Statto: Toshiba Windsor Triathlon 2011

Uh, oh, I’ve gone all statto. I really try to avoid this. Analysis is good, over analysis is often too much.
Racing at Windsor on Sunday I had a really good day (race report coming soon). I won my age group (!) and was 14th overall, but coming out of T2 into the run I couldn’t work out why my time was so slow. I was aiming for a 2:07 race to try & get inside the top 10 and after the bike the maths said that I needed to run a 36 minute 10k to hit that. But the bike went well, and I rode like a machine. I did the bike course in 1:05 last year in my first season of triathlon after breaking my foot in February. This year my biking has improved really nicely, and I knew I was going well but again I did the bike leg in 1:05. The rain, and with it came the wind, hit about half way through my big leg. It’s difficult to feel how windy it is in the time trial position with an aero helmet covering your ears though, so maybe the wind was stronger than I thought. I was also very surprised to have won my age group category with an overall time of 2:10 when the winner got under 2 hours. Everyone ahead of me on the results list biked faster than me, and, obviously, were in different categories and therefore had different start times.
So did the change in weather have an effect on bike times, I wondered?

This graph shows the average bike time for the race for most of the age groups present and a shorter bar means a faster average time. There were 129 in the 20-24 category, 289 in 30-34, 356 in 35-39, 404 in 40-44, 276 in 45-49 and 122 in 50-54 based upon those that completed the race.
The fastest age groups by around a minute are the 40-44 and 45-49 age groups. These athletes started before 7am. Almost all of the other athletes started after 7am.
Of course this doesn’t take many, many other factors into account but does it indicate that the weather affected bike times? I don’t know. Maybe. I certainly think the data may be skewed as the 40-44 age group in particular has some very, very fast and powerful cyclists in it, but the sizes of the 35-39 and 40-44 age groups, the comparative abilities of those athletes with respect to age, and the 30 minute difference in average start times suggests the change in weather may have had an affect here. Ideally I would compare to the data from previous years’ races, but I don’t have that in a useful format. Yes, I should test the significance of these data with an ANOVA too. Maybe later.
This is not an excuse, nor a grumble, but merely a thought to ponder and an idea that may explain the slower than expected race times for some. I know I have to get much faster on the bike to get past these guys anyway!