What is Age Grading

In lieu of traditional age groups, the Cumberland Valley Race Series will base our age awards using your age graded performance. 

We all know that we will slow down as we get older even though we may be more fit.  If you accept this fact and look at your performance in a new way, you can still chase a PR or compare your time to the young fast guy or girl that won the race.  Age Adjusted times are calculated from age grading tables developed by WMA (World Masters Athletics).  The Age Grading tables correct an athlete's time to what it would have been (or will be) in their prime years, regardless of the athlete's current age. The adjustment factors in the tables are based on the world’s best performances at each age compared to Open Class world records in those events.  That time is then compared to the Open Class world record giving a relative standard percentage.  The world records we use are those listed as ratified as of Jan 1 (mixed records for woman) and listed on the World Athletics website.  For events not maintained by World Athletics website we use the records found on the Athletics Weekly website.  This Age Graded Performance allows us to compare all the athletes in the race without regard to age or gender.

For example Stephen Schelander won the 2012 Shippensburg Turkey Trot in a time of 16:11 at the age of 22.  Jim Becker finished the 2010 Fall Down on the Trail 5k in 20th place in a time of 21:38 at the age of 68.  Both had an age adjusted time of 16:10 with an age graded percent of 80.41%.

For an in depth discussion on age grading with plenty of colorful charts and graphs, read the article  Age Grading Running Races by Alan Jones.