By Luke Seemann

Every now and then I get a polite e-mail from someone wondering why I didn’t include their result in my weekly wrap-up.

It’s complicated. It takes me 2-5 hours to research, write and edit each wrap-up. That’s time I could spend sleeping or training or hanging out with my friends, but that’s OK, because I don’t like doing any of those things. Instead, I do what I do because I feel most people enjoy reading about results and whatever context I can add to them. While scouring for results and reports, I consider a complicated matrix of factors.

• » Whether you’re from Chicago, or on a Chicago team, or on a team that races near Chicago a lot. That’s what the ‘C’ in CBR stands for.
• » Whether I had the good fortune of seeing your race. If I didn’t see your race and if nobody in your race has written a report, I have nothing to go on. I’m just performing stenography of the results. I don’t do stenography.
• » The prestige of the race. Big-name races with big purses get more attention than industrial-park crits.
• » The size and competitiveness of your field. Cat 1’s and 2’s get exalted more than 4’s and 5’s. Get top 10 in a 120-person NRC race? Impressive. Win a race with five people? That might pass without mention. Sorry. Alas, this means that men’s races tend to get more attention than women’s, juniors and masters races. Again, sorry. (But please note how consistent I try to be in pointing out women's results and using photos of women racing.)
• » Whether there’s a story. Is this your fifth podium in a row? Have you won this race three consecutive years? Did your team get 5 of the top 10? I try to notice such patterns and highlight them.
• » Whether it’s a busy weekend. If there are a half-dozen races on a weekend, each with a dozen fields, it is impossible to celebrate each winner. I must be picky, or the 2-5 hours will become 5-10 hours.
• » Whether you’re a nice person and a good sport. Just kidding. That has no bearing. Unpleasant people will sometimes be celebrated, nice people will sometimes be ignored. That’s racin’.

And yet, despite all this careful consideration, deserving results sometimes fall through the cracks. Oversights happen. I’ll try to get you next time.