The Pittsford triathlon was the first triathlon I ever participated in, back in 2016. Since then I have been a regular attendee and have noticed a series of common patterns from year to year. I therefore thought it might be worth documenting them for future participants to get a feel about the race. I looked over the results of 5 years from 2015-2019 and this is what I found:
5 Years of Pittsford Triathlon Statistics Simplified
1. Duration of the Race: The range of finishing times is between 1 hour and 4 minutes to two hours and 30 minutes. This is a useful metric for the absolute beginner to determine where one’s time might rank. What is quite remarkable about the overall finishing times is the consistency from year to year. The fastest completion times only varied by 3 minutes over 5 separate races. The times ranged between 1 hour 3 minutes and 1 hour 6 minutes. The slowest times mostly hovered around 2.5 hours. Occasionally a few longer times were posted, but these were quite possibly due to bicycle problems such as the need to change a tire.
2. Age is a Factor: The age groups ranging from 60-69 and 70-79, start to thin out considerably in terms of participants. While the male age group of 60-69, posts a reasonable showing of participants, the female entrants in this age group are very few indeed. Only 11 females were in this group over the span of 5 years. the numbers per year were 3, 2,1,4 and 1 from 2015 to 2019 respectively. When it comes to the 70-79 age group, there have been no female entrants at all and only 4 male entrants over a 5-year period with only 3 of them completing the race. This translates into a total of two golds and one silver medal. Good for them! Bottom line here is, if you are over 70 and can complete the race, you will get a medal!
3. Swim Times: The swim portion of this race is in a pool and consists of 6 laps (300 yards). At signup participants enter their known (or guessed) swim time for 6 laps. This determines the order in which participants start the race in the pool, separated by 15 second intervals which is roughly half a length for the average swimmer. The swim times span the range of 4 mins and 15 seconds to over 13 minutes with some slower swimmer times stretching to 19-21 minutes. Over the 5-year period, the range of fastest times varied between 4 minutes and 15 seconds and 4 minutes and 40 seconds. The average range of times for most swimmers is generally between 6-8-minutes.
4. Twelve Wall Push Offs can account for 100 Yards of the 300 Yard Swim: This is not strictly a race statistic but it is an interesting fact and something that is very relevant for this race. Unlike swimming in open water, swimming laps in a pool means that part of the swim training needs to be optimizing the wall push offs. For 6 laps this means there are 12 of them. A decent wall-push off should easily propel you at least one third of the way across the pool. In other words, at least 100 yards of swim event should be accomplished by the wall push off. Improving the turn and the push off has a huge effect on overall speed in the swim section of this race. Optimizing the wall push off is something beginners should be cognizant off in their training.
5. Bike Times: The bike portion of the race varies in time with the fastest riders being on average 2.25x faster than as fast the slowest riders. The ~2.25x ratio is reasonably consistent from year to year. The fastest participants complete the bike portion in as little as 36-39 minutes, whereas the slower participants have times in the 80-90-minute region. Most cyclists complete the 15-mile route in 50-70 minutes.
6. Run Times: The run portion of the race is actually 3.3 miles as opposed to the 3.1 miles which truly represents a 5k. The fastest runners outpace the slower runners by factor ranging from ~ 2.5-3.0 x, with run times as fast as 19-21 minutes and slowest runners coming in at around 50+ minutes. Most runners generally take around 30 minutes. The route is well marked as well as several signs to let you know how far you have gone and how far there is left to go.
7. Transition Times: Transitions can range in time from 30 seconds to a few minutes and predominantly depend on running speed and organization. In general, T1 is longer than T2, mostly by virtue of the distance from the pool to the bike followed by putting on the helmet etc. T2 is often a shorter time since the distance between dismounting from the bike, parking the bike and stating the run is much shorter. The shortest T1 times are generally obtained by having ones cycle shoes already attached to the bike pedals and socks are not worn, thus saving a further 10-15 seconds (I just timed myself putting on socks). Transition times seem to be largely independent of age group, most likely due to the fact that this part of the sport is very much dependent on organization skills first and athleticism second.
Summary
The Pittsford sprint triathlon is held every year in the first week of June. It attracts participants of all abilities and is an enjoyable event for the beginner and more accomplished triathlete. The statistics of the race are an excellent reflection that the race appeals to a large cross section of participants.
By understanding the spread of times over each of the events it allows the beginner to get a sense of how they will fare in the race and enables them to focus on areas for optimization. Two areas come to mind. First, optimizing the transition times is mostly about organizing the sequence of events, and secondly, the wall push off in the pool, can account for one third of the entire swim dramatically reducing the swim time. Enjoy!
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