average finish time for oly distance?

It will vary wildly with each individual course.  If you are wondering about a particular race, the best thing is to look at previous year's results.

Welcome to BT!

Find a race that you are interested in doing next year... look up the race results for your age group from this past year's race and see for yourself.
If you know your potential pace at the various disciplines, you can enter that into a pace calculator and it will project your finishing time. This is a great tool for setting goals for yourself. 

 http://www.bx3.com/phil/tri/tritime2.asp

I have done this for all of my races this year (first year doing Tri).  I look at the total number of people in my age group and divide by two. My objective has been to beat that rank's time in the upcoming race. For my olympic I was right on the money, but I was well under for my HIM.

Best of luck and train smart. 

Rough ballparks, depending on terrain/conditions:

Sprint: 50 min for FOP, 1:00-1:30 for MOP

Olympic: sub 2:10 for FOP, 2:30 - 3:00 for MOP

HIM: Sub 4:45 for FOP, 5:30 - 6:30 for MOP

so what is an olympic 2:10-2:20? 

FOMOP?

But that all depends on what FOP, MOP, and BOP are designated - if it's simply by 3rds, then the windows are probably a bit larger.

I think of FOP as top 10%, MOP as 10%-60%, and BOP 60%-100%

Edited by natethomas2000 2010-11-17 1:56 PM

I'm usually FOBOP!! Front of the Back of the Pack!!

Depends on the race who who turned out that day.

Seems a bit too stringent for FOP there for Olys, I think.

At the Malibu CA olympic triathlon, a sub 2:10 in amateur M30-34 would have put you #1 out of 114 AG competitors, and even further ahead if you consider all age groups. That's <top 1%. And the Malibu course, while not totally flat, isn't a particularly hilly course as well - I'd consider it pretty typical for Olys.

(Top 10% M30-34AG for that tri would have times ranging from 2:08-2:24.)

and like was said before, depends on the race and conditions.  i have done race in miami that are 2:00-2:05 for FOP and i have done some where 2:10-2:20 is FOP....course dependent, time of year (heat) etc etc....

that is why best suggestion is to look at previous years results for best estimate.  bottom line you do't know who will show up.

Thank you for the responses.  Thank you for the pace calculator, too. 

I am doing the Chicago Oly next August.  I looked at last year's results, and the MOP seems to be about 3:15-3:40.  I have no idea what the course is like because they haven't posted next year's yet.  I'm sure that makes a difference. 

It looks like the Chicago Tri is huge. 15,000 people?!  Really??

Varies by race. But as an example here is some data from a very average race I did a few years ago.  377 Finishers - 32 went under 2:15, 215 were between 2:15 and 2:45, and 130 were over 2:45.

The Chicago Triathlon is the World's Largest.  The route map from this year (on the website) is likely the same route they will use next year.  I did it in 07 and it's been the same since then.

the weather was a big factor that day.  it was around 90deg during the run for the oly people. 

I've noticed the bigger the event, the 'lower' the average is but the FOP is faster (and the BOP is slower)...basically, everyone starts becoming more MOP

I'm teaching my middle school math students how to make box and whisker plots and this would make a great situation for them to plot.