Analyzing Race Performance

So you've just finished a race.  Once you're finished panting, guzzling water, and receiving congratulatory hugs (okay, sometimes before), you probably check your finishing time.  And once the results are posted, you start comparing your time to others in your age group and gender group.  And probably in the overall standings.  If you've raced the course before, you probably compare that time to this most recent time.  And you might have even had a goal time that your were trying to reach. 

Making all of these comparisons might even influence your mood and attitude (for better or worse) about how your race went.  But how objective are these comparison?  Generally, not very.  For a number of reasons they don't give you good information about how well you raced that day compared to other races in your season, or even compared to the same race in previous years. 

If you're competing for an overall podium spot, or for an age-group podium spot in a big races, that's likely a goal in it's self, and no other comparison is needed.  But for the vast majority of the rest of us, here are some things to consider.

Race Courses Can Vary From Year To Year

• Swim length. Marking an open-water swim course is not an exact measurement.  Even a 5% error over 1500 meters will make a 75 meter difference.  A 5% error is the equivalent of being off by half an inch per foot--which may be a lot when using a ruler, but not much when trying to measure long distances over water.  So swim distance alone could easily account for a minutes difference from year to year.
• Bike and run length.  Even in long-standing races the bike and run courses have minor variations in a given year.  Construction, a new bike lane, etc., can cause small detours that might change the length by a minute or two.

Race Conditions Can Vary From Year To Year

• Temperature.  A hot day will slow the run for almost everyone.  A cold or rainy day will probably slow the bike.  If very warm water temperatures make the swim not legal for wetsuits, this will drastically slow everyone but the elites (a wetsuit gives extra floatation and makes the body position more parallel to the surface--greatly helping middle-of-the-pack swimmers who don't have ideal form).

• Wind.  A strong wind--no matter it's direction--will almost always slow the bike leg.  Even on an out & back course with direct head/tail winds.  (This is because the tailwind doesn't compensate entirely for the headwind.  No, it's not fair.  But it is true.)  Strong crosswinds also are a big drag on speed.  Running speeds are also slowed by wind, but not as much as biking because of the lower speeds.  Also, a smart runner can draft off of a faster runner--which is not allowed on the bike.  But that's a different topic.

• Water conditions.  In open-water swims, chop, swell, surf and currents can play havoc with the course.  Not to mention kelp, algae, marsh grasses, jellyfish, and lily pads.  But hopefully not alligators or sharks...

Who Showed Up?
In smaller races (less than 300 people or so), it can be very misleading to gauge your performance based on your position in your age group. Most races will have 18-20 different age groups--meaning that in a small race their might be only 10-20 (or fewer!) people per group.  In these instances, it's hard to know how well you did just by comparing to those in your age group. 

One year, in a small race, I finished 3rd (out of 14) in the 35-39 age group.  I was excited, but my race wasn't particularly fast---my placing was due to the fact of all of the fast people having turned 40 that year.  If I had been in the next age group, my time would have netted me a 7th place.

So, What To Do?
If your goal is to track your performance through the season and across seasons, the most consistent way to do this is to evaluate your time as a percentage of the overall (not age group) winners in your gender.  This will work well in races from 150 people to 3000 people.  Here's how to do it.

1. Find the times of top 3-5 age group finishers in your gender (it usually works best to toss out the pros and those in the elite division).  Use 3 if the times are all similar, or use 5 if the first one is significantly (a few minutes) faster than the second place. 
2. Convert their times to minutes, rounding to the nearest 1/4 minute.  In other words, a time of 2 hours, 4 minutes, and 18 seconds becomes 124.25 minutes. 
3. Average together the times of those 3-5 winners to come up with one time.  Let's say it's 125 minutes.
4. Convert your own time to minutes.  For example, 2 hours, 35 mintues, and 32 seconds becomes 155.5 minutes.
5. Divide the winners' average time by your own time, and multiply by 100 to get a percentage.  (winners' average time / your time x 100).  In our example, 125/155.5 x 100 = 80.4%
6. This result is the percentage of your speed versus the winners' speeds.  In other words, the athlete in our example raced at about 80% of the speed of the winners.
7. If you wish, you can do the same exercise with the splits from each leg of the race.  In other words, calculate your percentage against the winners of the swim, bike and run heats.

Using Your Results
Many people will have remarkably consistently percentages throughout a given season for a given race distance.  But good and bad races really show up this way, regardless of your placement in the field. 

But percentages can vary greatly across distances.  If you're relatively new to triathlon, it's extremely likely that you'll have a lower percentage in your longer distance races than in your shorter races.  But more experienced athletes may find that they do better (ie: have a higher time percentage) at longer races than in short races.

By analyzing your splits this way, you can also discover where you most need to improve.  If your swim speed is only 70% of the winners but your bike and run times are 85% of the winners, it's a good indication that you can make big gains by swimming faster.

A Final Thought

Using this percentage-based method of analyzing your performance is also a great way to erase the genetic differences between men and women.  So guys, even if your absolute times are 10 minutes faster than those of your wife, you very well might discover that she rates a higher percentage than you do.  And, in my mind, that makes her a better a triathlete than you...