Coltman and Baughman Triathlon
Atlantic Beach, FL
September 23 , 2018
RESULTS
OVERALL
SEX
DIVISION
37/137
35/90
6/15
Time 1:18:37
Highlights
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1/2 mile swim really showed swim weakness
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21st overall bike split
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Lost 5th in division by 12 seconds
Race Report
A Hope That Nearly Proved To Be True
Coming into this final race of the season I had set a target to finish 5th in my division. I had hoped that a longer swim might actually help me even though the swim is the worst of three events for me. This hoped was based on two aspects. First, my performance in the 2016 Key West race which had a similar swim distance of approximately 750 meters or 825 yards. In that race, I was passed by most of the swimmers up to the first buoy, but by the middle of the swim, I was pulling people back and eventually came out of the water 4th in my division. The second aspect is that most triathletes are poor technical swimmers which means they use a lot of energy up in the swim which has a cascading effect as the race ensues. Being that most of the sprint distance races are around 400 meters or 450 yards and this was roughly twice that I was hoping that backing off the swim would pay dividends at the end. It nearly proved out to be true as I came in 6th in division 12 seconds behind 5th place. To understand I how I choose a 5th place as my target, I first have to speak about Race Scoring.
Race Scoring
After each race is completed, USA Triathlon assigns each participant a score. These scores are helpful in understanding how each athlete performed at that race on that given day. By using a scoring system it smooths out an athlete’s performance race to race to give a better gauge of how well that athlete will perform at any given race. The score is calculated by determining how fast the race course is on that day by establishing a pace time and then taking your time relative to that. While I am not completely familiar with how USA Triathlon determines the formula it uses to create the pace score I believe the actual score is calculated using Pace Time divided by the Athlete’s Time multiplied by 100. So if the Pace Time was 60 mins and your time was 78 minutes then your score would be 60/78X100 or 76.923.
Setting An Expectation
With this year being my third year of competing with nine races under my belt I now had enough data points to estimate my a race score for this race which I choose as 77. For those athletes who also had scores, I estimated theirs as well for this race. The table below shows how the athletes in my division stacked up.
As you can see there was a grouping of athletes about 86 +/- 2, another grouping around 76 +/- 2 and then a third group around 70 +/- 3. Seeing that division places 1-4 were most likely out of range for me I felt trying to go for 5th place was a realistic goal and then see where the chips fall.
The Race
While I missed my goal of finishing 5th by 12 seconds it was a pretty decent race except for the swim where again I finished way down the overall order of 89 out of 139 participants, 65 of 89 men and 10 out of 15 in my age group. The average swim time for the 139 participants was a 17:31 which was 30 seconds faster than me. So even just an average swim time would have given me a 5th place.
The bike segment was again my best segment with the 21st best time overall and 5th in the division. An interesting comparison is how did I versus the overall winner. What stands out to me is that we only had about a 5% difference in normalized power but a speed difference of 3.2 mph which very significant. However, as they say in time trialing, “aero is everything!”
The run wasn’t too bad but with only a lead of 1:11 going into the run against the guy who would set the 3rd best run time in the division it was only a matter of time. He passed me with about .75 of a mile to go to the finish. I just couldn’t keep him reeled in close enough to have any shot of running him down at the line.
Setting My Eyes Towards Next Year
This year was another step forward over last year and year before that. My averages scores for 2016, 2017 and 2018 were 71.8, 74.5 and 78.8 respectively. 2017 over 2016 averages represents a 3.8% improvement and 2018 over 2017 averages represents at 5.73% improvement. A 4% improvement over this year would put me right around an average score of 82 for 2019.
Is that attainable? I wholeheartedly think so based on the fact that even with the current level of fitness I had this year I could have been faster had I just been more efficient in both the water and on the bike. Probably just being a better swimmer technically would get me closer to my 2019 goal because as I mention in the opening of how swim performance cascades as the race develops.
A big #ThankU to everyone who has given me support this year. It has been filled with some challenges that have really helped me to know more about myself and my capabilities. I look forward to the 2019 race season and hope to continue to see small, but significant improvement. A little here and a little there all add up to faster times.
Jay Gardner
