A complete team consists of 4 runners for men and for ladies (from 2021-22 season, formerly 3 for ladies). An incomplete team which has one runner short (ie 3 runners) may still score, with the missing runner's score being substituted by the position after the last same sex HRRL runner in the race. If a club has no runners or more than 1 short of a team they are considered a "no show" for that race, and will score one worse than if they had been last team in the league, with race score set to 10 points more than the last finishing club team in that league division.
Official vests with club colours must be worn to score for a team, so that runners of closely competing teams in their league may be aware of their competitors' positions.
Note that for the 2021-22 season, chip timings will be used to calculate scores, rather than times relative to the start gun time.
Each club may field A and B teams in the league, if they have so affiliated. The A team consists of the first runners for that club over the line, and when the A team is complete, the leading runners remaining will form the B team. Large clubs may choose to affiliate a C team, D team, etc. on the same principle, all to compete in the B league.
Race Points (RC) are the way the teams positions are decided in each race by adding up the finishing positions of the 4 team runners, relative to all league clubs*. For example a team with runners 1st, 2nd, 5th, 6th has a score of 14 race points. The team with lowest numeric score is the winning team. If incomplete it could be 1st, 2nd, 5th+ 150th = 158 (RC) - this score will be highlighted in the league tables.
The League Score (LG) is scored as follows: the 1st team in the
division scores
Complete teams are scored first, with incomplete teams score the positions behind the last complete team. This is to ensure that an incomplete team does not score ahead of a complete one.
No-show teams score the maximum score of the total number of teams in their league plus one. For example, if there are 10 teams the no shows would score 11 points. The race points for a no-show team will be the highest points score amongst the competing teams (including any incomplete teams), plus 10 points.
Team league divisions will be decided for the 2021-22 season on the best 8 race scores from the series of 10 (normally the best 8 from 12).
The league shows the score once the worst scores are removed, after the minimum number of races have been run.
The League is run under UKA Rules and under normal road running rules. To be eligible to score for the team, the runner has to be a first claim runner of the member club, not second claim - even if their first claim club is not part of the league (unless their club is not affiliated to the UKA, when they would be eligible).
Runners transferring between clubs must go through the recognised transfer system and score only for their eligible official club at the time of the race.
Runners transferring clubs during the season will have their cumulative individual league score shown under their current club - i.e. individual points are transferred with them but team scores left as is.
The league champion is the team with lowest LG score after worst race scores are removed. If there is a tie it comes down to RC points and then, if there is still a tie, the team with the most 1st places , then seconds etc. until the teams can be separated.
Relegation: the 2 teams at the bottom of each league division (other than the bottom division) will be relegated and if there are teams tying the positions will decided by the same method as above.
Promotion: the top 2 teams in each league division (apart from the top division) will be promoted to the next level..
Since 2008 there have been 3 divisions in the A league and 2 divisions in the B league. There is no promotion or relegation between the A and B leagues.
All HRRL club runners are counted in the individual leagues, whether counted as part of the club team or not. Their score is calculated as the percentage of same sex HRRL runners in the race that the individual runner is ahead of. All runners that are not league club runners are removed from the scoring before this is calculated. So, the first HRRL man and lady in the race each score 100, and the last will score 0. A runner exactly halfway down the field of HRRL runners will score 50, and so on.
To win the championship the average of the best 6 scores for ladies and men are taken over the 10-race season and will be highlighted from the 6th race onwards. A special prize is awarded for the highest average achieved over all races (i.e. all races counting).
The old individual scoring system (until 2007-8, counting all runners in the race, whether with league clubs or not) brought to light some anomolies due to the random influence of runners from outside the league. For example, if a league runner participates in a race that attracts many good runners from outside the league, their individual, and to a lesser extent, team scoring, will be impacted inconsistently compared with other races, and with other league runners who may for any reason drop that race instead of another one. This new scoring was introduced in January 2009.