Run a Cross Country or Road Race Meet

Run a Cross Country or Road Race Meet

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Cross County Scoring Set-up

Here is a short summary of what to do to run a Cross Country Meet.

Create the meet and add one event for each physical race. Check the CC box in the event add/edit menu.

Before the meet begins, enter teams and athletes and assign competitor numbers. No need to enter athletes into events.

On meet day, click Run and select CC/RR at the top.

Select Event, click Ranks and enter the order of finish by competitor number. After saving that, you can click Score and it will score the event without the times.

Click Times and enter the times from the tape or read the times from a file that was downloaded from a timer. Save this and exit Times.

Click Match and that will bring the two lists together. Save and exit.

Click Score again and you get the results with times.

Cross Country Scoring

There are two basic methods for entering results for CC or RR events from the Run Menu. One method is to enter results just like the race was a regular Track event, and the other is to use the CC/RR module found by clicking CC/RR at the top of the Run Menu. There are three setup scenarios:

Meet Type Standard : All runners score together or are separated by age groups

Meet Type Divisions by Team: You have groups of teams belonging to separate divisions, regions, or large/small schools and each of these groups is scored separately. Simply create the Divisions and assign each team to a division.

Meet Type Standard and Meet Style 3+ Dual: You have 3 or more teams competing in the same race and you want to score each team against every other team as if there were multiple dual meets. The CC/RR Module must be used in this situation and you pick your dual meet pairs from the main screen using Setup / Entry Scoring Preferences / 3+ Dual.

Use the Run Menu if:

you are receiving results in a list of competitor numbers with their times already matched and your race is relatively small,

you are using photo finish to time the race (best if 400 or fewer runners per race)

Use the CC/RR Module if:

you are receiving results with a separate list of the order of finish and a separate list of times,

or you will be downloading times from a button finish timer,

or you are using a bar code reader,

or you are using more than one finish chute,

or your race has over 400 runners.

or your Meet Style is set to 3+ dual meets

Your most important step in preparing for a cross country meet or road race is to get the rosters of athletes in the database ahead of time and assign the competitor numbers so that all runners have pre assigned competitor numbers. There is no need to enter anyone in an event ahead of time unless you really need to have a list of the entries in each race. As runners are entered into the results menu with the competitor number, they are automatically entered into the event.

Note: From the CC/RR module, you can click on Athletes at the top to add athletes instead of exiting the module to add athletes.

Using the Run Menu to Enter Results for CC and RR

You will enter the results in lists of 10 or more. It is easiest to set the number of positions for each list to 10 by setting the event's "lanes" to 10. In "heat" 1, enter the first 10 finisher competitor numbers in the 2nd column titled "Comp#". Then enter the first 10 finisher times in the "Finals" column. Next press Ctrl-H to add a second "heat". Enter the 11th through 20th finishers' competitor numbers and then the 11th through 20th finisher times. Repeat this until all results are entered. After results are entered, clicking List will produce a ranked list of finishers. Clicking Score Event for a Cross Country event will produce the list of finishers along with the team scoring which takes into account the displacer rules in Entry/Scoring Preferences. If the event is a Road Race event, the Score Event will produce team scoring using the aggregate time of the team members. For Road Race scoring, the number of runners for a team is specified in the each event's set-up by placing a number in the "# of runners" check box. The Team Scores are only displayed if Single Column Courier is selected from the Run / Preferences / Results. The team scoring for CC uses the rules found in Set-up / Entry Scoring Preferences / CC/RR.

Note: When you click Score Event, you get team scores for those results that have been entered so far, regardless of whether all results are in or not. This means you can enter the first 50 out of 200 and find out quickly who the top three teams are for awards, assuming the top runners for the first three teams have finished. Then you complete entering the results and get the final complete team scoring list.

Using the CC/RR Module to Enter Results

With this module you can enter the order of finish separately from the times and you can get team scores without entering the times.

Note: The CC/RR module uses a separate database from the track database and thus the reports from the regular track main menu cannot access the CC/RR data. There is an Update feature within the CC/RR Module that copies completed results from the CC/RR database over to the track database for use in the various track reports.

CC/RR Enter Ranks / Read Bar Codes

This method allows you to enter the order of finish by competitor number for a given chute. If you have only one chute, then it is assumed to be chute 1. You can have up to 10 chutes. If using more than one chute, check the "Using more than one chute" check box . You can only enter the order of finish for one chute at a time. When you first click on Ranks, there will be no competitors in the list. To enter results by competitor number, click on the cell in row 1 under Comp# and type in the competitor numbers in the order in which they finished. If using a bar code reader, click on the Read Bar Codes button and start reading with the bar code reader. If a bar code can't be read by the reader, type in the number. In fact you can use this module to manually type in all the numbers. The list starts out with 160 empty rows. If your list gets filled, click the Increase Rows button to increase the number of rows. Click Save to save your list.

To change to a different chute while in Ranks, Times, or Match, click the upper left button for the Chute Number and enter a chute number from 1 to 10.

Correcting Errors: You have several options available for manipulating the rank order in case you make an error in entering the rank order. To delete someone from the list, select the row of the competitor and click the Delete button. To insert someone in the list, select a row, click the Insert button and enter the competitor number. To move any competitor from one row to another, edit the Rank number and change it to the row to be moved to.

Unknown Runners: In some cases, there may be a finisher that is temporarily missing his/her competitor number. Enter a competitor number of -9 to indicate "Unknown" runner, and this place will be reserved for you to later enter the correct competitor number.

If an invalid competitor number is entered, -9 is automatically entered to mark an unknown runner. This feature enables you to proceed to enter the next competitor number in rapid succession.

To list the rankings of the chute being worked on, click List and a list in rank order will be provided.

Reverse Ranks: In some cases, ranks may be entered in the wrong. Click on Reverse, and a pop up box will give you the option to choose a series of ranks to Reverse or "switch".

CC/RR Enter Times / Read Download

Click on Times to enter the list of result times for a given chute. To manually enter the times, click on box under Times in row 1, and add them. If you enter times out of order, they will be sorted by time. This permits you to enter the times consecutively until you chose to stop; at any time click Save to save your work. If you have downloaded times from a button finish timer, you can click Read Times to open a Select Download File dialog box. Highlight the file you want and click OK. The times will be read from the file and automatically entered for you. If times have already been entered for the given chute, the times will be over-written by the downloaded times being read in. These times will be used to match with the corresponding chute's order of finish.

If a time is incorrect, you can change it by highlighting the time and typing in the revised time. Click Increase to add more rows to the list and click Delete to remove a time from the list. You must click Save to resort the list. To Insert a time, simply add the time to the end of the list and the list will be resorted when you click Save.

CC/RR Match Ranks and Times

Click on Match to match up the separate ranks and separate times lists. In order for this to happen, you must have already entered the ranks and times. The two lists are lined up sided by side. This is to be performed for each chute of using more than one chute in a given race.

You can manipulate the lists in several ways. You can add a runner anywhere in the list by highlighting a row and clicking Insert. This act will move all runners below the insertion point down one. You enter the competitor number and the time from the previous runner will be used. You can delete a runner by highlighting the runner / row, and clicking Delete. This removes the runner / row and the time, and moves all runners below up one. To list the rankings of the chute being worked on, click List, and a list in rank order will be created. If the event has male and female, the ranking will include the ranks by gender as well as the overall rank.

CC/RR Merge All Chutes

You only merge chute results if you have more than one finish chute. Note: It is very important to understand that most changes made to individual chutes (either through enter Ranks or enter Times) AFTER merging will not be included in the merged files unless you merge all the chutes again. The only change to individual chutes that will affect a merged file are replacements of runners with another runner. Inserting, switching, or reversing runners in an individual chute will not affect the merged file unless you go back to Merge Chutes again. Modifying the Time order of an individual chute will also not affect the merged list unless you go back to Merge Chutes again.

Once all chutes have been merged, you can refine your final results within the Merge Chutes Menu. However, the intention is to get each individual chute results correctly matched first before merging. From the merged list, you can insert a runner or replace a runner. However, if you insert a runner, he/she will be given the same time as the runner in front of where the insertion occurs. The inserted runner will be placed in chute 10. To see the complete results of the merged list, click List.

CC/RR Select Times

Click on Select Times and you can manually enter a select time and the runner that goes with the time, or you can click Read Select Times to read a file that has already been downloaded from a button finish timer. These times are used to help verify or correct data that has been previously entered for a given chute. After entering select times, list and print them to see how they compare to the actual results. Select Times are NOT used for the actual results.

CC/RR Download Times

Click on Download and follow the instructions.
Chronomix 737 Timer
Nielsen-Kellerman Interval 2000XC Watch
Omega Power Time
Time Machine
Time Tech Sprint 8
ULTrak L10
FinishLynx File Sharing
DAG Chip Text File

CC/RR List Order of Finish

Click on List to list the order of finish for posting results. If you are using only one chute, you can get immediate results after you have entered any part of the order of finish in the Ranks module. You can later enter the times and match them with the finish order. If you have more than one chute, you cannot properly use this selection until all chutes have been merged.

CC/RR Score Event

Click on Score to score your meet from the CC/RR module. You have the choice of:
1) List and show Scores or
2) Team Scores Only.
If you have set-up the event with multi-age groups and it is a road race, the results will be separated by gender and age group. If the event is Cross Country, then the results will be separated by gender if the event is set-up as mixed genders. If the event is NOT Cross Country or Road Race and if you have set-up the event with multi-age groups, the results will be separated by gender and age group, but there will be no team scores. Once your ranks and times have been matched, you can get team scores. Teams will only be scored if the number of runners meets the minimum number of runners you set up in the Entry/Scoring Preferences (usually 5). If your meet is Cross Country and you have only one finish chute, you can get immediate team scores by just entering the order of finish in the Ranks module !
Options for the Results printout are:

If Assign teams within teams is checked, you can assign athletes to more than one team within a team. Like you would for relays, you assign athletes to A, B, C, etc teams. Each team will be scored separately. Splits are only available if FinishLynx File Sharing was used for the Button Finish Interface.

CC/RR Update for Reports Menu

Click Update to copy completed results from the CC/RR database over to the track database for use in the various track reports. The data will be copied over in flights of 10 for viewing in the regular part of the Run Menu. If there are over 400 runners in one race, this is not recommended, since the Run Menu will take to long to refresh the screen with 40 flights of 10 results or more. The update cannot be performed if any runners have been entered with -9 for unknown.

CC/RR Flat HTML

From within the CC/RR Module, you can create a plain and easy to read HTML file with the order of finish only, the order of finish and team scores, or just the team scores.