Better Define: BOP/MOP/FOP (Page 2)

brucemorgan - 2010-01-06 11:42 AM

I actually did analyze both IMAZ and IMC results, just to see how different the courses compare and for fun.  The visualization of data is somewhat challenging because it's easy to get meaningless charts and/or see what you want to see.  I also tried some correlation between bike times and run times although I didn't get too far along with that. 

Obviously this data informs you about how other people of done that course in the past, not how you will do it come race day.  But it's still useful in the sense of helping set realistic goals.  It doesn't have to be complicated, a simple percentile will do, or you can go off into the analytical weeds as far as you want and draw lots of shaky conclusions.

Some of us do like to play with numbers, after all.

Kido - 2010-01-06 10:38 AM



what if you are last or first?

Baowolf - 2010-01-06 2:25 PM Well, if your long-term goal is to qualify for Boston (FOP at 1.5 SD), then you have an exact time to shoot for in your age group and gender.  Your short-term goals are based on your own performance and your adaptation to training.  It is merging the two that gets you your best performance.

If my run pace in 2008 for all miles was 10:20 ish and I ran an 8:40 pace marathon 1/09 and my run pace for all of 2009 was 8:37 and I know that a BQ time is a 7:40 pace... then I run my mile repeats at 7:40 - (20-30) seconds and my half mile repeats at 3:20 to adapt my body to that pace.  If I assume that a marathon with a sample of 1000 people (you can pick 5000 or 10000, whatever) represents a fair representation of average marathon abilities and compare 10 courses and then pick the one with the highest average run pace (and lowest number of feet of elevation gain) (ya controlling for $$ for winning, need to qualify with a certain time, etc)  then, if I am on the cusp, I might be able to tweek myself into a few seconds or minutes to qualify.  You can tell if a race is skewed if the percent of BQ ers is greater than that top 1.5 SD or 6 percent.  

If your long term goal is to qualify for Kona (or turn professional, ie how fast do I need to be to be FOP or professional) then looking at the top 2 percentile paces of different races gives you a rough estimation of where you need to be to be competitive.  If you look at a trend of 10 years on a given course you can predict roughly what pace you should be trained for to have a shot at placing in the top 3 or whatever.  Yes this is to have a shot at it, your race on that given day could have a skewed distribution positively or negatively, but you can't control for that if there are no historical trends. 

So all this boils down to.... what motivates one to get better, where do you set the bar for personal improvement and do numbers help you to measure growth and goals or simply hurt your brain.  So, um, well that is where it helps.     

agarose2000 - 2010-01-06 2:13 PM
For these races with 100+ people in my AG, I use the 10-80-20% divisions to rank myself. For others, I go 20-50-30% ish. I think this is pretty fair.

 

LostSheep - 2010-01-06 3:17 PM

If your not on the podium, you're not FOP.

If you're not the last one to cross the finish, you're not BOP.

Guess that pretty much puts you in the MOP.

Scout7 - 2010-01-06 2:20 PM

What about winning an age group?

Scout7 - 2010-01-06 3:20 PM

What about winning an age group?

jgerbodegrant - 2010-01-06 3:22 PM

Is there an FOP/MOP/BOP for each age group!?  This is getting interesting.

Scout7 - 2010-01-06 3:24 PM

hmmmm.....Your definition of "interesting" seems to be vastly different from mine.

jgerbodegrant - 2010-01-06 2:26 PM

Just from the standpoint of there being a bell curve for each age group and clydesdale/athena etc.  It's interesting from a statistical standpoint.  There could effectively be a couple different ways to be FOP and figuring out what you would have to do for a particular race to be in that category is interesting.

randomguymike - 2010-01-06 3:35 PM

Moral of this thread for me, is there are no commonly associated thresholds for FOP/MOP/BOP like there is in running.

Scout7 - 2010-01-06 2:39 PM  commonly associated thresholds for FOP/MOP/BOP like there is in running.

randomguymike - 2010-01-06 2:57 PM

I would disagree. At least in all the circles I run in, if you're sub 3:30 marathon, you are "fast". If you run anything between that and 4:50, you're "average".

Similarly, at the 5k level, sub 20, you're 'fast'. Anything between that and 24:00, you're 'average'.  

the bear - 2010-01-06 3:01 PM

Source?

Subjective at best, more likely just arbitrary. I'm not sure anything slower than, say, 4:30 would be considered average for a marathoner.

jgerbodegrant - 2010-01-06 10:54 AM

I'm being sincere when asking this....how can you set realistic goals based on past analytic data which only draws shaky conclusions? What kind of goal are you talking about? Being BOP/MOP/FOP? Isn't it more realistic to base your goals off of your own previous experience and performance?

randomguymike - 2010-01-06 3:07 PM

No source. Just a compilation of generally accepted thresholds from my various running groups. Absolutely arbitrary. No medals, or anything assigned, just the knowledge that if you are 'fast' you know you'll get a preferred coral start at most races.

I wouldn't argue against the 4:30 cutoff, but there's a range that 'seems' right. I've got to imagine there's simlar for tris. Not that there's any point to it (other than me figuring out what pace the damn training plan on BT is referring to).

randomguymike - 2010-01-06 3:57 PM

There aren't any associated thresholds for the terms in the running community either.  Actually, I see those terms less on the running sites I frequent than I do here.

I would disagree. At least in all the circles I run in, if you're sub 3:30 marathon, you are "fast". If you run anything between that and 4:50, you're "average".

Similarly, at the 5k level, sub 20, you're 'fast'. Anything between that and 24:00, you're 'average'.