A finisher or not

For the past 27 years it has been a feature of (what is now) the Manx Telecom Parish Walk programme to list previous finishers at the start of the competitor list. In the early days of this exercise, to reflect the cherished status of a finish, there were only a handful of previous finishers. In recent years there have been more than 200.

Late last night I began the annual reconciliation between the analysis I have compiled between entries opening and closing and the report from within the official entry and timing database. In recent years there have been fields for entrants to record previous finishes.

Although this produces some useful data it creates even more diversions.

31 names were listed on the report who were definitely not previous finishers. Many confused "finishing" with "stopping".

11 people who have the names of previous finishers but haven't entered themselves as such. Several of these were definitely previous finishers but some of the others will have to be checked.

There were a further 4 names on the system generated finishers list which I didn't pick up. In one case I guessed the wrong one of two people with the same name . The others I will check this evening.

The main project this evening, however, I my usual article on the history or development of the event. The programme printing deadline looms.