I am setting my 2009 season goals, and I was looking over my race results from this year and looked at the previous years. I found it was difficult to understand how much I was improving. If I looked purely at the time it didn’t factor in the difficulty of the course, or the weather conditions of the day. If you look as a percentage of the winning time, or ranking in age group it doesn’t factor in the quality of the field.
How do you measure your results across races?
If you’ve done the same race multiple years, you can compare times across years.
Compare races of similar course difficulty and weather conditions.
Look for overall trends in pace, are you getting faster or slower at s b r?
off the top of my head but I hope it helps.
I don’t care if I was faster or slower, just as long as I beat whom I need to beat. Sometimes the wind or heat makes a big difference. That why it is called a race. Yes, I like being faster than the previous year and of course I like placing higher % wise than the previous year. It also makes a difference if it is an A, B or C race. If I race a 07 race as an A race and then the same race as a C race and was slower, I’m okay with that.
It sounds more to me that you’re trying to determine if you’ve improved. Using race times and places can not always be an accurate reflection because there’s so many variables.
Using some set time trials or racing the exact same course under similar conditions are good comparisons. I like to look at a 500 or 800 time trial in the pool periodically through the year (each year) also bike time trials on the same course year to year, run races that are the same year to year. It can be hard to quantify improvement unless you have done some of these things (time trials etc).
In addition… I look at other athletes that have done the same races as me and see how I fare against them… of course, they have off days too, but it’s definitely about trending, and pace. Only you can determine your performance. Say you do a HIM, and you generally do a 1:40 run, and suddenly you do a 1:30. You can comprehend the course difficulty, but the majority is probably because you are faster…
One of the things I sometimes also look at is how far behind the overall leader am i? Even if the majority of the entrants may not be good, the folks winning usually are… so if I’m normally 5% behind first overall, and suddenly i’m 3% or 10%, that might tell me something.
But yes, unless you do some controlled tests, you’ll never really know.
I base my year to year fitness on short time trials running and cycling. 5k races for running are a good fitness benchmark that can be done without interrupting training. For the bike, I like to do the local 15km weekly TT. Biking TTs are a great barometer for bike fitness - ~20 minutes of pain is all it takes to get an idea.
It’s too difficult to gauge fitness from year to year using races, as conditions may be very different, and the quality of the field probably changes too much.
Also, if you train with a group, you know where you normally fall in. If you find yourself creeping up to guys that are normally faster, than that is a good clue you are fitter.
using a “percent back from the winners” method is excellent. it is widely employed in sports like XC skiing, where conditions make no 2 10K races the same. just select the top several guys in your category, average their times, and calculate how many percent back from them you were. it sounds loose, and indeed there is a little flexibilty in there - for example if lance armstrong showed up maybe you would toss his result out - but it is astonishingly consistant and informative in light of changing variables.
I used to look at percentiles for each portion of the race. The trouble with that seems to be that at different distances, the strength of the folks you are racing against changes quite a bit. For me the USAT ranking seems to work well, the only problem is that it can take quite a while(months) for for updates to occur.
I am not sure if you are USAT or not but USAT does put out their rankings at usatrankings.com. No system is perfect, but ideally this should allow a good comparison regardless of field of strength because the field is essentially all of USAT. If you were 75 last year and this year you are a 80 I would have fairly good confidence that you got better.
Thanks for you replies. Do you know how the usat calculates the rankings?
I used to look at percentiles for each portion of the race. The trouble with that seems to be that at different distances, the strength of the folks you are racing against changes quite a bit. For me the USAT ranking seems to work well, the only problem is that it can take quite a while(months) for for updates to occur.
Do you mean percentiles within your age group? Of the overall winner for each portion of the race? Or do you mean perectiles of the fastest participant for each leg? or something else?
I don’t care if I was faster or slower, just as long as I beat whom I need to beat. Sometimes the wind or heat makes a big difference. That why it is called a race. Yes, I like being faster than the previous year and of course I like placing higher % wise than the previous year. It also makes a difference if it is an A, B or C race. If I race a 07 race as an A race and then the same race as a C race and was slower, I’m okay with that.
Who do you need to beat? Your friends/training partners? Your age group?
When you say you like placing higher % do you mean % in age group/overall?
using a “percent back from the winners” method is excellent. it is widely employed in sports like XC skiing, where conditions make no 2 10K races the same. just select the top several guys in your category, average their times, and calculate how many percent back from them you were. it sounds loose, and indeed there is a little flexibilty in there - for example if lance armstrong showed up maybe you would toss his result out - but it is astonishingly consistant and informative in light of changing variables.
If you’ve done the same race multiple years, you can compare times across years.
Compare races of similar course difficulty and weather conditions.
Look for overall trends in pace, are you getting faster or slower at s b r?
off the top of my head but I hope it helps.
Yes, this helps. One issue I’ve had is that so far I have completed 7 triathlons on 7 different courses. I know it would make this easier to compare if I would do the same races again, but I’m attracted to the variation of the courses/difficulty.
Using race times and places can not always be an accurate reflection because there’s so many variables.
With all due respect, I beg to differ. I am not sure what it is, but people these days always seem to want to sugar-coat or rationalize things when it comes to race results. Bottom line - the clock and the results sheet don’t lie. On that day in that race, that’s what you did! Yes, there are variables. But you need to start somewhere with the analysis of the event and what you can learn from it.
Do you mean percentiles within your age group? Of the overall winner for each portion of the race? Or do you mean perectiles of the fastest participant for each leg? or something else?
I’m not sure how they meant it… but the way I meant is against the overall winner, or the fastest in each split. You can go against AG or overall… but it usually is more useful overall.
What do I look for?
Are your splits balanced relative to your strengths and weaknesses?
Compare other people who did the same swim split and bike split to you. Where did they end up? Like it or not the run is a BIG decider about where you finish.
Compare to other people that you know, who you have raced before. How did you do relative to them?
Look at the individual leg splits. If you can, can you tell if you even-split or faded over the last half of each leg?
What were the conditions on race day? Are they conditions that you have historically done well or poor in?
If you pulled up short of your goals - where did it happen? What let you down? Swim, bike, run or other factors, say nutrition.
These would be good places to start.
Do your race results actually matter if you didn’t have some sort of goal for the event?
It’s nice to see where you place in relation to friends, competitors, club mates etc. but only as a guide to your form at the time.
The real crunch for me is how did the result compare with the goal?
As a time trial rider, I race once or twice a week over the season. Most of these races are training under a different name and did not have goals. It was nice to do a course best time, and even a PB on one occasion, but the best rides were the events where I planned to perform well, and succeeded.
Did you meet your 2008 goals?
I agree that overall results don’t lie but for purposes of comparing improvements as a comparison from year to year (to measure progress which is what the poster is looking for if I’m not mistaken) it doesn’t give you accurate info unless the conditions were exactly the same and the quality of the field were identical (2 variables that are hard to have repeated year to year).
I like beating as many people as possible and there are certain people I like to beat just because. There are certain people that I will never beat, but I like to beat certain individuals mostly because I am a caddy bitch. So sometimes I am happy with just beating some people even if I don’t have a good race. I generally win my age group and place decent overall. The time I got passed at the finish line is still fresh in my memory.
I would rather place higher overall than higher in my age group plus have a faster time than the previous year, but I can also look at other factors. I had two of my worst races this past season and only one of my best, but my goal race was an Ironman so I am happy with my season overall. And for the chick who was happy because she has never beaten me - just wait because I will be back.