ELIGIBILITY

Runners must be HARRA members at the time of the race in order to score for their club's teams or to score in the Runner of the Season competition. A runner may not switch clubs in the middle of a season.

Runners who complete the Houston's Marathon Warm-up Series receive a perk. Jackets and mugs have been awarded in the past. Runners do not have to be members of HARRA to earn an award.

TEAM CATEGORIES

• Open: 3 persons per team, no age or sex restrictions, time to be the sum of the individual members' times
• Masters: 4 persons per team, persons must be 40 years of age or older, no sex restriction, time to be the sum of the individual members' age-graded times
• Veterans: 4 persons per team, persons must be 50 years of age or older, no sex restriction, time to be the sum of the individual members' age-graded times
• Women: 3 persons per team, no age restrictions, women only, time to be the sum of the individual members' times
• Masters Women: 3 persons per team, members must be 40 years of age or older, women only, time to be the sum of individual members' age-graded times
• Veteran Women: 3 persons per team, members must be 50 years of age or older, women only, time to be the sum of individual members' age-graded times

ENTERING TEAMS

The team selection and scoring process has been somewhat automated to relieve club representatives of the headache of scrambling at the last minute to assemble teams. We will get the club affiliations from the HARRA membership roster. The scoring process will work automatically based upon the method below unless a club wants to rank their team members in a specific order or division.

SCORING METHOD

• Open Teams: The club rosters are sorted by regular time. Starting from the fastest regular time, any finishers not already on teams are counted off into teams of three. As with the women's teams, remainder veterans, masters, veteran women, masters women, and women are sorted together with the open runners.
   
• Masters Teams: The club rosters are sorted by age-graded time. Starting from the fastest age-graded time any finishers over age 40 (including remainder veterans, veteran women, and masters women) are counted off into teams of four. Any left over are available for the Open category.
   
• Veteran Teams: The club rosters are sorted by age-graded time. Starting from the fastest age-graded time any finishers over age 50 (men and remainder women) are counted off into teams of four. Any left over are available for the Masters and Open categories.
   
• Women's Teams: The club rosters are sorted by regular time. Starting from the fastest regular time any women or remainder veteran or masters women are counted off into teams of three. Any remainder will be available for other categories. To say it differently, the un-teamed veteran and masters women are mixed in with the women under 40 and all are sorted by their regular time. A masters woman could end up on a women's team causing a non-masters woman to be a remainder if the masters woman had a faster regular time.
   
• Masters Women's Teams: The club rosters are sorted by age-graded time. Starting from the fastest age-graded time women over 40 (this will include remainder veteran women) are counted off into teams of three. Any remainder masters women are available for other categories
   
• Veteran Women's Teams: The club rosters are sorted by age-graded time. Starting from the fastest age-graded time women over 50 are counted off into teams of three. Any remainder veteran women are available for other categories. If a club does not have an exact multiple-of-three veteran women finishers there will be one or two remainder.

This method will not be used for the relays. At the cross country relay and the road relay, the team categories will be the same but all of the teams will have four members and the teams will not be age graded.  Relay Rules

SCORING

In each division, the first seven teams will be awarded 13, 10, 8, 6, 5, 4, or 3 points sequentially. All remaining teams in the division will receive 2 points.

TOP TEAM AWARDS

At season's end the points scored by each club's top scoring team, at each event, will be totaled by division to determine the division team award. There will be one award per division.

DIVISION CHAMPIONSHIPS

At season's end the points scored by all teams for each club will be totaled by division to determine the club division champions. A club that wins a division championship will not be eligible to win a team championship in the same category. There will be one award per division.

CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP

At season's end the points scored by each club will be totaled for all divisions to determine the overall club champion. There will be one award in this category.

RUNNER OF THE SEASON

Runner of the Season point totals will be kept in the Open, Masters, Veterans, Women's, Masters Women's, and Veteran Women’s Divisions for individual runners. No club affiliation is required! Runners will be scored on a percentage of the WMA standards. A runner's final standing will be determined by adding his or her top 3 races together. Prize monies will be determined on an annual basis by the HARRA Board of Directors.

Houston's Marathon Warm-up Series

Three (3) races in the Fall season are part of the Warm-up Series. These races are: The Half-Marathon, the Metric Marathon, and the 30K races. Runners who race in all three of these races (or race in two and volunteer for the other) earn an award.

The rules are simple: A) You do not have to be a HARRA member to earn the award; B) You must run each of the three (3) races OR run two of the three races and volunteer for the third race; and C) the relays do not count toward earning the award.

The awards can be picked up at the HARRA booth at the Houston Marathon Expo and at other locations that may be announced.