Back to Racing Part 2: Lake Lenape Triathlon

Wow, I can't believe I went a month plus and didn't add any updates to the blog--there is a bunch of backlogged updates so let me first start with a race report from what will be my only triathlon of the 2020 season...

So, on July 18th in this year of Covid, we were actually able to race a legit, real world triathlon.  It was a bit different than the normal Jersey sprint in that it was a time trial event where each competitor went off in 30 second intervals, only 2 bikes per rack (not really enforced), masks in transition and until just before you jumped in the water, no pre-race meeting, no awards ceremony, etc.   But hey, it was racing!

I signed up for the Sprint race which entailed a 0.25 mile swim/9 mile bike/1.5 mile run.  As it turned out there were 88 people entered and in my 60-64 YO Age Group, there were 5 who actually raced.  As an aside Mickey Syrop, was also entered and I was hopeful we would have a great race given the extensive competitive history we have over the years but alas, he did not make it.  The other 4 guys in my Age Group I didn't know anything about and in any event, with the TT format, it was impossible to know how I was doing competitively at any point....but it was time to race again!

Weather wise it was typical Jersey July--modest wind, around 85 degrees when we finished and very humid.  Not the best racing conditions but the shortness of the race made this pretty much a non-issue.

The Swim

Lake Lenape is a typical Jersey Pine Barrens lake with plenty of cedar in the lake and very low visibility.  It's a race venue I've raced at many times through the years and one where I've enjoyed some success at  (including the top overall bike in a 350+ competitor field).  This year's edition had us swimming in a different location than prior years but the bike course was very similar (albeit, a bit shorter) and the run was entirely different as well.

Midge was first in the water at 8:00am.   I was given the 8:15-8:30 slot, so I did the math and got in line (6 feet apart) at the appropriate spot.  At about 8:24 it was my turn to jump in.  The water was a pleasant 73 degrees (a bit warm, but not an issue given the short duration of this swim).  It was a simple counter clock-wise box swim, which favors me as I breathe on my left.  With the TT start most of the swim was solo and I swam a solid but not red-lined effort.

I exited the water in 7:23 (1:41/100 yds), in what would turn out to be 16th best overall (83.0 %-tile).  I was a bit faster than Midge and Tim, two friends that I'm a comparable swimmer with,  so overall, I'm pretty satisfied with this effort.  I had the fastest time in my Age Group by a considerable margin and here was were we stood after the swim:

RC          -------

Green     +3:05

Nolan     +3:21

Transition One

As I ran up the steep hill by the lake I felt something wet and heavy around my neck--my buff, which I had used in transition earlier and forgot to take off when I wore the disposable mask while waiting in line! I laughed out loud--a bit rusty I guess--and I must confess, I was pretty slow moving through transition.   My T1 time was 2:48, which was a middling 42nd Overall (53.4 %-tile).  I was also middle of the pack in my Age Group with the 3rd Fastest T1.  Despite this, I still had a sizable lead as I hopped on my bike:

RC         -------

Green     +2:11

Nolan     +3:41

The Bike

I felt like I was still in reasonably good bike shape, despite shutting down my normal IM build training due to CoVid.  I rode a solid ride and began upping my effort as the race progressed.  I finished the bike in 25:26, which if the course was accurately measured would have been an average of 21.2 mph.  It felt faster than that and indeed I did have the 2nd fastest bike split OA (98.9 %-tile).  I also put some significant time on my Age Group competitors, effectively sealing the Age Group victory:

RC          -------

Green      +8:57

Nolan     +14:55

Transition Two

T2 went much more quickly and smoothly than T1.  I completed the bike/run transition in 1:13, which was good enough for 13th OA (86.4 %-tile).  I had the second fastest T2 in my Age Group but further widened my lead on my Age Group:

RC         -------

Green    +10:43

Nolan    +14:48

The Run

I had not really run in 6 weeks so even though it was a short run, I took it easy.  The course was mostly on paths/dirt roads through the woods.  One section had a tough little hill on very loose sand--not so good for my knee!  Anyways, I persevered and finished the run in 15:16, which is a very slow 10:16/mile.  Overall, I had the 43rd fastest run (52.3 %-tile) and was second in my Age Group.  Here is how my Age Group stacked up at the finish:

RC          -------

Nolan      +12:29

Green      +14:36

My Overall time was 52:06, which was good enough for 11th (88.6 %-tile).  This was my 159th triathlon through the years and my 51st Age Group victory (32.1%).  Short and sweet and unfortunately, the only time I'll get to do a Tri in 2020....first year I've ever gone undefeated 😐....

Back to Racing--Part 1!

As I mentioned in my prior post, I actually was able to race a couple of times in these crazy Covid times.  I did an open water swim on 7/12 and a sprint triathlon on 7/18.  this post is a quick review of the Swim.

This swim was a tidal assisted point-to-point swim in the intercostal.  The tidal current was quite strong as evidenced by my results:

I'm obviously not the kind of athlete who can drop a sub 25 minute half-IM swim (those are the guys that get out of the water first at International IM races).  That said, I did swim pretty hard and there are a number of positive stats that say this was a good race for me.

Firstly, I did the race last year as well but was 59 seconds slower in 2019: 25:26.  Comparatively, there are a number of swimmers whom I train with and I think are comparable to me I out swam by I greater margin this year than last.

I'm having trouble finding then results on the web but as I recall, I finished about 20th OA out of about 80 or so swimmers.

Fun swim and great to actually race again!  I'll take it, especially given my relatively low volume of swim training!

The path forward is clearer now....

Well, to no ones great surprise, Kona 2020 is not going to happen this year.  Anders and I will be transferring our entries to 10/9/2021.  So at the moment, we are both about 14-15 months our from our "A" race.

On the racing front, I actually have done two races this month--one a 1.2 mile swim and the other a sprint triathlon.  I'll update on both of those shortly but let me focus on the shift in the balance of my 2020 training focus given the Kona news.

As I mentioned, in my last post, in the middle of June it was increasingly clear that 2020 was going to be pretty much of a lost year as far as Triathlon racing (especially long course) and mountain climbing goes.  I've made the decision to generally back off of my training load in aggregate volume and in terms of intensity.  My focus is shifting to just staying in good shape and just having fun with my training as opposed to building my fitness for a specific goal.

This plays out differently across the three disciplines.  My swim volume is actually increasing with the regular access to OWS.  I won't be swimming as much as might have with an IM build but I am thinking about swimming across our Lake in Minnesota in a few weeks (that swim is over 6,000 yards) so I'm going to do a few longer swims over the next few weeks--I did Midge's 4,200 swim the other day in around 80 minutes (with no current).  Here  is my updated swim history for the 30 weeks of 2020 (trailing 4-week average):

My bike has been the biggest change--both in terms of volume but also, the length of my long ride.  I've shifted from Bike Monster (300+ mpw/100+ mile long rides) to what will likely be 200-250 mpw with a long ride of 50 miles or so....I'm actually in pretty good bike shape (as evidenced by my triathlon last week--more on that shortly) but just going to take it easy for the rest of the summer:

I'm also backing off the run/hike a bit as I had a bit of a knee issue post race and for the most part, I'll just run once a week or so to minimize wear and tear on my knee:

Not surprisingly, this translates into less aggregate training time....

2020--half way done (thank god!)

so over the last 3 weeks I've begun to adjust my training focus a bit.  Pretty clear at this point there will be no racing this year--especially long course.  I'm pretty certain that there won't be a Kona in February, as currently scheduled either.  As a consequence, I've decided to not push into my long-ride training, which is what I would normally do at this point.  My bike volume will scale down a bit as a result.

I continue to do more run/hike than last year when I was in pure "bike monster" mode.  Aldo June finally brought a return to swimming as I now have consistent access to a place to swim.

Here is what June looked like, volume-wise:

Swim: 17.3k yards
Bike: 1,104 miles
Run: 134 miles
Time: 101 hours

Comparatively, 2019 looked like this:

Swim: 21.2k yards
Bike: 1,384 miles
Run: 46 miles
Time: 103 hours

For the 2nd quarter:

Swim: 21.8k yards vs. 60.0k yards last year (down 64%)
Bike: 3,756 miles vs. 2,759 (up 36%)
Run: 404 miles vs. 545 miles (down 26%--this was driven by last year's Bolivia expedition)
Time: 331 hours vs. 339 (down 2%)

Looking ahead to July:

Last year I swam 23k yards and I would expect to match or beat that this year
On the bike I did 1,444 miles (47/day) as I was in full-on bike monster--this year I'd expect to be in the 1,000-1,100 range.
Run last year was 70 miles--I'll best that again this month.
107 hours last year--probably about what I'll do this year as well.

Had some fun this week!

Anders and I participated in the 12 hour Solitary Confinement Challenge on Saturday with about 60 other folks around the world.  You basically had to ride (in Zwift) a minimum of 40 minutes and a minimum of 12.4 miles every hour, on the hour for 12 hours.  It started at 9am on Saturday.

We both completed it and felt pretty good.  I was a mid to back of the pack guy and did the minimum 8 hours of riding over the 12 hour period and ended up riding 163.8 miles, so just about 20.5mph average.  Anders rode an additional 40 minutes or so such that he did 200.4 miles.

This is a big jump from this year's long ride distance of 60 miles but I feel pretty good now some 48 hours later.  the 20 minute breaks were helpful with getting enough nutrition and hydration throughout the day.  Fun!  I might do something similar from time to time--maybe do 8 hours and ride 45 minutes of every hour but go harder.

Anyways, here are this weeks stats:

Swim: 3,000 yards
Bike: 344 miles
Run/Hike: 31 miles
Time: 28:13

Below are trailing 4-week averages for the first 23 weeks of the year:

While my swim volume is minuscule right now, I am getting back into the ocean/inter-coastal for open water swimming this week.  The water temp is now 61 degrees so I no longer have an excuse to stay dry!

My bike mileage has been consistently near or above 300 miles/week for the last 10 weeks.

On the run, I've been near or above 30 miles/week for the last 5-6 weeks.

I'm consistently devoting 25-30 hours/week in total training time...

onward and upward

Back in the water!

Our DE club pool opened up and I was able to jump in for 3 short sessions this week.  The water temp is up to 58 degrees here in Stone Harbor so hope to get into a bit of a regular swim routine now.

I did a 60 mile ride this mourning so beginning to increase my long ride endurance...all good.

stats for the week:

Swim: 4,500 yards
Bike: 308 miles
Run/hike: 26 miles
Time: 25.6 hours

and for the month:

Swim: 4,500 yards
Bike: 1,376 miles
Run: 136 miles
Time: 119.7 hours

onward and upward

Another week like the past 4-5....

Swim: 0 yards---although this is the week where I think I start swimming again!

Bike: 310 miles including a 40 miler on my TT bike--will start shifting more outdoors now and start doing longer rides

Run/Hike: 32 miles.  26 consecutive days which is a modern record for me.  Of course, when I was a lot younger, I ran everyday for a full year (and averaged over 10/day).

Time: 27:20.

and another week bites the dusk

Here are the results for week 19:

Swim: 0
Bike:  324 miles
Run/Hike: 35.4 miles
Time: 28:28

Here are a few charts that show how my training volume has evolved this year so far--hard to believe we are more than a third through the year!  I display the volume as a trailing 4-week average:

So, I've been able to settle in to a sustainable, and admittedly large amount of training.  Observations:

1. Swim: not happening yet, but I'm hopeful it will begin to over the next few weeks

2. Bike: I've been generally growing my frequency and volume to the point where I'm comfortably riding 2X/day and 300+ miles/week.  The big dip down was our 11 days in Utah snowboarding.  the small dip at week 15 was my out and back to Kansas to bring Jen home.  My last 4 weeks have all been over 300 miles.

3. My run/hike has been on a solid upward trajectory and I'm comfortably above 30 miles/week now. I've actually had 18 days in a row where I did one or the other.  I do see it leveling off now and gradually shifting more towards running.  All of this is very easy.

4. Training time is pretty locked in between 25 and 30 hours and the general upward trend I would expect to level off as this is a lot of training, even for me!

this week

Bike: 305 miles (skipped one workout)
Run/Hike: 38.3 miles
Time: 29:14

sameo/sameo

thinking about mixing things up a bit now...rode outside yesterday

Still...CoVid rules...

April

Here are the summary stats for April:

Swim: 0 (hope to get a chance to swim again soon)
Bike: 1,280 miles
Run/Hike: 130.2 miles
Time: 110 hours and 25 minutes

For comparison, when I was focused on getting ready for our Bolivian Mountaineering expedition last May, here is what April 2019 looked like:

Swim: 22k yards
Bike: 823 miles
Run/Hike: 273 miles
Time: 135 hours and 41 minutes

2018, might be a better comparison as I was focused on triathlon as I am this year (or at least was before CoVid):

Swim: 17k yards
Bike: 1,123 miles
Run: 54 miles
Time: 88:48

So compared to 2018, this is what April 2020 looked like:

-obviously no swimming as I lack a viable swim location at this point
-significant biking miles--all virtual this month (thanks Zwift!)
-considerably  more run/hike, especially the later
-investing significant time training even in the context of limited racing for an extended period of time.

Looking ahead to May:

-I hope to get my feet wet so to speak and try to get say maybe 10,000 yards this month
-Probably will get around 1,300 miles on the bike.  I plan to start riding a bit more again outside
-Continue in the 100-150 miles run/hike range
-100+ hours training

ground hog week!

OK...a bit different because I took two days off from run/hike....here's the totals:

Bike: 336 miles
Run/Hike: 23 miles
Time: 25:33

Sideways and sideways!

back into CoVid training life

I spent 28:31 training this week and racked up 329 miles on the bike and 34 miles on the run....

onward and upward!

this week

A "lite" week this week due to my drive to Lawrence, Kansas and back between Wednesday and Friday--1160 miles each way--to pick up Jen and bring her home. I got up early on Wednesday and rode for 90 minutes and then drove just into Illinois.  I slept in the back of my truck at a truck stop.   Up early (2am) on Thursday and I was at Jen's by 7:30.  I did an 8 mile run/walk in Kansas on Thursday.  On Friday we left just after 2am and drove straight back to Delaware and arrived about 8:30pm.  I decided (no surprise) to not workout on Friday--that's the first day of total rest I've had this year....

Here are the totals:

Bike: 221 miles
Run/Hike: 27 miles
Time: 19:25

I fully expect to be back above 300 miles biking and 30 miles running and closer to 30 hours training next week....

Onward and  Upward!

1st quarter training volume stats

Lastly week was pretty much like the 3 (Coronaville) weeks prior to it:

Swim: 0 yds
Bike: 310 miles
Run/Hike: 30 miles
Time: 27:40

The month of March:

Swim: 10k yds
Bike: 1,336 miles
Run/Hike: 99 miles
Time: 113:00

The first quarter this year compared to last year:

Swim:  2019: 52k     2020: 12k
Bike:  2,968      2020: 3,538
Run/Hike:  2019: 398    2020:  235
Time:  2019:  305:07   2020: 283:00

The differences to last year are:

-Big reduction in swim due to Corona and my post back surgery issues.  I would have normally expected to do 30k yds of swim this month if I had access to a place to swim.
-Big uptick in the bike as it is my prime focus this year vs. in 2019 when I did a lot of hiking/running to prepare for the Bolivia mountaineering expedition.  My bike numbers would have been even greater this year if not for the 11 days we were snowboarding in Park City.  My March total is on a 16,000 mile/year pace.
-Big drop in Run/Hike due to Bolivia prep last year as I went down to Shenandoah 4-5 times for 2-3 days of 10-16 mile hikes, which we are not doing this year.  I wouldn't have done as much hiking with no expedition but I had planned on a trip or two but instead am staying the f at home.
-The lower time number this year is due to all the hiking last year.

Looking ahead: generally I'm going to try to do 25-30 hours/week with about 300+ miles of biking and 30+ miles of run/hike.  It will be less this week because (believe it or not)  I'm driving out to Kansas to bring Jenny home so will miss most of 4 days of training.  Will be a nice rest for my bod...

Onward and upward!

to post or not to post

I debated if I was being insensitive right now posting about the trivial stats of my workouts when so many people are dealing with major issues and many people aren't as fortunate as me in terms of access to good workout facilities.

I've concluded that anything that any of us can do that maintains a bit of normalcy in our lives must be for the positive on balance so I guess I'm going to continue to do so.  if this feels like a bad choice to you I apologize and take full responsibility for it as I'm aware how some folks may view this as a really bad move.

So, here goes:

The last 3 weeks I'd characterize as full "Virus Mode".  I'm Zwifting or riding my indoor trainer a lot every day--typically 2 rides each day.  also, I have been getting outside most days--mostly to walk/hike, but occasionally to run.  I had to skip my spring cycle of knee injections so I'm being a little cautious about running.  I'm also doing weights/stretching 3-4 X/week.

Here are the totals for the last three weeks:

Bike:  339 miles, 299 miles, 339 miles
Run/Walk: 16 miles, 25 miles, 24 miles
Time: 25:53, 25:07, 28:08

This obviously a lot of working out but feels easily sustainable at this point.  I've lost some weight and given the typical quality of my Zwift rides, I'm starting to get pretty fast on the bike.  Here is a screen shot from yesterday's Zwift ride:

We all have different context from which we evaluate numbers such as this but for me, these are pretty compelling stats for March.  Putting up nearly 200 watts on my second ride of the day, at the end of nearly 1000 miles of riding over the last 3 weeks is not my norm.  A fair amount of the ride I was above 250 watts and I spent most of my time in high Z3-Z5, and frankly, it felt pretty easy.  The TSS of 91 is my highest since IM ARIZONA.

Averaging 24.2mph isn't too shabby either but this is in part due to a fair amount of pack riding...

onward and upward!

Upon further review...a change of plans

Well, like everyone else in the world right now, we've adjusted here to a new "normal" for what feels like a pretty long time.

My working assumption is that this year will be a year with no racing opportunities and that hopefully our Kona slots get transferred to 2021.

I'm also quite aware, relatively speaking, that is a minor concern at this point.  Our big focus is on our health and that of our family and friends.  Judy and I are rather lucky in that we can hunker down relatively easily in our home here in Delaware (Kara and Marshall are at the Beach).
We have a great gym here in our house and lots of people-free outdoors to get out into.

I'm locking into a routine of sorts.  I'm riding indoors (trainer and Zwift) mostly but hope to increasingly shift outside as it warms if that is still permitted.  I've found over the last two weeks that I can readily absorb 1.5-3.5 hours/day of riding.  I'm riding every day now and did 330 and 300 miles the last two weeks.

Further, I've decided to get outside and walk or run most days (I'm targeting 6/week at this point).  This will probably push my weekly distance to 30 or so miles.  I'm also lifting weights and stretching 3-4X week for 45-60 minutes.

This roughly works out to 25 hours/week which I seem well adapted to.  I want to carefully monitor this and will cut back if I feel the least bit of residual fatigue but it seems pretty normal for me right now....

Hang in there everyone!

Average Race Pace

For this post I return to look at how my swim, bike and run pace has changed over time.  In the three charts below, the average race pace is plotted over time for each of the three disciplines.  The average in these charts is "race weighted" versus distance or time weighted.  In other words a sprint race and an Ironman race have the same weighting even though the later is so much further.  In the prior post, I calculated pace on a distance/time weighted basis so, for example, a race the took 12 times as long had 12 times the impact vs. equal impact in the race weighted approach here:

You can see the nice improvement in my swim pace (minutes/mile) over time with my best performance occurring at 11 on the x-axis, this is 2012.  The last data point is the average for my last 4 years (post my injury driven off year in 2015).  Seeing this chart is generating a bit of desire on my part to invest more aggressively in the swim this year.

My bike seems to have peaked in 2004 (3 on the x axis) and has steadily declined since.

My run has generally been slowing down over time and in 2014 and then for 2016-2019 (points 13 and 14) that trend appears to be accelerating (unfortunately).

One of the problems with this analysis is while it is race weighted, it still is impacted by the mix of races from year to year.  If you do more longer races in one year versus another, all things else being equal, you would expect to see slower average pace.  The chart below shows that over time my average race has indeed been getting longer:

And this table shows how my pace generally slows down as the race gets longer:

By the way, over the 19 years and 156 races of my career my average pace overall is:

Swim: 29:47/mile or 1:42/100 yards

Bike: 22.5mph

Run: 8:31/mile

Anyways, given the above I just looked at my 108 Sprint distance races only and set the 8 races of 2001/2002 equal to 1.00.  I also inverted the swim and run metrics so that up (above 1) is always better:

In my view, this chart gives the clearest indication of how fast I have been over time.

-My swim improved by nearly 40% from 2001 to 2012 (point 11 above) but has since declined back to where it started in the last (2016-2019) period.  

-My bike improved about  5% by 2004 and generally stayed above the 2001/02 average until 2014 (point 13) and is about 6% slower for the most recent 2016-2019 period.  However, for just 2019 alone I was just 1% slower (0.99) than in 2001/02.

-My run after peaking at about 5% faster in 2007 (point 6 above) has been on a pretty steep decline  and is down about 17% for 2016-2019.  However, 2019 was down "just" 14% so maybe I'm having a slight bounce back as of late

-Overall, I'm about 9% slower for the 2016-2019 period than I was in 2001-2002.  I was above 1.0 up through 2013 with the decline coming from 2014  through today.

Getting old is not good for fans of fast racing!

Racing History: Distance, Time and Pace

I'm continuing to mine my Triathlon Race Database as I wait for my back to fully heal post surgery.  Today's post looks at my 156 triathlon history and examines the miles, minutes, and speed that I covered in these races.

 This first table displays the miles I covered in races by year--in total and in each of the three disciplines, and the chart below it graphically displays the total race miles by year:

Observations:

-I've raced a lot of miles through the years. 6,131 in total, which is enough to travel all the way across the country and back again, swimming, biking and running, while racing.  About 80% of those miles have been on my bike, about 18% running and a tad under 2% were swimming.

-My biggest year mileage-wise was 2010, which was one of the years I raced two Ironman and I raced a total of 14 times--that year I raced nearly 650 miles.

-Comparing 2009 to 2010 shows the big impact the type of races I enter in a year has on miles raced. In both of these years I raced 14 times but I had 2.4X as many race miles in 2010 as 2009 was a year of all short-course races.

-2014 was comparatively my last "big" year as you can see the relatively low mileage in 2016-2019.

This next chart displays the average miles/race:

-You can clearly see the general trend over time--my average race has been getting longer, with 2019 showing the highest average race distance--greater than a 70.3 (I did 2 races, a Sprint and an IM)

-2008 was a big year as well--it was the first of three years where I did 2 IMs (2010, and 2012 were the other two)

-2009 and 2016 are low points as both of those years were entirely short course years.

We can also look at this same data set from the clock's perspective:

-I've raced nearly 30,000 minutes.  This is equivalent to about 20.5 full 24 hour days

-The basic pattern, not surprisingly, mimics that of the distance charts

-47% of the time is on the bike, 38% on the run, and about 12% swimming.  My guess is that most people would be more like 52/33/12, but I haven't done that analysis, so I'm just guessing.

-I've only spent 2.6% of the race time in transition, with T1 being on average about 60% longer than T2.

We can merge these two datasets and also examine how my pace has changed over time:

-These numbers are heavily influenced by the mix of races I'm in.  For example, last year I raced one Sprint and one IM, so my pace (total time/total distance) is basically what I averaged for the IM--these calculations are weighted by distance versus averaged by the number of races so my pace in IM races heavily skews those years where I do proportionately more long course races.

-The chart above shows my average swim pace (minutes/mile) and despite mix changes over time shows the significant improvement I was able to achieve in swim pace with the recent slow down post my back issues in 2015.

-2007 was my "best" swim year by this metric as I averaged 28 minutes/mile or about 1:35/100 yards.

-2017 was my slowest as this is just my swim pace at IMAC70.3

-My bike pace slopes down to the right as the swim did but unfortunately, in the case of the bike, this means I'm getting slower.

-My fastest years appear to be 2005, 2007 and 2011.  However, race mix heavily influences these numbers.  In a subsequent analysis I'll post I'll show that 2004 was in fact my speediest bike year.

-2014, 2017 were dragged down by my two slowest IM bikes (Kona 2014 and IMAZ 2017)

-I'm pleased I averaged over 20mph last year despite racing in just one Sprint along with my IM.

-This last chart shows the ugly reality of my run over time.  2009 was my best year--but again, this was a year of all short course racing, so that's to be expected.  2008, 2010 and 2012 were years of two IM races and 2014 was the slowest IM of my career (Kona 2014).

-2017 is driven by the many miles I walked at IMAZ during my first IM post back problems.

------

From a individual sport composition standpoint, setting the swim equal to 1, the relative mix of Swim/Bike/Run has been:

By distance: 1/43.3/10.1

By time: 1/4.0/3.3

For comparison purposes, the standard IM distance mix is 2.4/112/26.2 or 1/47/10.9 so my average race has been slightly less bike-centric than the IM is and also slightly less run-centric.

I'll return to the question of pace over time when I normalize for race type mix (compare short course to short course, Half to Half, IM to IM, etc.)

Onward and Upward.  This certainly seems to apply to my running pace as I get older!

Race Place

As you know, I'm in the midst of data mining my recently updated Triathlon Race Database.  My last post attempted to analyze how I've raced relative to other competitors over time through my historical USAT ratings and my relative %tile overall and across each of the three disciplines.

Another way, and perhaps most direct way to do this is to look at what place I finished in the races vs. the overall field as well as against my Age Group.  Here is a summary by year for my Age Group finish as well as how I placed in each of the three individual sports  (in my Age Group).  I track the number and % of times I've finished 1st, 2nd or 3rd:

Observations:

-I have 50 1st, 36 2nd, and 11 3rd place finishes across my 156 triathlons.  I have won my Age Group 32% of the time and finished in the top 3 62% of time.
-My best % of wins was in 2013 (64%) followed by 2009 (57%)
-In 2009 I finished on the podium in all 14 races.

These %s are, of course, heavily influenced by the mix of races I enter.  In 2009 for example, I raced all Local races and that is why (in part) I have such strong relative performance in that year (and in 2013).  This can be seen in the same analysis but by the length of the race:

Here you can see that the longer the race is the lower % I finish 1st or in the top 3.  This is not to say that I'm just not good at longer races (in fact in the prior analyses, we saw that 4 of my best 10 races rating wise were Half IM including my two best races of all time: White Lake and SkipJack).  It's just that the longer races tend to have much larger fields of higher quality competitors.  It's one thing to finish in the top 3 at the Hammonton, NJ Sprint Triathlon with 180 competitors and 12 in my Age Group and an entirely different task against over 100 in my Age Group at the IM World Championships!

The next 4 charts show the above data graphically:

-I've been able to finish in the top 3 50+% of my races each year since 2003

-After better placing from year to year  throughout my earlier career, that trend seems to be on the decline  in recent years

-I became increasingly competitive on the swim, especially between 2007 and 2012, but my relative competitiveness on the swim seems to have declined since 2012.

-Not surprisingly, the bike is my strong suit in this metric, where I've been above 60% top 3 for most of my career.

-This metric also seems to indicate I'm becoming a bit less competitive over time

-I became increasingly competitive up through 2009 and was strongest on the run in the 2007-09 timeframe.

-While my competitiveness on the run has generally been on the decline the last 10 years, I did enjoy a bit of a blip up in 2013--at least as measured by top 3 Age Group finishes on the run.

A slightly different metric I track is called "Old Man?".  This is simply whether or not no one older than me was faster than me.  If no one was, then I'm the Old Man.  It's similar in a sense to the somewhat arbitrary 5-year Age Group designations.  Here is how that has trended through the years:

-I've been the Old Man in 56 of my races, which is slightly more than my 50 Age Group victories.

-This metric is clearly trending up over time.  Perhaps because there are fewer people who are older than I in races as I get older!  In fact, in a few races recently I've been the oldest competitor.

Lastly, I examined whether or not the year in any given Age Group was correlated with my Age Group place.  In other words, have I done better the first year in an Age Group (for example when I'm 50 in the 50-54 YO Age Group) vs. later years (for example the 5th year of the 50-54 YO Age Group when I'm 54):

Surprisingly, these lines don't slope downward to the right as one would expect.  I seem to be most competitive when I'm in the 2nd or 3rd year of an Age Group.

This is not to say, that one's relative performance is not related to age--trust me, it is!  But in my case, there are other factors that outweigh this factor in determining how often I win or are in the top 3.  For example, in 2007, when I turned 50 and was in my first year of the 50-54 Age Group, I raced a lot of high quality races while in 2009 (52 and in my 3rd year of the 50-54 YO Age Group) I raced much smaller local races.

In any event, at 63 I'm now in my 4th year of the 60-64 YO Age Group and the above chart seems to indicate my prospects for winning are less than my historical average of 32%!

LOL!  Onward and upward, baby!

Ratings: How do I compare?

OK, as promised here is a little analytic loop that I mined out of my Triathlon Race Database.  I wanted to see how competitive I was over time and one of the basic ways of doing so is to look at the USAT ratings I've achieved in my races over time.  The USAT has employed two main rating systems over the 19-year span of my triathlon racing.  The old system assigned a maximum rating points for a race based on the length of the race and the number of participants.  As I recall, a local sprint race awarded the winner 90 points, whereas a local half-IM distance awared a max of 92 points.  Larger races had higher possible points as well (I don't remember the details).  In the case of the 90 point local sprint, if one finished 5% slower than the winner you'd get a 85.7 rating for the race (1/1.05 X 90).

The new USAT system adopted in 2006 uses what's called a "pace-setter"approach.  Basically for any given race, they take all participants who had a prior rating (who raced at least 3 times the prior year) and assigns an expected or par score for the race.  Then, every person racing in this season's event gets a relative score to the par.  For example if there was just one pace setter who had an 80 rating and you raced the same time as that pace-setter, you'd score an 80.  It's a bit like the NASTAR system where a know skier (one who has a rating) skies a course and establishes the par and everyone else is compared to that par.  The difference here is there isn't one pace-setter in a race but as many as who had a prior year's rating.

In any event, I've recorded ratings with the Old system up through mid-2014 and have the new system for 2006 on.  I should also note that the USAT only rates USAT sanctioned races with the New system (so no ratings for foreign races or for local non-sanctioned races).  As it turns out I have 142 races rated with the Old system and 102 with the New (current) system.  Many of my races between 2006-2014 have two ratings (Old and New).  My averages across all races, over time are:

Old Rating System:    76.5
New Rating System:  76.6

For just the 88 races where I have both Old and New ratings the averages are:

Old Rating System:    76.4
New Rating System:   77.4

So it seems that Ratings for the average race are slightly higher with the New system.  However, in looking through the Database, it appears that there is more variability in the Old system (probably because it was all driven off the performance of only one pace-setter--the winner).  Since the annual rankings are driven not by an average of all races, but just the top 3, in practice the Old system yielded the highest (and lowest) individual race ratings and a higher annual rating to determine year-long rankings.

OK, enough of that.  How have my ratings changed over time?

This first chart below shows the average (Old and New, or as listed "Current") for ALL of my races each year.  The first data point is the combined 2001/2002 season and the last is for my "come-back" years of 2016-2019 (no 2015 rating as I was recovering from my back issues).  A couple of observations:

-I peaked in 2007/2008.  This seems pretty clear as you will see in many subsequent charts.  That was the year (2007) I worked with Peter Reid and was the only year I was an All-American (back then it meant I was in the top 5% of my Age Group in the country).  I raced my first race at the age off 44 and improved for the first 6-7 years, reaching my peak at the age of 50.
-Since my peak I seem to have fallen about 9% on average over the last 11/12 years with a sharper decline after 2013, when I was 56.

The second chart below shows the more familiar Official USAT annual Rating--this number is calculated using just the three best races each year.  Observations:

-You can see that the Old system yields a higher Official Rating due to the higher variability in rating scores as compared to the current system.

-The peak in 2007 is very evident

-The decline is my official rating is less...about 7% over the last 12 years

Below are my top 10 races under both Rating systems:

-The 2007 White Lake Half-IM was clearly my best race.  In the race I (and Anders) qualified for the USAT National Long Course team.  I set my Half/70.3 PR of 4:43 as I rode at 23.2mph (2:24 for 56 miles) and ran 7:29 miles (1:38 half marathon)

-I finished first in my Age Group beating Louis Almekindres, who at the time was ranked 4th in my Age Group in the United States

-Note the preponderance of 2007 races (half in the New system)

-Another key performance for me was SkipJack 2011 (this race was 1.2/66/10, so not an "official" Half-IM).  In that race I finished 2nd overall, getting passed with just 3 miles to go.  Shortly after that race I qualified for Kona at IM Arizona in 2011.  SkipJack will almost certainly be the latest race that I ever crack my personal top 10 in.

This next chart shows the distribution of my ratings over time (here I use the New system when I have both and either the Old or New, when I have just one.  My most common rating has been 77.0-77.9:

Another useful way to look at relative performance is to track my percentile ranking against everyone in the race and more narrowly relative to just my Age Group.  I can also do this for each discipline (Swim, Bike, Run) as well as for the Overall result.  Because the mix of races I race affects these average annual %tiles (I have a lower %tile ranking at Kona than I would at a local Sprint for instance), I measure %tiles for all races as well as just for "local races" (local races exclude IM, IM70.3, World  and National Championships, as well as races with more than 1,000 finishers):

Observations:

-The 2nd chart of Local races only I feel gives a better comparison over time.  For example, in the top chart for all races, 2009 and 2013 seem to be better years for me but these averages are relatively inflated since I did primarily local races in those years.  You can see they were relatively less highly rated when we compare more like-to-like Local races in the 2nd chart.

-My bike is my clear strength.  It was from the very beginning and I've averaged in the top 10% of finishers in local races each year throughout my career.

-My swim showed strong improvement up through about 2010/2011 and has declined a bit since.  I've definitely deemphasized swim training, especially over the last few years and this data would seem to indicate that I might consider more swimming investment this year.

-My run improved as well up through 2007 and has been in decline since with a very rapid fall off over the last 5 years--I now am lucky to finish in the 50 %tile in a run these days.

-Overall, I've averaged in the top 20% Overall and top 10% in Local races for most of my career, with a steady, run-driven decline over the last 5-8 years.

The same charts can be generated for my annual %tile averages against just my Age Group competitors:

-The same basic general conclusions can be drawn from these two Age Group charts as was observed with the Overall %tile charts

-My Age Group bike performance is even more striking--basically I've been in the top 5% for just about all of my career.  From 2007 through mid-2009, I was first in my Age Group on the bike is 17 consecutive races

-The decline in my run is, if anything, more striking and is the biggest change in my relative competitiveness over the most recent timeframe.

-It looks like I'm having a bit of a nice comeback after 2014/2015 and my back problems.

OK, that's enough for now.  More later!

January Snapshot//Triathlon Database Updated

So January is in the books.  The biggest contextual factor I had to deal with this month is a minor surgical procedure I had that unfortunately led to an incision cite infection that I've had to manage for the last couple of weeks.  It's getting better with the antibiotics I'm taking but it definitely has put a crimp in my training a bit.  Obviously, no swimming but I had planned to take January off anyways but I also had to curtail quite a bit the running I planned to do.  None-the-less, Jan 2020 is pretty similar to Jan 2019 training wise:


                    2020               2019

Swim             0              4,000 yards
Bike             1,245         1,160 miles
Run              48.5            59.5 miles
PT                6:02           5:35
Time            89:33         86:59

I've put a lot of my bike effort in on Zwift where I have just about completed the first 4 (of 10 weeks) of a FTP build.  This is much higher intensity that I did last year.  In fact, I didn't hit this intensity until April last year, and even then, not as much as I'm doing now.  My FTP appears to be around 250 watts, which is certainly fine for this time of the year.

I hope to get a green light soon from my surgeon to ramp up my swim and with that my run as well.

-------

On a different front, I used some of my down time to update and begin to upgrade my Triathlon Race Database.  This is a pretty comprehensive record of key personal and competitive stats for the 157 triathlons I have entered (and 156 I have finished) since 2001.  To give you a sense of what I mean by comprehensive, here is a screenshot of a part of the main database:

This is obviously way over the top as far as the ratio of data/quality of the triathlete goes, but I've always been partial to data and analysis.  Anyways, I've begun a bit of analysis to characterize my 19 year triathlon journey and will be posting a bit on this during the month of February.  To kick things off, I'd thought I'd post a basic summary census of these 156 completed triathlons:

The top of this spreadsheet breaks down the 156 races by distance and year.  I grouped my 1 race in 2001 with the 7 in 2002 and have grouped all of my post 2015 "comeback" races in the 2016-2019 column.  A few observations:

-70% of my triathlons have been "Sprints"

-A bit more than 25% have been long course with 25 Half-IMs and 15 Full IMs

-The Olympic distance appears to be my least favorite as I've done just 7 of them--less than 5%

-The most races in a year has been 14, which happened in four separate years

-After my initial race in 2001, I've managed to race at least 7 times a year up to my back problems in 2015, which led to my taking that whole year off.

-Since 2015, I've raced just 10 times--only twice in 2019.  However, I look to do 5+ this year with Kona obviously being my prime focus.

The bottom of the spreadsheet shows the locations of my races.  Observations:

-Just about half of my races have been in New Jersey

-Delaware and Virginia account for another 20% combined

-I've raced in 18 different states through the years

-About 95% of my races have been in the US

-I've raced 7 times internationally but not since 2013 when I did the Mont Tremblant 70.3

One last observation is the timing of my races.  I've raced in 9 of the 12 months with (not surprisingly) the bulk of the races between May and September:

January          0

February        0

March            5

April             15

May              28

June              29

July               26

August          20

September    20

October         5

November     8

December      0

My 15 Ironman races are decidedly skewed towards the back half of the year:

July                2

August           1

September      2

October          3

November      7

This year I'm looking at possibly racing as early as April,  but certainly by June (Eagleman70.3) and of-course, I'm planning on adding to my October IM count this year as well.

More (lots more) in the days ahead....