Winter Challenge by the Numbers (Geek Content)

I'm a data geek. Yup!  I started recording all my workouts in 2005 with my very first Garmin. It's rare that I go out without it and when I do, I feel a little sense of panic. My Forerunner has catapulted off the bike twice. Once in the woods and once on the road; both times recovered by a tenacious search party. It was blown apart and glued back together in its most recent episode. It just won't die and that is good for me. More data.

Did you watch any of Lance Armstrong's  post race interviews after his 2nd place Panama Ironman 70.3 this weekend? No, well, whether you like Lance or not, you can't argue the fact the he, and those he surrounds himself with, are brilliant planners. He revolutionized the way teams train and prepare for the Tour de France. The guy knows how to train and use data to improve performance. Every second counts. Roll to 1:27 in the video. DATA. Yeah, that's me.







Now for the Winter Challenge data... I mentioned yesterday that the official results were off as compared to my Garmin data. The professionals must have figured it out before I had time to file a protest since the online results were fixed sometime in the wee hours of Monday morning. The corrected official results were:

• 14th place overall (no change)
• 1:03 Run (18th, no change)
• 1:11 Kayak (21st, up from 23rd)
• 0:55 Bike (13th, no change)
• 3:12 Overall

Comparing my efforts from 2009 and 2012:

...and against the winners times:

This data is helpful as I plan for next year. It's obvious that I need to work on paddling. I'm convinced a lot of it is technique related. I feel like I'm horribly inefficient in my paddle stroke and fumbling with hydration was a sore spot with me. If I continue running throughout the year and keep up some bike trainer miles over the holidays, then I think a 3hr finish is within reach next Feb. 

Now for some interesting race data.

• The average age of all the participants was 46. That's a little hard to believe, but really cool. I really hope I can compete in something like this in my 50's. How motivating is that?
• The oldest participant was 60 and the youngest 25.
• AVE RUN TIME = 1:04:49 (1:03 in '09)
• AVE PADDLE TIME = 1:09:49 (1:09 in '09)
• AVE BIKE TIME = 1:03:35 (0:58 in '09)
• AVE OVERALL TIME = 3:20:39 (3:12 in '09)
• The male winner of the 2012 Winter Challenge is the current South Carolina State Marathon record holder. Remember when I said the race was competitive? Here's proof.

Finally, thanks to Google fusion tables, you can see the distribution of participants across NC/SC. This has no real useful value to me other than I think it's kind of neat.