Compared to most places I visit on the web, AttackPoint is overall very civil.

Think I just quadrupled the number of MTB Orienteering events with some reclassifying and adding in a load of new UK ones.

Well there weren't any until I reclassified five earlier today :-P, but yes now there are 33.

I like the idea of some way to indicate whether a running event is road or trail, that would be immediately apparent in the event listing (that is, without having to click on to the event details). It might not necessarily need a category, but perhaps some kind of subcategory indication?

Agree with fossil about rogaines - list your events where they will be seen by the biggest potential audiences, learn to ignore the critics and trolls.

I agree with JJ. AP is remarkably civil compared to most other social media. Barring a small number of vocal trolls, it is in fact nearly 100% civil.

I would like that, myself (a new category). Or sub categories in general, as a major feature request, maybe requiring reorganizing current categories, ugh. But it's not too bad as is: as tRicky says, the volume is fairly low for 'Running'.

I always (try to remember to) put 'Race Name - Xmi/km Trail Race' when I create events, to help with clarity.

Which reminds me I have a few to add for 2020!