10 Years, 85 Races, and Some Nerdy Graphs :P

With the help of some spreadsheet pivot-tabling in Excel, my 85 races over the last 10 years can be "pivot-tabled" into several really neat-nerdy (but really sexy) graphs! Ok, I won't use that pivot-table word in this post again, I promise. :)   

1. Destination Races

This graph shows the frequency of each race sorted from the closest (on the left) to the farthest travel required from home (i.e. Vancouver). It's interesting to notice a large amount is clustered in the 10km range and a middle bump from the many half ironman races in the province. 

2. Annual Travel

Being a student provided the ground works before the racing taking place in exotic destinations can happen. I guess the following graph shows a neat distribution of the pre-real world and post graduate student affairs. It is fascinating to note that all of the big travel destinations happened in only the last three years. It started with Boston Marathon the year-and-a-half after I graduated. Boston always happens during the middle of exam season, which perhaps was my weak excuse to not dream-big as a poor suffering student. Also a good chunk of the travel distance belongs to marathon and long distance triathlons - my motto: "Gotta go big if you travel big!"

3. Milestones

I had to throw in an area-graph somehow and this is it. I started small and then took basically a ka-zillion baby steps in the process, which isn't normal and kind of shows in the following graph. It's a bit gradual, and took me about 7 years to complete my first iron distance (you can count the number of years starting from the left before a new distance appears). I guess as the technologies in my equipment improved, so did my fitness and knowledge, and curiosity (somewhat...but it's all relative). I remember rocking my first two years of triathlons on a front suspension mountain bike - those were the glory days!

4. Frequency

This is a bit of the boring graph of the bunch but a good set-up and comparison for the next somewhat-obnoxious graph. 

Some notes: 

• I've done the same number of sprints (dark blue) as iron-distances (light blue) but in two completely different eras
• 10Km and Half IMs are my most popular distances
• How many triathletes have done more marathons than IMs? Should I be really called a marathoner instead? >.<

5. Personal Bests

Yes, yes the best for last! I figured I have the data so might as well show this mother-load obnoxious looking graph. If at least one PB was obtained in that given year, the result will show in this graph. Since there were 7 distances that had more than one attempt, I used those distances only and at my discretion, excluded the events that had significantly shorter distances (eg. banff tri swim was only 6oom for the olympic).

Rank based on frequency (from graph 4):

1 Half IM

2 10km

T3 Olympic

T3 Half Marathon
5 Marathon

T6 IM

T6 Sprint

Rank based on current best / distance best time (from graph 5):

1 Half IM

2 10km

T3 Olympic

T3 IM
5 Marathon

T6 Half Marathon

T6 Sprint

This comparison only means my half marathon pb time needs work!

McMillan Calculator agrees...looks like the half marathon can go 1.5minutes quicker.

Warrior Board - 85 Races, 10 Years