2009in2009 Head2Head Challenge

The Head2Head challenge is a friendly competition of teams formed from those 2009in2009 club members who want to participate. The idea is to give you some additional support from your fellow Club Members (as teammates) and to provide another incentive to post in a timely manner.

Eight (8) teams have been formed with twenty-three (23) members each and with approximately the same total goal mileage per team (which at the start of the year was an average of 30626.5 miles).

Each week, teams will compete head-to-head in a round-robin format. I will record wins & losses for each team and records will be posted in the results thread following the week's matchup. Each team should select a captain to track down non-posters in the results thread.

At the start of the year, we will score only the top 75% of posters (18 out of 23, rounded up) for each team. However, if ALL team members post by the weekly deadline (12:00 Noon Central Time on Wednesdays), the team will receive a 10% bonus in scoring. In this case, even if a runner posts “zero” miles, they benefit the entire team![1]

Unlike the Miles&Miles game, new members will not be added to teams as runners are lost. Since it is likely we will lose runners during the year, the following rules will be applied:

1) The top 75% of runners – rounded up - will be counted towards the team score. This cutoff number is based on the number of team members of the smallest team. For example: if the smallest team has 20 members, the scoring cutoff is 15; if later on, the smallest team has 14 members, the cutoff is 11.
2) If the smallest team has half or less the number of members of the largest team, it will be immediately disbanded and members distributed to the remaining teams in such a manner as to best maintain parity among teams (i.e., number of members per team and average goal mileage per member).
3) There will be no trades of team members after the start of the 2009in2009 Club.

Hopefully this game will create more of a reason to keep up running and posting. If you have an objection to the team that you have been "drafted" to you may request a trade, but only before January 1. To do so, get in contact with another similar goal mileage runner you wish to swap teams with and let me know. Of course, both runners must agree to the trade.

The Game Plan
There will be a regular season consisting of the first 40 weeks of the year and a playoff bracket for the final 12 weeks. Over the course of the regular season a single team will face the other 7 teams at least 5 times and every 8th week there will be a "Position Round" (like in bowling leagues).

After the regular season, teams will be seeded into an 8-team single elimination bracket based on their regular season record. If there is a tie, the team with the highest cumulative point total will be seeded higher. Each series will be played out as a "best of 3" over a three-week period until a champion is declared at the end of Week 52 (or Week 51 in the event of a 2 game sweep).

[1] In the 2008in2008 Head2Head Challenge, the benefit of the 10% bonus was best exemplified during the second week of the playoffs. One team had all members post and, with their bonus, had a score of 290.0. The other team had a score of 266.7, but needed one member to post to get the 10% bonus. That member posted by the deadline and as a result, increased his team’s score to 293.4 and gave them the win! Even if he had posted zero miles, his team would still have won.

In another instance during the playoffs, one team had 212.5 miles. The other team had 201.4 miles and needed one more member to post to get the 10% bonus. Had that final team member posted in time – even with zero miles - the second team would have won with a score of 221.5.