On my hands, that is. A perhaps a bit too analytical for my own good. We'll see if this gets me into any trouble in the future.
Being curious, I checked out the confirmation list for IM 70.3 Muskoka, and found that there are 266 athletes in my age group, by far the largest wave. That's a lot of people I'll be having to try to pass during the bike and run. But how would I do in a field like this? Is it all the fast people from the province, and importing even more fast people? That wouldn't be good, so I took a look at the results from the Muskoka Chase, and found that 41 people from that race are also registered for the 70.3. Out of those 41, I was 7th. Not bad, and if we assume the distribution the participant abilities to be the same in the field, puts me about 40th. I wouldn't complain about that, but I'd like to be higher. (Am I little competitive? You think?)
There is an issue that the sport of triathlon is three disciplines, and that the respective distances of each leg are not the same for the Chase and the 70.3 (shorter swim, 1.8x bike, 1.4x run). I took the times for each leg for the athletes in my range, and assuming that the respective paces hold up, scaled them to the 70.3 distances (adding a small (2%) slowing factor, so doubling the distance would take 204% of the time). This should give a slightly better showing of how the race may play out, and in fact, I move up two places out of the 41, by virtue of having stronger bike and run legs. Now at 5th, again assuming the distribution is the same, I'll be on the edge of the top 30. Better, but still a ways to go.
At this point, it would be unfair for me to recalculate using my expected riding and running paces, or even adjusting my running pace for "non-cramp". I know I'm getting faster, so I have to assume others are as well. The one benefit is that the assumption of similar distribution may not hold, since, as noted earlier, the Chase tends to bring out the best in the province, so those who don't do both, are more likely to be further back in the field. Another small bonus could be that many at my level will have already done IM Lake Placid or IM Canada in the preceding weeks, and would be coming in on tired legs. (That sound is me grasping at straws.)
Give me a little more time, and I may be able to find a way to make me the favourite for the overall.
Given your talent for running and biking and how quickly you're taking to swimming (which is, frankly, somewhat astonishing) I buy your reasoning here for a top-30 finish.
ReplyDeleteThe lack of standard distances in Triathlon is somewhat puzzling, but not unexpected given that it is still quite a "new" sport. This paper is kind of interesting:
Wainer, H., & De Veaux, R. D. (1994). Resizing triathlons for fairness. Chance, 7, 20-25
... but, personally, I like any configuration that favours swimming!