Looks interesting - I'll participate. A question, though. By choosing the last six months of data, you'll get the end of the season + off season for northern hemisphere athletes. For southern hemisphere athletes, the data will be summer-fall, the height of competition. Does this potentially cause issues with combining the data? What about a single athlete interested in comparing their training with the 'rest of the world'? Maybe have everyone upload a year's worth of data, find the peak training volume month for each and then use that plus 2.5 months on either side of that month?

Looking forward to seeing the results - good luck!

These are good questions you probably should factor into your model. There are going to be tons of variables for which you must control, but it is great that you have a great topic to study.

Dear Giorgitd,


Thank you for your inquiry. We request a dataset from participants spanning six months from the past twelve months of training, with an emphasis on periods characterised by minimal breaks from training. It is acknowledged that athletes, even those situated within the same hemisphere, experience varying seasons based on their targeted races and locations. To accommodate this diversity, we have implemented a matrix allowing participants to designate which months correspond to specific phases of their training regimen (e.g., base, build, off-season, etc.). Our analysis endeavours to incorporate these nuances through the utilisation of diverse statistical methodologies.


We appreciate your kind sentiments regarding the study. Following the conclusion of our research, in addition to developing a complimentary web-based application, we intend to utilise platforms such as this to disseminate information regarding the publication of our study (provided it meets our expectations for publication, which we anticipate with reasonable confidence).


Best regards,


Leighton

Hi Splitz,

In responding to Giorgitd's queries regarding the data, we will do as much as we can statistically to factor in the variability of the season phase of the data uploaded. The exciting part of this research is that we are looking at actual training data, not asking athletes to provide us with an overview of their training based on memory.
However, as you point out, this also presents challenges and we will need to take care with our analysis.

Thanks for the compliment, re topic. I hope you and your fellow athletes will take part.

regards,

Leighton.