Oh and I was 10 lbs heavier at buffalo springs.

I think everyone will have their own take on this. For me it's

FOP 25% (because you've got all the AG's mixed together)
MOP middle 50%
BOP the last 25%

Over my 23 years doing tri, I was pretty pleased with myself when I finished my last IM at exactly the 50th percentile of finishers! That's as MOP as you can get. FWIW, I finished at 13 hours and a few seconds. All you statistician can stay away, In my book "I" am the average triathlete ;-)
Considering I got DFL in a half IM one time, that's pretty good progress I reckon.

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

No, it absolutely doesn't hold water and here's why.
You are confusing position in the field with committment and knowledge. They are not that strongly correlated so it does matter which you pick and it's pretty obvious you've picked the wrong one when your definition has nothing to do with position for a descriptor that quite self evidently is all about position.

Front of pack, middle of pack, back of pack. Do you understand that the words constructing these phrases specifically describe position relative to the pack? You can debate how far up or down the field the boundaries of each category lie. And, you can debate whether the "pack" is the entire field or just your age group. But, you're trying to argue that one's position in the pack has nothing to do with either one's position or the pack. Sorry, but that's absurd. It's either an excuse for backdoor bragging or you're just very confused.

I'm resurrecting this thread because I found myself mulling it over on a run yesterday (that's the stats nerd in me...and I love discussions that seem to defy either easy qualitative or quantitative reasoning) and now I'm watching the finish line of Raleigh 70.3.

I'm wondering how people would feel about saying there are really four classes of triathlete; Contenders, FOP, MOP, BOP? I was so struck by the gaps after the top finishers that a point made earlier in this thread hit me, which was the idea that you can be FOP by actually leading the "pack" even if you are not a threat for a top finish (are you FOP if there are 15 AG people strung out ahead of you but you beat 250 others and after you cross they are coming in at pretty regular intervals?).

I would say that an AG Contender is someone who starts with a legitimate chance for a top 10 AG finish. There may be about 20 of these people in a group.

Then the FOP would be some percent of finishers who never really contended for a top spot but beat a huge part of their group.

I'm thinking about how you would convey where you'll finish to people who come to watch you race. "I won't quite be a contender but I'll be at the front of the pack when it starts to roll in." Or, "Overall I'll be in the middle of the pack but within my age group I'm a contender for the top ten."

I needed to review and bump this thread so Dan gets accurate data for his most recent poll.

Def MOP.