I am going to go way out on a limb here and assume that you, like most runners, are not a world class runner and therefore will never come close to challenging a world, Olympic, national, regional, or similar record. In the world of running, runners instead celebrate their personal records or PRs. It does not matter how fast one ran a race, what matters is how fast the runner ran for a specific distance relative to that runner’s past performances. Since most runners compete in races of various distances, most runners will accumulate their own best finish time for each distance. Thus, the title PR for that distance.

All of this is wonderful except how do you define a PR? Does a PR represent the fastest time for any given race distance in the runner’s life or should the PR be weighted to the runner’s age? If weighted towards one’s age, then how to measure that? In the sport of running any runner the age of 40 and older is called a Master Runner. There are even further categories as the runner continue to age. Grand Master, Senior Grand Master, are terms to define even much older runners.

I have been running for over 50 years. I seriously doubt I will ever come close to running a sub-2-minute half mile like I did in high school. Nor will I ever run a 10K race in less than 36 minutes, a half marathon in 1:24:00, or a 3:17 marathon again either. So, should I just give up on trying to score PRs for myself? Fortunately, the title “Personal” means just that, it is personal. How one defines a PR should be and is up to each person.

But this brings up at least two more dilemmas for the runner. Should the first time a runner competes in a given distance be determined to be an “automatic” PR? If the runner chooses to keep a separate record book for each 5-year age group does that mean the first race of a specific distance is also another “automatic” PR? Then there is actually even a third method to claim a PR and that might be to score a PR for a specific race event in which the two previously referenced questions must also be applied. And I bet you thought running was a simple sport too!

I have chosen my own criteria which is to not allow for any “automatic” PR's. The very nature of any record is that it is assumed there is a target that was previously established and to score a record one must beat that target. I also tend to track my PRs by each five-year age group category except my first race of a given distance is not to be considered a PR since it would also be an “automatic” PR. My personal exception is whether or not my time in a certain race distance betters a PR from one of my younger age groups.

I don’t really keep track of my best racing times for each specific event as my times tend to become slower as my years keep piling on.

So, what is the correct way to score a PR? It’s simple, it’s up to each individual runner. Runners as a group are NOT cheaters! You can trust a runner competed fairly in every race they ran. So. if they believe they have scored a PR then congratulate them and join them in their celebration.

Thanks for taking time to read this post. I look forward to seeing your response in the box below.

Coach Lee