Evaluating Ironman Performances.
There was a great thread on slowtwitch discussing what it would have taken to qualify for Ironman Hawaii - 2006. There was also a set of excel graphs that analyzed the peformances of the 2006 Ironman Canada Race that just happened in August.
As a major fan of looking at data like this (but entirely too lazy to compile this much information) I want to specifically thank the slowtwitch board member "senorRojo" for creating the graphs and posting them.
Check out the graphs and discussion: here
Qualifying in the 25-29 male age group
The graph shows the times for the slowest qualifier in each Ironman North America race. Here is the list of the male 25-29 age group (for obvious reasons):
Swim = total time, Bike = mph, Run = mins/mile
05 IMFL: Swim 50-54:59, Bike 22-22.9, Run 7:30-7:59
06 IMLP: Swim 60-64:59, Bike 20-20.9, Run 7:30-7:59
05 IMWI: Swim 65-69:59, Bike 18-18.9, Run 9:00-9:29
06 IMCDA: Swim 65-69:59, Bike 20-20.9, Run 7:30-7:59
06 IMCAN: Swim 65-69:59, Bike 22-22.9, Run 8:30-8:59
06 IMAZ: Swim 70-74:59, Bike 21-21.9, Run 8:30-8:59
A few things to notice from these results is that IMFL was smokin' fast last year! In fact the 25-29 male age group at IMFL was the only group to have the low end of the swim time at 50 mins. (Well... taking out the professional times.) After that fast swim, the bike is at the high end, along with the run. I guess that means if you are planning on heading to Florida in a couple months, you better be ready to move if you have plans of qualifying for Kona.
(Ok - if you plan on qualifying for Kona at any race you need to be smokin' fast! But IMFL seems to be quicker than the others.)
Another thing to notice is that IMWisconsin was the "slower" of the Ironman races last year. If I remember correctly, they had some serious heat going on during the race last year. But so did IMCDA? Interesting stuff!
Ironman Canda Performances
Take a general look at the charts and what do you see? (I'm looking at just the men's graph now.) When looking at the capabilities of athletes that qualify for Kona, I see some pretty clear peaks on the graph. On the bike it comes at the 21-21.9 mph range and on the run it is at the 8 mins/mile pace. The swimming abilities for the Kona qualifiers appears to be more of a bell curve than a definate peak.
Does this reinforce the concept that cycling and running ability is more important than swimming ability in an Ironman? Is this just an IMCAN observation or does it hold true for all the IMNA races?
The most interesting observation in my opinion!
Let's look at the swim, bike and run profiles of the general male IM Finisher (yellow line) and the male Kona qualifier (blue line).
Swim - In both groups the graphs show a gradual rise to a peak and then a gradual fall. The rise and fall is a little less steep in the Kona qualifiers, but it still exists. If you take the Kona qualfiers and shift their graph 10 mins slower, the charts would have a lot of shared space. This makes sense - those that qualify are faster. But it is interesting that the distribution is similar in both groups, just shifted.
Bike - A similar observation can be seen on the bike as in the swim. Shift the general male IM Finisher graph to the left (faster) by 3mph and you have a lot of shared area. It is also an interesting observation to see how drastic the rise and fall of the chart is for the Kona qualifier. To me, this points out a pretty specific ability an athletes needs to have if the got qualifying aspirations.
Run - There's nothing similar about the charts! Shift them anyway you want to, you are not going to get much shared area. This is the most interesting observation in my point-of-view. The athletes that are able to qualify for Kona can get off the bike and run. The athletes that don't qualify for Kona, have a more difficult time running the marathon (at any pace).
The blue line shows a pretty definate peak at 8 mins/mile. The yellow line doesn't have a rise and fall, it only has a rise. The only peak that the yellow line has comes at the 12+ mins/mile pace (the end of the chart). The yellow line also has the majority of it's area after the 10 min/mile pace, with very little area before the 8:30 pace mark.
Just observations
These are just some basic observations. I'm sure there could be some statistical issues in this analysis, but as general observations, it's pretty cool to see.
IM Wisconsin
Beth, Jeff, Nikki and I are heading to Madison to take in some of the Ironman fun this weekend. It will be interesting to see if this years IM is a tough as last years was.
As a major fan of looking at data like this (but entirely too lazy to compile this much information) I want to specifically thank the slowtwitch board member "senorRojo" for creating the graphs and posting them.
Check out the graphs and discussion: here
Qualifying in the 25-29 male age group
The graph shows the times for the slowest qualifier in each Ironman North America race. Here is the list of the male 25-29 age group (for obvious reasons):
Swim = total time, Bike = mph, Run = mins/mile
05 IMFL: Swim 50-54:59, Bike 22-22.9, Run 7:30-7:59
06 IMLP: Swim 60-64:59, Bike 20-20.9, Run 7:30-7:59
05 IMWI: Swim 65-69:59, Bike 18-18.9, Run 9:00-9:29
06 IMCDA: Swim 65-69:59, Bike 20-20.9, Run 7:30-7:59
06 IMCAN: Swim 65-69:59, Bike 22-22.9, Run 8:30-8:59
06 IMAZ: Swim 70-74:59, Bike 21-21.9, Run 8:30-8:59
A few things to notice from these results is that IMFL was smokin' fast last year! In fact the 25-29 male age group at IMFL was the only group to have the low end of the swim time at 50 mins. (Well... taking out the professional times.) After that fast swim, the bike is at the high end, along with the run. I guess that means if you are planning on heading to Florida in a couple months, you better be ready to move if you have plans of qualifying for Kona.
(Ok - if you plan on qualifying for Kona at any race you need to be smokin' fast! But IMFL seems to be quicker than the others.)
Another thing to notice is that IMWisconsin was the "slower" of the Ironman races last year. If I remember correctly, they had some serious heat going on during the race last year. But so did IMCDA? Interesting stuff!
Ironman Canda Performances
Take a general look at the charts and what do you see? (I'm looking at just the men's graph now.) When looking at the capabilities of athletes that qualify for Kona, I see some pretty clear peaks on the graph. On the bike it comes at the 21-21.9 mph range and on the run it is at the 8 mins/mile pace. The swimming abilities for the Kona qualifiers appears to be more of a bell curve than a definate peak.
Does this reinforce the concept that cycling and running ability is more important than swimming ability in an Ironman? Is this just an IMCAN observation or does it hold true for all the IMNA races?
The most interesting observation in my opinion!
Let's look at the swim, bike and run profiles of the general male IM Finisher (yellow line) and the male Kona qualifier (blue line).
Swim - In both groups the graphs show a gradual rise to a peak and then a gradual fall. The rise and fall is a little less steep in the Kona qualifiers, but it still exists. If you take the Kona qualfiers and shift their graph 10 mins slower, the charts would have a lot of shared space. This makes sense - those that qualify are faster. But it is interesting that the distribution is similar in both groups, just shifted.
Bike - A similar observation can be seen on the bike as in the swim. Shift the general male IM Finisher graph to the left (faster) by 3mph and you have a lot of shared area. It is also an interesting observation to see how drastic the rise and fall of the chart is for the Kona qualifier. To me, this points out a pretty specific ability an athletes needs to have if the got qualifying aspirations.
Run - There's nothing similar about the charts! Shift them anyway you want to, you are not going to get much shared area. This is the most interesting observation in my point-of-view. The athletes that are able to qualify for Kona can get off the bike and run. The athletes that don't qualify for Kona, have a more difficult time running the marathon (at any pace).
The blue line shows a pretty definate peak at 8 mins/mile. The yellow line doesn't have a rise and fall, it only has a rise. The only peak that the yellow line has comes at the 12+ mins/mile pace (the end of the chart). The yellow line also has the majority of it's area after the 10 min/mile pace, with very little area before the 8:30 pace mark.
Just observations
These are just some basic observations. I'm sure there could be some statistical issues in this analysis, but as general observations, it's pretty cool to see.
IM Wisconsin
Beth, Jeff, Nikki and I are heading to Madison to take in some of the Ironman fun this weekend. It will be interesting to see if this years IM is a tough as last years was.
posted by gary at 10:28 AM
1 Comments:
gary i've had kona coffee, the reall stuff from kona leaves, not the fake mixed % of some partial real kona coffee. and its smokin good
dan
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home