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!

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.

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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....

2020 Goals

You can see them at the top of my blog.

They are as follows:

1. Have fun training hard during the year
2. Have a good race at Kona
3. Get my Zwift Tron bike

Fun/Train hard

As I've recounted below, 2019 was a return to "normal" training wise after the struggles I've had physically since 2015.  I put in the most hours of training that I ever had in 2019 and really enjoyed it.  I stayed generally healthy and motivated throughout the year and was able to hit my mountaineering and triathlon goals.  It was especially gratifying to do so by executing against a well defined training and racing plan.

I plan to do the same again in 2020 leading up to the center piece of my 2020 year at the IM World Championships in Kona on 10/10/20.  I don't have any major climbing goals for the year and really look to narrow my focus on triathlon and see if I can't continue to "roll back the years" a bit in 2020.

Kona

I've had the privilege of racing at Kona three times in 2010, 2012 and 2014.  I learned a lot there but one of the most important lessons was the conditions are unpredictable, variable, and can dramatically impact one's finishing time and performance (especially for someone as challenged by heat and humidity as I am).  Thus, I've stated my race goal as having a "good" race.  This is squishy of course but when I get there I 'll have a good sense of what I'm capable of doing and combined with the actual conditions on race day, I'll be able to judge if I had a "good" race or not.

However, at this point in the year I'm going to go out on a limb and say that a "good" race at Kona for me in 2020 is to set a new PR for Kona.  Find below my history at Kona and my early target for Kona 2020:

Several observations on the above:

1. I've never been very fast at Kona.  This is driven by 3 main things: a. my lack of talent; b. I don't race well at that distance in those conditions; 3. I've never really approached Kona as a full on hammer-fest but rather as a victory lap of sorts--an experience to be enjoyed.  With respect to the 2020 race, all three factors (especially the 3rd) will once again be very much in play.

2. I've narrowly missed swimming sub 80 and indeed swam 76 in the official practice swim in 2014, so I think my goal of 79 minutes this year is quite reasonable.

3. My run goal, especially given the running rally I made down the stretch in 2019 (and my solid run at IMAZ19) I believe is doable, although it will require me getting off the bike in reasonably strong shape, as was my focus in 2019.

4. The crux of this challenge will be hitting the bike goal which is almost 30 minutes faster than my PR there.  This is a big goal and a necessary one given the liabilities of my bad knee and poor run today.  There isn't really a sound basis to set such an improvement and if its really, really windy (as it was in 10,12, and 14) I'll probably have no chance. I'll probably need some help from Mother Nature.

Still, my "Bike Monster" strategy in 2019 led to a relatively easy 5:34 at IMAZ and with Bike Monster 2020 already underway (did over 300 miles last week) my thought is what the heck--let's give it a shot!

Prior to Kona, I plan on racing several times (I'll publish a calendar shortly) and notably I plan to return to Eagleman70.3 this year in June.  I raced Eagleman four consecutive years from 2005 to 2008, which was during the timeframe when I was the fastest triathlete I was ever able to be.  For 2020, I've set a "mini-goal" (by that I mean, it's part of my Kona "good" race goal--a means to that end) of beating my last time at Eagleman time back in 2008--12 years ago.  I'd take a fair amount of satisfaction in my 62 year old self beating my 50 year old time that year.

Similar to the above for Kona, here is my Eagleman history and my target for 2020:

More on this later as we get closer to the June race.

Zwift Tron bike

If you do Zwift you know what the Tron bike is.  I won't go into details other than to say you need to accumulate over 164,000 vertical feet of climbing to earn it.  I'm happy to say I did so earlier this month after about 24 months on Zwift (I mostly ride Zwift in the winter).

Onward and Upward!

2020 Training Plan and 1 week in

OK, here we are, off to the races in 2020!  I'm excited for the new decade, but not that excited that I'm now living in my 8th separate decade--well I am excited that I'm living but not so much about being so old...

In any event--here is a summary of my 2020 training plan (at 50,000 feet):

I just finished my first week of the new decade:

291 miles on the bike (I've done 3 of the Zwift FTP build workouts so far)

8 miles run

21:35 total time (about 3 hours of PT)

Last year the first week looked like this:

1,000 yds swim

260 bike

16 miles run

20:46

Pretty similar weeks for the most part (absent the running this year) and that's a good thing.  I think my training really worked well last year and the plan above is designed for the most part to mimic last year.

Onward and Upward!

2019 Year In Review

And so another year (and decade) comes to an end.  Among other things, this serves as a trigger to look back on the past year (mostly) and decade (a little bit, for context) with respect to triathlon and adventure.  This is a narrow perspective, in that it's on me (well it is my blog) and I'll stay focused on my training and events and not comment on life more broadly....Here goes:

Overall

2019 in sum was a very successful and rewarding year for me.  My two major goals were to train for and have a successful alpine expedition to Bolivia in May and to train for and execute an excellent Ironman and qualify for Kona 2020 in November.  Both of these goals were effectively achieved.

I was also able to stay relatively healthy and injury free (which is no small thing at 62 years of age) and set new training milestones along the way.

I put a lot into this year.  I think I had a more effective and accurate view of what I can and can't do this year than ever before and as a result was able to translate that into executing against my plan and goals for the year.  This was perhaps the most rewarding thing about the year!

Bolivia

The first 4+ months of the year were principally focused on getting my body ready to climb 3 specific mountains in Bolivia.  I was additionally, building up my triathlon training so that after Bolivia (beginning of June), I could hit the ground running (and swimming and biking) and get ready for my Ironman in the fall.

I did a huge amount of walking/trekking/climbing/stair master, etc. in preparation for the expedition.   Two highlights here were 11 major treks in Shenandoah National and my 30+ mile circumnavigation of Manhattan.

In May, Anders and I enjoyed a very successful and enjoyable two weeks in Bolivia.  On the first climb I successfully reached the summit of Tarija (17,000 ft+) and Anders additionally bagged the nearby, and more technically difficult summit of Pequeno Alpamayo.

We then travelled to Huyana Potosi (19,974 feet), which is a classic glaciated and at times pretty steep climb and both successfully submitted.  It was a particularly challenging day for me, one where I had to rely on Anders and Andy (our guide) pretty heavily.  Immensely rewarding as well!

Our original plan was to seek a third summit climb to Sajama but when we arrived at the base we saw 80+mph winds at the summit and no one climbing into what would clearly be life threatening conditions.

Overall, we returned safe, had a great time, and achieved our climbing objectives--nailed our three priorities and added to an already large bag of epic adventure experiences!

Triathlon

The headline goal for 2019 was to qualify for Kona at (originally Barcelona) IMAZ in late November.  Along the way, I entered just one other triathlon this year and was able to achieve an important personal milestone as I won my Age Group in a triathlon for the 50th time of my triathlon career.

Anders and I were coming off of IM DNFs (his at IM Texas and mine at IMFL--this later the first triathlon I had DNF'ed at).  At one level, our first objective here was to just finish.  Beyond that, we had both sacrificed a great deal and trained very hard and we were hoping to have a race that was consistent with the fitness we believed we had developed.  But make no mistake about it, given that I'm in the home stretch as far as my IM racing days go, we wanted to both KQ and race together as a father and son at Kona in 2020.

As you know, we were both able to achieve all three as we basically both executed our race plans pretty much as planned.  Extremely rewarding, and of-course Kona 2020 will by our primary focus for 2020!

Training

In some respects, my ability to consistently train at high volumes and with appropriate intensity was the biggest story of 2019.  As you might recall, my back/nerve problems in 2015 basically caused me to have to take 2015 off from climbing and triathlon (and caused me to think about if I had reached the end of this phase of my life).  I tentatively got back into training in 2016, decided to "sorta" go for another IM in 2017 and this ultimately led to my biggest training year ever in 2019.  You can see that in this chart below, which shows my annual  training hours from 2011 (labelled 1) to 2019 (9)...(2015 is understated because I didn't record a bunch of my training after my back problems and before I decided to get back into things in late 2015):

As you can see, in 2019 I surpassed 1,200 hours for the first time.  This means I averaged over 100 hours of training per month, 23+ hours/week, and over 3 hours per day!  The 1,200 hours were also 17% higher than my previous annual high.  That I was able to do this with no significant injuries along the way, I think is a testament to a reasonable plan, high expectations, and the fact I've been doing this now for nearly 20 years.  (this is not to say I didn't have aches and pains along the way--lots of those and one minor bike crash/separated shoulder).

My swim shows a similar pattern over this nine year period with over 280,000 yards in 2019.  While this is a relatively modest amount by real swimming standards, and quite short of my personal high water marks, it was a fairly significant commitment to swimming, especially since it was concentrated in essentially a 5-6 month period:

2019 was the year of "Bike Monster", essentially an extreme focus on bike riding as a triathlon training strategy, that Anders proposed while we were in Bolivia.   During the summer, I was sometimes exceeding 400 miles during 7-day stretches and did 10 pretty high quality 100+ mile rides.  As a result, I had my best year biking in probably 7-8 years and hit 12,343 miles for the year.  In addition to exceeding 1,000 miles/month on average, it works out to 237 miles/week and was my largest bike volume ever:

For the run (or in my case run/trek/climb/walk), the big investment in getting ready for Bolivia early in the year led to a significant up-tick in my run volume.  Although I didn't get back to my pre-back  injury days, in terms of volume and especially in terms of intensity, 2019 was a very solid year for me and in-fact as the calendar turned to the fall, I was running as well as a I have been able to since 2015--very satisfying for me:

Lastly, I continued to increase my investment in non-SBR training (mostly weights and stretching PT type activities) and reached 70 hours this past year:

So, all-in-all, a very successful and rewarding year by any reasonable set of standards.  It fills me with pride and an eagerness to spin the wheel again in 2020.  Check back in a few days for what the plan for 2020 is!

Onward and Upward!