For once, this is not a gripe about how long it takes scores to get posted- I’m trying to understand a score from a recent race, and looking for someone with a firmer grasp of how USAT scoring works that I do.
I completed a race about a month ago, which was the same race, at the same distance, on the exact same course, that I completed last year. I finished nine minutes faster this year, and higher in the standings, which I was very pleased with; however my USAT score was about 2.5 points lower than last year, which I was rather dissatisfied with.
Is this essentially because I competed against slower athletes this year? So, I did better, but because the field overall was of lower quality, I got a lower score- is that correct?
Or, was the field stronger this year, meaning that the par time was driven upwards more than my nine minute improvement? So, I did better compared to myself, but the field overall got even better than I did?
For once, this is not a gripe about how long it takes scores to get posted- I’m trying to understand a score from a recent race, and looking for someone with a firmer grasp of how USAT scoring works that I do.
I completed a race about a month ago, which was the same race, at the same distance, on the exact same course, that I completed last year. I finished nine minutes faster this year, and higher in the standings, which I was very pleased with; however my USAT score was about 2.5 points lower than last year, which I was rather dissatisfied with.
Is this essentially because I competed against slower athletes this year? So, I did better, but because the field overall was of lower quality, I got a lower score- is that correct?
Or, was the field stronger this year, meaning that the par time was driven upwards more than my nine minute improvement? So, I did better compared to myself, but the field overall got even better than I did?
Basically - you were 9 minutes faster and the “pace setters” averaged more than 9 minutes faster. If I recall the pace setters are people that raced the year before and did not finish in the top or bottom 20%.
If you want to score well, race IM, nationals or other races loaded with “old people”. They tend to slow down year over year. Show up at a race with a lot of kids that raced the year before and you will score worse.
Why would racing IM and Nationals be easier to score well? The average athlete is slow (at IM maybe, but at Nationals?) and getting slower (aging of the IM field?)?
I think something is a little goofy with the algorithm. I went 5:20 and was 15th in my AG at Oceanside 70.3. At VA 70.3, 30 days later, I had the race of my life; a PR of 5:00 and 6th (just a couple minutes out of second)…but, my USAT score was better at Oceanside. Was VA a faster course?..Yes, but not 20 mins faster. I am 100% certain I was more competitive at VA. The only explanation (by my understanding) is that the competition was stiffer at VA than Oceanside? No way that is true.
Oceanside 431/2400 (82nd percentile) and 15/134 AG. USAT score 86.12
VA 161/1600 (90th percentile) 6/93 AG. USAT score 85.3
Why would racing IM and Nationals be easier to score well? The average athlete is slow (at IM maybe, but at Nationals?) and getting slower (aging of the IM field?)?
Both are full of old people and old people generally slow down year over year. Both are also expensive driving up percentage of “bucket-listers”
That’s just a guess.
Sure - the really fast guys are at both, but they are also not in the “pace setter group”
FWIW - My best score at the time was at Nationals. After that, it was a few races with almost no “young kids”, but a ton of old guys.
Why would racing IM and Nationals be easier to score well? The average athlete is slow (at IM maybe, but at Nationals?) and getting slower (aging of the IM field?)?
USAT gives their Nationals races as well as the ITU World Championship races an extra “bump”. As a result, you may see a higher ranking score for those races.
Why would racing IM and Nationals be easier to score well? The average athlete is slow (at IM maybe, but at Nationals?) and getting slower (aging of the IM field?)?
USAT gives their Nationals races as well as the ITU World Championship races an extra “bump”. As a result, you may see a higher ranking score for those races.
Could it also be that at nationals, those racers are more consistent and thus the middle 60% has a higher value to determine par?
Or the fast guys are performing at the top of their ability, same as they always do and the middle of the field is performing better than they usually do.
At bigger races the sample size is larger and the pace setter group tends to be stronger athletes. So, the starting USAT score seems to be much higher. The smaller races seem to be a little more of a crapshoot. I had two olympic races this year the first one was in May (only 17 in my age group) and the weather went from like 40s-50s the week before the race to all of a sudden 80s the day of the race. I melted on the run but apparently most other people did too. USAT score was higher than my next Olympic in June (38 in my age group) despite being 7 min faster on a relatively harder course (longer transitions, more elevation). I know my 2nd race was much better executed it just wasn’t as good of a USAT score.
There is a pdf linked in that page explaining “How are race scores calculated”. The summary is that for each USAT race, a Par Time is calculated from the middle 60% of the pace setters times. A pace setter is anyone in the race that received an overall score the prior year (average of 3 usat race scores). The idea is 100 would be the best age grouper (although scores over 100 are common). For each pace setter, they take their time in minutes and multiply it by their overall score from last year to see what their time would have been had that person been had they had an overall score of 100 last year. They omit their top and bottom 20% of pace setter results and average the time to get the par time. The par time is then supposed to be the time the best age grouper would have had on that course on that day. Your score is then calculated based on how you preformed compared to the par time.
The par time tries to normalize race times based on results from USAT members over the prior year. The par time has nothing to do with who raced that same race last year, but rather, it is based on who raced USAT races last year and how they compared to the overall competition across the country.
So to your question, your time was better and you placed higher, but how did your score go down? It could be that the course was really fast this year and the middle 60% performed better than last year. It could also be that the middle 60% of pace setters at the race all had really low USAT scores last year, and even if the this year’s race was overall slower, the par time could have gone up because use the field was weaker.
One thing to keep in mind about scoring and races which may have some influence especially at longer distance races.
As the race distance increases and/or the environmental conditions get worse (hotter, more humid, windy), the less fit athletes, those in the back 1/3 of the 60% that get scored are going to slow down faster and to a greater degree than those in the top 1/3 of that 60%.
I think there are many factors that can lead to higher scores at nationals.
I would agree that at Nationals racers are overall going to be more consistent and also a greater depth of “pacesetters” ie those who completed 3 or more races the prior year (very close to the entire field I would guess). I would also suspect that a significant portion of pacesetters raced more than the minimum 3 races required to be a pacesetter in the prior thereby “optimizing” their prior year score (best 3 scores) to a greater extent than one would find at a typical race.
The consistency and depth would likely lead to the bottom 20% that are dropped from the par time to include race performances that would likely have made the middle 60% in a more typical race that would include a field with a much greater percentage of generally inconsistent performers.
The aforementioned “aging effect” will definitely have an impact.
While cost to participate is a factor in drawing an older race profile, I also think for many of the older age groups the better racers don’t get as many opportunities to race against competitive peers, so nationals draws many of them out. N=1, At a local sprint race this past weekend there were 4 participants in the M65-69. The winner won by 20 minutes (interestingly 2-4 were within 2:30 of each other); last year at Nationals M65-69 had 85 finishers in the Olympic race.
Despite all that, for me last year it was my worst score of 5 races (2.2 lower than my overall score); an impact of the extra length and the difficult conditions on the swim, my worst discipline!
wouldn’t that lower everyone’s score as suggested in the response to the original post?
Yes
Judging by the USAT score trend, off-road triathlon is getting older/slower. At least the one non-draft/road race I did this year, the par time was correctly predicted by the pace setters, but the offroad winners are starting to approach 110 for an overall win.
Looking at a race of mine just posted. No one scored above a 92, which seems odd to me. Though the conditions were good, the swim was clearly longer than the year prior, and photos make it pretty clear it was due to the tides. The fastest swimmer was about three minutes slower than the fastest last year, and the 50th percentile closer to 7 minutes slower. This is pretty consistent in looking at people who raced both years.
Is this the kind of thing that would bring down scores overall, even if everyone who raced both years were slower in year 2?
One thing to keep in mind about scoring and races which may have some influence especially at longer distance races.
As the race distance increases and/or the environmental conditions get worse (hotter, more humid, windy), the less fit athletes, those in the back 1/3 of the 60% that get scored are going to slow down faster and to a greater degree than those in the top 1/3 of that 60%.
I think this is one of the biggest reasons for AG Nat and Ironman events trending higher. At AG Nats most of the MOP pace setters probably qualified at some small early season sprint sprint that was finished before 9AM, but when they do a race at 10AM mid-August they are almost definitely going to do more poorly and slow down the par time. In Ironman it’s probably similar, but with first timers who had solid USAT scores in short course but the distance and conditions slowed them down enough to where they effected the par time. At 70.3 World’s in Chattanooga I was beaten by people who I could normally whoop even on a bad day, but because I started almost 2 hours after they did I spent my entire run in the mid-day Tennessee heat/humidity and my blow up became that much worse, meaning I became one of the people boosting everyone else’s USAT score (~4 points lower than my usual races).
Those are also the events that having aging populations because of the price barrier to the young people without good jobs. I carpooled to AG Nats/70.3 Worlds, shared a hotel, made meals at home whenever possible, but still dropped around $1000 on each event. Unless you’re stable in your career and can budget well these events aren’t really an every year thing for most people.