Tri Clubs

This past running season work had a running club, and at the end of the season the running club had a big get together to celebrate. I didn't run in the club because they required you to run six races. With all of the bike racing I did last season, I didn't have enough weekends to do six races. But, Ryan did do the club and took me with him to the party at the end of the season. I love this group of math nerds. Being one myself, it was really addictive talking to them about how to improve the scoring for next season.

First off, individuals were divided into teams. Each racer ran six races and were scored based on the PLP (performance level percentage). The concept (so cool!) of the PLP is that each racer is competing against the world-record for their age. Your PLP for a race tells you the percentage of the fastest time for your age and distance. OK, science lesson over . . . on to the real point of explaining this.

Hopefully, we're going to start a triathlon club for work! We think that we have about 5-10 people that would be interested in doing a couple of tris. The math geek in me is so excited by trying to figure out how to score the tri club. This is complicated by the fact that most people in the club will do both individual and relay tris.

So, I'm thinking to score by doing a PLP-type number for each leg of the tri. Meaning, take the world-record for a race and break it into each leg so that the swim, bike and run can all be scored separately. Completing it individually should get a finisher some bonus points. We're thinking its bad form to penalize people - more carrot, less stick. Should we add bonus points for some of the longer races?

My other thoughts on this is that we should be rewarding people for podium finishes. I think part of the "healthy living" is encouraging healthy activities in the community. Meaning, buy running shoes from the local store so that they can keep supporting the local races. So, I think it would be cool to reward people for finishing in the top of their age groups at local races.

And, on a training note, I finally have a training log! Thank you Ryan! I have been wanting one for a long time, because I would love to be able to track my weekly mileage and see how well I'm doing relative to my training plan.