One of the more useful data sets/analyses I've been working on is a dataset of all of my "local" triathlon races. When I just include local races, I'm basically excluding the 24 races that I've done with the WTC (IM or IM70.3), ITU World Championships, and the USAT National Championships. The value of excluding these races is that they are so large and the fields so competitive that it really distorts comparisons from one year to the next. For example in 2010 I raced at Kona and did quite "poorly" compared to that august group. In 2011, I didn't race at Kona so if you compare 2010 to 2011 (average-wise) it looks like I improved quite a bit--in fact, I just raced against a less competitive field (on average) in 2011 than in 2010.
So by excluding the big, competitive races I'm "left" with 90 "local" races. Here the competition, while of course different from race-to-race and from year-to-year is much more consistent. For example, 59 of these 90 races are local New Jersey races--Lake Lenape, Stone Harbor, Avalon, Hammonton, Marlton, Tuckahoe, etc. I believe that by focusing on these races only, I can get a reasonable comparison of how I'm doing against the local competition from year-to-year, and by each of the individual disciplines.
The other thing about this dataset is that it really captures the bulk of my everyday triathlon racing experience. Yes, I do get to go and race big races (Kona and Zona this year), but the vast majority of my triathlon experience is much more blue collar--racing the same crowd week in and week out. I also like this dataset as a way to measure how my competitiveness changes over time in the real world--of course I have a lot of training info which tells me how fit I am (what my FTP is or what my 100 yd repeat time is, etc.) but what I really ultimately care about--at least from a racing perspective--is how competitive I am and how that's changing as I become ancient.
So here is a summary of the local race dataset--my 90 local races over the last 11 years. You'll see two groups of summary data--my comparison on an overall race level and my comparison on an Age Group level. The numbers on the left give the total number of people (overall and Age Group) I competed against each year as well as the number of those competitors I BEAT in each year broken out by Swim/Bike/Run and for the race as a whole (Total). The numbers on the right then translate those summary numbers into the % of people I beat each year by SBR and for the race overall. You can click on the chart to see it more clearly or if you want to download it (I know no one ever would!):
So what does this data say--a lot in my view! Here are some of the thoughts I have:
Swim
If you look at the % of people I beat in the swim leg, overall, you see that I enjoyed a modest amount of improvement up through 2007. Swimming is the most technique oriented of the three disciplines and I had the least experience in it prior to starting triathlon so this is not surprising. Even though I was getting older, my technique was getting better and I was getting relatively faster. In 2008 I worked a bit more rigorously on technique and had a nice bump in performance. 2009 was my "laid-back/no IM year" but in 2010 I made a huge investment of time focused on practicing technique. Even though I backed off my swim training volume (as compared to 2007), I was much faster and more competitive. Indeed, despite realtively modest training volumes, I'm now in the top 10% of the field both from an overall perspective and from my AG. with respect to the latter, I'm now frequently the first out of the water.
This is a huge competitive change for me, especially given how my run has fallen off. Even though the swim is a very small part of the overall triathlon picture, this has helped me in a number of races. For example, in races where the bike and run courses are loop courses (no out and back), getting out of the water ahead of my AG competition and then doing my thing on the bike means that stronger runners were never able to see me and had no idea how far up the road I was. A classic example of this was my victory at the Pine Barrens Sprint in 2010 when I put 1:55 (over a half-mile swim) on Adam Singer and got out ot T1 before he hit dry land. I put some time on him during the bike and despite him running a minute per mile faster than me he never saw me during the race and I won comfortably. who knows, if he sees me, he might run me down. Even in loop courses, my swim has improved enough that I can now win AG races on the strength of my swim alone. For example, last year at Annapolis I bested a 38 person AG by posting the 2nd fastest swim and beating my main competitor by 2:33 in the swim. Even though he outbiked and outran me, I still was able to win by 36 seconds.
There are other examples, but I simply would have been far less competitive had I not made the big improvement in my swim in 2010--I for sure would not have won 9 races those two years. Indeed, the swim was such a positive driver of my competitiveness in 2010 and 2011 that I was actually able to improve in my AG (and overall) despite turning 53 and then 54. I'm excited about taking this swimming improvement up into my new 55-59 YO AG.
MY improvement in swimming effectiveness in 2010 and 2011 is probably the single most significant thing I've accomplished from a training perspective as a triathlete. I'm proud of it!
Bike
Unlike the swim, for whatever reason I've been blessed with a natural affinity for cycling. I do work hard at it but I was pretty much, from the start, extremely competitive on the bike. To illustrate consider the number of AG competitors I faced on the bike versus how many I beat from 2003 (my 2nd full year) until 2009:
2003--I beat 125 competitors/1 beat me
2004--I beat 204 competitors/3 beat me
2005--I beat 250 competitors/ 2 beat me
2006--I beat 215 competitors/4 beat me
2007--I beat all 105 competitors
2008--I beat 141 competitors/1 beat me
2009--I beat 126 competitors/2 beat me
Now in 2010 and 2011 4 and 8 people beat me respectively (but during the same time I beat 327 competitors) and some of this is due to my aging up in my AG. Also some of it, has been due to a conscious decision on my part to try to hold back just a bit--in the early days I was more interested in my bike split than the race as a whole--because it was the one thing I was good at back then.
Still at the end of the day, I've raced 27,703 people in local races and out rode 26,644 of them. Only 1059 people have gone faster, which is just 3.8% of the people I've raced locally. The bike is the heart and sole of my triathlon success--I just need to be careful to keep it that way!
Run
Now the run is a different story! when I first started triathlon, I thought given my run background that my running would be my natural strength. I was wrong--very wrong. IN the early days and up through 2007, my run was better than my swim--although both were not that great. IN 2009 my underinvestment in running began to hurt me and my running over the last couple of years has been my major competitive liability. There is a good chance that this is because I'm old, have a crappy left knee, big and for whatever other reason, going to become an increasingly ponderous runner.
This is probably the right explanation. But I'm holding out hope that maybe my fall off in 2009 was due to my conscious decision to cut back for a year and my relatively poor performance in 2010/2011 was due to my injury problems each year--2010 was my bike accident that tore my hamstring in April and last year was my knee flare-up that shut me down for a good 4-6 weeks in April and May. I wonder if I can keep running hard AND stay uninjured that maybe I can drive my relative run performance back up into the 80%+ range. If I can then who knows, I might win a few more races....I hoping but prepared for less than positive news on this front....I'll probably know by June, if I stay healthy and uninjured until then....
Overall
My bike remains the bedrock of my triathlon competitiveness. I turned back the clock a bit with the improvement in my swim--2011 was actually one of my most competitively effective years--on the local level. MY run is a problem and it could become even more so, but I have a hope that maybe, if I can stay the course and not get injured, that 2012 could really be a breakthrough year for me--on the local, blue-collar triathlon circuit anyways.....this is the most interesting question facing me during the early part of the 2012 racing season....
I can't wait to see what I learn from the races ahead of me!
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