Who did the road grand prix and the mountain series?

I did a little research of who does the GP and who does the Mountain series and how much crossover there is.  The stats seem to prove out that there is very little crossover.  A big percentage of the people who did one mountain race (nearly half!) did either Wachusett or Loon.  That makes sense since road runners would be more likely to do either of those since they were a championship.  The total amount of runners serious about BOTH series is only 20, and I went with those who did 3 or more of both series and that isn’t even half of the races in either.  I think any issues with one event conflicting with another impacts very few people.  Of course those people tend to be the most vocal (me included).

Full stats:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u2yi1bMzL1Y1l-R34byBrJ2hVvxxjaeH/view?usp=sharing

Stats
1134	Did one or more GP races			11.3%
357	Did one or more Mtn races			35.9%
128	Did at least one of each, so 11% of GP runners did a Mountain race and 35% of mountain runners did a GP race.
58 only did one Mountain race.  Almost all of those did either Wachusett (NE champs) or Loon (US champs).
26	Loon
19	Wachusett
7	Greylock
3	Pack
3	Sleepy
51 did only one Grand Prix race and 23 of those also only did one Mountain.
Serious about either series (anyone who did at least 3 of each)
20

Most raced on date

After nearly 1,500 races over the last 40 years there aren’t many days that I haven’t raced on.  I don’t actively seek to race on days I’ve never raced on but it is interesting (to me) when I do get one of those dates.  This week I raced for the first time on a July 31^st.  The graph shows how many times I’ve raced on every day of the year.  The fourth of July and January 1^st are big days!

8,000 miles of racing

The USATF ½ marathon championships at New Bedford this past weekend marked the 8,000^th mile I’ve raced.  Here are the stats.

 

1371 races for a total of 8,011.02 miles or an average of 5.88 miles per race (and an average pace of 6:10.3)

 

I’ve raced 469,463 people and finished ahead of 451,303 of them

 

Other stats

382 wins

315 personal bests

156 course records

436 races as a master (40-49) with 178 masters wins (40.8%)

96 races as a senior (50-59) with 46 senior wins (47.9%)

 

 

Math rules!

Earlier this month I posted that I had never missed running on May 9th and 12th over all the years I've been doing this (1979-Present).  I wondered what the odds were for that.  Ken Tripp, the "stat man" did the math while riding the commuter rail home one evening.  I have no idea of any of thisis true or not but damn it is cool.  Great stuff!

From Ken:

You have been running for 13,310 days.  Of those days, you have missed 1,685 days.  If the days are independent and random (which they will not be), then the probability of missing any day is 0.127 (12.7%percent chance).  This also means that you have an 0.873 probability of running.

 So, the probability of running on May 9 is 0.873 (days are independent so date doesn’t matter).  The probability of running May 12 is also 0.873.  The probability of running May 9^th AND May 12^th is 0.837x0.837=0.763  So the probability of you running on May 9^th and May 12^th is 76.2%.  Now for over 37 years, it is still multiplicative like the 2 day calculation.  The prob(running on May 9^th and May 12^th for 37 years)=0.763^37=4.46584E-05( 0.004% or 4 out of 1000).  Clearly, it is a pretty small probability for this to occur.

Going forward, the probability of you running a complete year is 0.827^365=1.22146617E-43.

 

*Probability lesson:  If you flip a coin twice, what is the probability of getting 2 heads.  The possible outcomes are HH, HT, TH, or TT.  The prob of 2 heads = 1 (HH)/4(total number of possible outcomes).  This problem could be written as Prob(Head on Flip 1) and Prob(Head on Flip 2)=1/2*1/2=1/4.

Double - D

Three of us did the unusual “double” of Wachusett Mountain and the USATF NE marathon championships within a 24 hour period last weekend.  I did also see Lisa Doucett and Tom Derderian racing at Wachusett and working at the marathon.  We all got in at least 500 miles of driving.

Wach                            VCM                

42 26:28                        360 3:27:35       Jacqueline Shakar
95 32:44                        365 3:27:34       David Lapierre
16 21:26                        164 3:09:14       Dave Dunham

 

2012 Numbers

It is just about time to set goals for 2013 but first a glance back at 2012…

My total mileage for the year was 4,702, which is the 8^th most I’ve ever done.  I believe that total number of RUNS I did this year is far and away a record for me.  I had a total of 755 runs, which means I averaged 2.01 runs per day.  That means I ‘only’ ran 6.4 miles per run, which doesn’t sound like much.

It seemed to work for me as I had a solid year of racing with very few injuries.  I was able to race 61 times over 214.14 miles.  I tried a little bit of everything with 4 snowshoe races, 5 XC & 5 trail races, 6 indoor track races, 7 mountain races, 15 outdoor track races and 19 road races.  The 61 races was a new record for me beating my former record of 59 races.

Month	Single	Double	Triple	Day off	>3 runs	Days	Total miles	Avg
January	8	17	6	0	0	31	384	12.39
February	4	23	2	0	0	29	362	12.48
March	3	18	10	0	0	31	410	13.23
April	5	15	10	0	0	30	405	13.50
May	4	19	8	0	0	31	402	12.97
June	4	17	9	0	0	30	412	13.73
July	6	19	6	0	0	31	406	13.10
August	4	22	4	0	1	31	413	13.32
September	13	10	0	7	0	30	211	7.03
October	2	19	10	0	0	31	452	14.58
November	3	20	6	0	1	30	429	14.30
December	6	21	4	0	0	31	416	13.42
Totals	62	220	75	7	2	366	4702
366	17%	60%	20%	2%	1%
Days
						Ave per day	12.85
	735					On days run	13.10
	Actual runs					Per run	6.40
						Avg week =	89.93

200 times a loser

Last weekend I finished in second place at the "I survived the end of the World" 4 mile race in Concord, NH.  I didn't realize at the time that was the 200th time I finished in 2nd place in a race (it was also the 700th time I finished in the top 3).  A dubious distinction?  I've been told that second place is a nice way of saying "first loser" :-)

 

Here is the breakdown of the 1,224 races I've run.

 

Place	No.
1	369	30.15%
2	200	16.34%			Percent
3	131	10.70%	700	Top 3	57%
4	73	5.96%
5	66	5.39%	839	Top 5	69%
6	42	3.43%
7	32	2.61%
8	14	1.14%
9	30	2.45%
10	30	2.45%	987	Top 10	81%
11	13
12	15
13	8			Not top
14	14			10=	173
15	3			%=	14.13%
16	7
17	8			Unk or Relay
18	8			64	5%
19	4
20	6			DNF	6
21	4			DSQ	2
22	4
23	3
24	2
25	4
26-30	10
31-40	13
41-50	9
51-60	12
61-70	5
71-80	5
81-90	4
91+	4
DSQ	2
DNF	6	0.49%
Relay	47
UNK	17
	1224