OK. It would be nice to beat people straight up. But that is not a reality for me. So I said, what kind of a handicapping game can be played in triathlon. For instance: Let’s say I go to a long course race in April. Let’s say that Herbert is going as well. Herbert is younger, stronger faster, been doing it longer, etc. Let’s say I would like to have “Game On” with Herbert. What ideas do you guys have for handicapping, or getting strokes, as in golf? How would you do this if there is not a lot of data to work with? And then you could have like a bingo, bango, bongo on the swim, bike, run–breaking them out as separate “bets”. Now I know I would not really be beating Herbert, but it might add a little dimension to the race. I don’t mean to single out Herbert. He is just an example of somebody that I did the same race with, that might provide a starting point.
Now, I hope I don’t get a lot of comments like “Dude, I can’t picture you and Herbert giving each other strokes–that’s HOT”, and stuff like that.
A running club ends their series with a handicap 5 km race based upon your times in the rest of the races. The slow people go first followed by the fast ones. It’s irregardless of AG, strictly times. Good fun event to end the season and the only one where the slowest people often medal over all.
based upon your times in the rest of the races.
Seems like it shouldn’t be just straight averages. Slower people have greater room for improvement. Seems like, for instance it should be, like 80% of the difference, not the full 100%. Also, how hard would one of the fasters try, if they would do the race at all, so that would kind of favor the slowers. Actually, now that I think about it, there is no satisfaction in “winning” if you have to get strokes. Maybe the contest could be to see how much you have improved over how much the other guy has improved. Wait–that doesn’t work, either, because there is less absolute room for improvement in the faster guys. Hmmmmmm. I’m stuck. I guess you just beat everybody you can.
Buddy of mine and I do this for road races all the time. It helps that we are so far apart age wise. Our normal race bet is Closest to the Podium wins in our respective ag’s. He is 19-24 I am 35-39, and only for another 2 months at that. comes out pretty even, he tends to win the bets on 5k-10k I tend to win on longer races and anything on the bike which he has just started.
That always sweetens the deal. My training buddy is 15 years younger than me and I always get a few min on runs, but we still race scratch in tris. So far I haven’t paid for the beer yet. But I get older and he gets fitter. G