Anyone else use percentiles to find your weakness?

Triathlon Forum
1

Since I started triathlons a couple years ago, I’ve always tried to work my weaknesses. But how do you quantify that, and how do you measure progress? I’ve been using percentile performances on each leg of a race to do it. For example, I sort all the swim times, find my placement, and divide by the overall number of competitors to get my percentile for the swim leg.

Here’s an example from my first race, an Xterra in Moab, Utah.

Total competitors: 180
Swim place: 127 (29th percentile)
T1 place: 22 (88th percentile)
Bike place: 27 (85th percentile)
T2 place: 18 (90th percentile)
Run place: 47 (74th percentile)

From this data, I can see that my swim is horrible and needs the most work. My run needs work compared to my bike, and my transitions are pretty decent. It’s too bad that the thing I’m best at happens to be the place where I can gain the least amount of time! But fortunately, aside from transitions, the bike is my best discipline, and that’s where I can gain the most time.

So, I started running and swimming more. I ran 4 days a week and tried to swim 3. Honestly, I really should put in more time in the pool than that, since I have so much time to be gained in the swim, but I have a hard time getting to the pool more than three times a week.

Fast forward to 2007. My swim percentile jumped up to 61 at my last race (compared to 44 last year in the same race) and my run jumped from 37 last year to 96 this year. Working your weaknesses really works!

And the bonus that I didn’t expect is that my bike hasn’t suffered, even though I’ve been on the bike a lot less the last couple years. My bike split in my last race was a few seconds faster than last year. So, about the same. Now my strategy will be to maintain the run and start working on the bike again. I’ll keep up the swimming as well.

Anyone else use percentiles like this?

2

I used to have percentile weakness, but now I take viagra, so now it’s much better. :slight_smile:

Sorry, couldn’t resist.

3

I always thought percentile weakness was people who had trouble with math? ;.)

Seriously, though… The way you went about it is one way that certainly works and lets you know where you stand relative to others. I always preferred to compare my times to fastest of the day by category and see how far off each of those I was.

Mike

4

Here in NC / SC we have a lot of series races, so my wife and I use the percentile method a lot. All of the races are a little different as far as TA’s and courses and weather, and people do different races throughout the year, so one of the best ways in our opinion to compare across races and year to year is not by times, but by how everyone did one year to the next and how we and others did compared to this. It helps to feel better when you turn in a slower race than the last year, but see that everybody was slower and you had a higher percentile than the year before.

5

Oh yeah, I (once upon a time) did a lot of XC and almost all the points scoring is % based… It’s a great way to see how you really fared vs. the field. AP

6

I don’t need math to know that my run sucks… :slight_smile:

7

Yea I do that also. I go a couple steps further though and also figure out my age group percentiles and graph them race to race. The age group percentiles show me exactly how difficult my age group is in each race, and the graphs show me how difficult a race’s competition was. I am expecting pretty low points for nationals ie very low percentiles. :slight_smile: It is also good to have that data year-to-year.

8

Yeah, here’s a hypothetical % ranking of my typical race:

S - 85%
T1 - 25%
B - 4%
T2 - 10%
R - 8%

So, what did I do this winter? Run focus, baby!!! :wink:

Truth be told, I have been working on the swim a bit too. I was actually MOP the last 2 races I did!!! (Above the 50th percentile, no less)
That’s still the lowest hanging fruit, but the hardest (mentally, enjoyment-wise, and scheduling) training for me to do, hence my running more.

I enjoy biking and running MUCH more than swimming, so I do them more, regardless of the fact that it’s probably not maximizing my race results to do so.

9

Tripper, yeah, I look at this on a race by race basis as well. The field at a particular race from year to year is usually pretty similar (although nearly everyone seems to get a bit faster each year). You can also usually tell how ‘fast’ the course was by comparing the top 10 times year over year. On a really hot day you’ll see noticeably slower results.

Comparing different races will sometimes yield wildly different results. For example, I’ve had my worst relative swim performances at the bigger events…that’s where the competitors actually know how to swim, and I exit the swim the bottom quarter (or worse). At some smaller local races I’ve actually come out of the water in the top 25%, but I know that doesn’t mean I’ve suddenly improved my swim technique!

But when you look at the trends overall, from year to year and race to race, you’ll usually have a really good idea of where you stand in each discipline.

10

Yeah, here’s a hypothetical % ranking of my typical race:

S - 85%
T1 - 25%
B - 4%
T2 - 10%
R - 8%

Murphy’s, I was confused at first, because if those numbers are percentiles, the swim is your best discipline!

Anyway, I got it now…

You are probably similar to me, with such a slow swim and a much better bike – you probably rarely get passed on the bike. I had a surprising change in my last race, since my swim was improved. Guys kept passing me on the bike, and I’d be forced to try to keep up with them. This had never really happened before. Of course, if you’re usually in the top 4% on the bike, you still won’t be around a lot of strong bikers if your swim improves, but you’ll at least see more of them. And the additional competition will probably make you even faster (plus, you don’t have to waste so much energy passing the hordes).