2011in2011 Head2Head Challenge

The Head2Head challenge is a friendly competition of teams formed from those 2011in2011 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.

Teams will be formed with approximately the same number of team members and total goal mileage per team.

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 (based on the size of the smallest 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!

Unlike previous years when we did not add new members to teams, we will now allow Individual members to replace dropped Team members. This will be done in a manner that best-maintains the team strength (i.e., similar goals/paces of members).

Nevertheless, we will continue to use the following rules should teams change size:

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 2011in2011 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 Head2Head competition begins (Week 2 at the earliest). 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 9 teams at least 4 times and every 10th week there will be a "Position Round" (like in bowling leagues).

Also, near the midpoint of the season there will be an All-Star Matchup where the top runners of each team (selected by their team members) will face off for an extra 5% bonus that the winning members' home teams can use later in the year, including the Playoffs.

After the regular season, the teams will head into the Playoffs (new format to be determined; either double-elimination or multiple-round single elminiation).