PECO: 2022/23 in historical context

So as the self appointed HPH PECO historian (I actually have a history degree so I like to think it makes me qualified for the role) I just have a few statistics (as we know there are a few in the club with a statistics fetish) from this years PECO and would like to give you a bit of context to this years achievements compared to HPH PECO teams of the past. I’d like to thank our Captains this year for their lovely PECO roundup blog and I don’t seek to steal their thunder, this is just to provide historical context to the year.

So I’ll start with participation and it would seem our lovely Ladies are leading the way with both a record female turnout and a record vet turnout. This season 62 ladies completed at least 1 PECO race, beating the record 59 set in the 2021/22 season. Of these 62 ladies 21 were vets, which beats the previous record of 20 set in the 2021/22 season. Good job ladies, great to see more of you taking part. For the men, turnout was slightly lower then last year. This year 76 men completed at least 1 PECO race, this is the second highest turnout we have had, slightly lower then the record 78 in the 2021/22 season. Of the 76 men taking part this season, 39 were vets. Again, this is the second highest turnout of vets in HPH history, just slightly down on the 42 vets we had in the 2021/22 season.

Moving onto team performance, we can’t start anywhere else but the men’s team. Champions again!! For the second year running. They do say winning a title is one thing but retaining it is a lot harder. Certainly this year the caliber of opposition was much higher and what a thriller to make the final round a winner takes all affair…. but which team was better? The class of 2021/22 or 2022/23? As Captain of the 2021/22 team I am unbelievably biased and would say that first title was the most special. However, the numbers sadly do not back me up on this one. Both teams were equal on final points with 7 each but the 2022/23 wins out on countback 1257-1390, making for a 133 point improvement on last season, making the class of 2022/23 the best of all time….just. Moving onto the men’s vets team and there is a record equaling achievement there too. So where the men built on previous success, the men’s vet team are creating a new dynasty. So the vets team finished 5th overall, which matches the record equaling team of the the 2009/10 season. Are there actually any vets still at the club from that season? Or anyone in general? So which team is better? Well its hard to compare, it’s a different era with a different standard of opposition. More notably the scoring system for vets was very different to today and the league format was one massive league rather then the divisional system we have today. Another notable difference was that we were actually running as Virgin Active Road Runners at this point rather then the HPH of today. One other very big difference was that the 2009/10 team achieved their success with just 7 Vets for the whole campaign compared to the 39 of the 2022/23 team. All in all, impossible to say which team is better, but by the numbers, the 2022/23 team has equaled the all time record…. 4th next year lads?

Moving onto the ladies and the ladies vets team. Sadly not as much to shout about here but still a solid performance for the Ladies team. 3rd overall and sadly only missing out on 2nd place on countback, which just goes to show every place counts, every place is worth fighting for and its always worth a sprint at the end. So where does this rank historically? Pretty well is the answer. The 2022/23 side is only bested by the title winning side of 2017/18 and the 2021/22 runners up. Historically the ladies team have really yo-yo’ed, so its good to see 2 back to back high finishes. There is certainly a strong foundation for our ladies to build on. As for our ladies vets team, it’s very sad to see them finish 10th and get relegated straight after they were promoted last year. After hearing this, you may be surprised to know that this is the best performance for our ladies vets team of all time. The vets league has changed a bit over the years, when it was one massive league, the ladies vets consistently finished below 13th and the only other time the ladies vets were in the Premier league (2015/16) they also finished 10th and were relegated, but the 2022/23 team had an improved points tally, beating the 2015/16 side 44-51 on overall points. So there have certainly been positives and progress has been made. Penalties have certainly played a part as the ladies vet team has failed to field a 65+ athlete for the entire campaign and only fielded 1 of a required 2 45+ athletes for 2 of the 5 rounds. So with a bit of recruiting, a vets captain who will do anything to get the vet ladies out and a bit of luck, I’m sure the ladies vet team will bounce back next year.

Moving onto individuals, we have had more history being made. Sam Tecwyn finished first at the final round of PECO, and far as I am aware, and I did scroll through a lot of individual results to check, but this is the first time HPH has ever had a lady win a round of PECO, fantastic achievement Sam! Sam also was our highest ranked Lady, finishing 10th overall. Historically speaking that’s probably middle ground compared to other years, with Amy Ramsden-Young (6th and 9th), Helen Williams (5th and 6th) and Jocelyn Payne (2nd) with higher finishes. Ben Douglas also made HPH history by being the first man from HPH to win the individual PECO rankings. Well done Ben! Big achievement there. I have a funny feeling that record won’t be broken. The previous bests were his own record 3rd in 2019/20 season and the the 4ths of Adam Lomas and Kevin Ogden in the 2021/22 and 2012/13 seasons respectively.

Finally onto our Vets and sadly no history made here. Our highest ranked vet lady was Honor Baldry (V35) who ranked 79th, This one ranks pretty low in the scale of vets past, however, this is mainly due to Honor not completing 4 races to get the best possible ranking, so her rank doesn’t really reflect her individual performances, which have been of a high standard this season. The record for the highest vet is still Helen Williams (V35) with 5th overall in the 2010/11 season. Finally, last but your author would certainly hope not least, Michael Vargas (V35) came out as the highest ranked male vet, with a ranking of 14th overall. This is about as middle achieving as you can get historically speaking as this is the 7th best ranking of the 13 seasons I have data for. Way to go for that solid middle ground me! The all time record is still held by Kevin Ogden (V40), with his 4th overall in the 2012/13 season.

I hope you have enjoyed the read, I will eventually get around to updating the 4 history of PECO blogs even though there wasn’t a massive audience for them. Keep enjoying that history.

Michael Vargas