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.

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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!