Just out of curiosity, if you know, how many runners had 2021 as their goal at the start of the year? I know I was one, then I laughably upped my goal in June/July and will be amazed if I manage 1500 this year.

42 people made goal changes. I don't have a masterlist from the start of the year. The mid-year goal change had some decreases and some increases.

I joined the game for the first time this year and dropped out before week 1 results were even posted.  I set a highly ambitious annual goal because I thought the point of the game was to challenge yourself and reach new running goals.  Once I realized how detrimental it would be to my team to not reach my weekly goal consistently I dropped out.  I would love to join something (a game, a forum, etc) where the whole point is to support other runners with crazy ambitious goals be it total mileage, improving PRs, run streaks or anything else.

Maybe an individuals game but every week/month there's a different side challenge.  Highest % mileage over previous 4 week average,  Most improved mile time trial, 30 day running streak etc.  Competition but over a much shorter time frame and maybe some challenges appeal to you and maybe some you just 'watch' and cheer from the side.

I joined the game for the first time this year and dropped out before week 1 results were even posted.  I set a highly ambitious annual goal because I thought the point of the game was to challenge yourself and reach new running goals.  Once I realized how detrimental it would be to my team to not reach my weekly goal consistently I dropped out.  I would love to join something (a game, a forum, etc) where the whole point is to support other runners with crazy ambitious goals be it total mileage, improving PRs, run streaks or anything else.

 

Maybe an individuals game but every week/month there's a different side challenge.  Highest % mileage over previous 4 week average,  Most improved mile time trial, 30 day running streak etc.  Competition but over a much shorter time frame and maybe some challenges appeal to you and maybe some you just 'watch' and cheer from the side.

If you want to set super ambitious goals, then join the individuals game and get active in either the individuals group or this group. We absolutely want to celebrate mileage PRs, streaks, etc.

At this point, the points are all automated and we don't have the means to add extra points for side challenges, but those can certainly be calculated out and done by paper. Talk to bobinpittsburgh (the main keeper for the individual subforum group) and see what you can come up with.

Keep in mind this game is run by volunteers and with dwindling numbers, it gets to be a lot of work for not a lot of engagement. Hopefully soon we'll have some information on the 2022 game. Typically new signups don't open until the last Friday in November.

One other thought...what about flipping the points values for green percentage and mileage goals (so getting to green would be the higher point value over percentage). My thought is it may reward/motivate individual & team consistency, since just getting to your goal each week would be the main prize. Then going above and beyond on percentage would be more of an extra reward. It would also blunt the impact of a single runner who goes way over goal on a particular week (had this happen a couple weeks where one person on our or another team went way over goal and swung the points in a big way...including the one runner who did 200% this past week in the playoffs). Also, when you get smaller teams, it is a bit easier to hit green, I think (our team hit 100% over the last few weeks pretty often with a lot of runners on IR) - but it was hard for us to get too much over our goal as most of the team wasn't really high-mileage runners...

 

I'm sure there are pitfalls to this too...just a thought...

You could probably make a case going either way on the scoring.

I'm not sure I agree with the statement in bold though. It can often be harder for high-mileage runners to get high percentages of goal, since you have to add so many extra miles. And incidentally - the team with the 200% guy last week lost!

 

 

From a team perspective, miles over goal are miles over goal. The teams all started out the year with a goal of 320 miles. If someone runs an additional 16 miles per week over goal, if everyone else hits 100%, that's 5% every week added to the goal. From a team perspective, until that person with the 16 miles hits their yearly goal, it doesn't really make a difference what their individual percent over goal was.

This is true...unless four people on the team are on IR.  Then those 16 miles that one person added becomes a larger percentage of their goal mileage.  Makes a pretty big difference when one team has four on IR and another team has zero.

 

So I was in the process of registering for 2022, and the only question I have to answer when registering reminded me of another « hot » topic of the last year I played. Hopefully I do not wake up venomous discussions here, as it is not my intention at all. I have a legitimate question. What is the best way to set my goal? My reflex is to go with maybe 10-15% less than what I hope for. That can seem like sandbagging, and maybe it is, so I’m asking the question? What is an honest way to set our yearly goal that works with the way the points system works?

 

Thanks.

I tend to look at it in terms of what is the weekly mileage that I can make myself do most weeks.

My 2 cents on the sandbaggging is that until the last 2-3 months of the year, it's potentially going to happen. That said, if your yearly goal is set to where you reach it with 2 months to go in the game, you potentially hurt your team in the playoffs since your team cannot get 100% reaching their weekly goal. This could have made the difference in the most recent round of playoffs for my team if we had to go into the third week.

This seems like a reasonable approach to me, and I do not consider your approach to be sandbagging. What sets me off is people who set wildly unrealistic goals and then completely fold and disappear within the first few weeks. That is not most of us, but you can count on a small number of people doing that every single year.

Yup...and those are the runners who rarely hit their "green" goal for a given week. They're more problematic, IMO, than the people who totally ghost and can be removed from a team. It's especially problematic when the yearly goal change date comes and goes and they don't bother changing the goal they have no hopes of hitting. I'm not sure if people think that lowering their goal is a failure, or what.

I set my goal as the cumulative mileage I hope to hit on or just a few days before 12/31. It's as simple as that. If I need to change, then I do so by the June change date. I've had to do that the past 2 years. Last year I cut my mileage goal back (as races had all been cancelled). This year I increased my goal, as I was comfortable doing so and was not battling any injuries.