USAT Rankings 2011. I Made the List!

USA Triathlon put out the 2011 rankings list....and I am on it.

My name is on the list, along with Sally Edwards and Madonna Buder and 13,109 other women.

My name is on the womens' 50-54 list. That list has 1,230 women on it. It starts with No. 1 Ellen Hart, 53, with 97.24979 points and goes down to No. 1230 Bonnie Parrish-Kell, 52, 39.54959 points. Congratulations to both of you and all the women in between!

I am No. 997, Kandi DeCarlo, 51, with 60.42447 points.

I read the page that explains how they figure how the rankings and it made my brain explode.

USA Triathlon uses pace setters (athletes who received an overall ranking the previous year). For each race they use a calculated time determined for each pace setter.

"This is calculated by taking their overall score from the previous year and dividing it by 100, and then multiplying that number by their finish time for the current race, which is converted to minutes.

This means that if John is a pace setter and he finished a race this year in 1:30:00, we can find his calculated time. If his score from last year was 95.234, we would divide it by 100 to get .95234. Then, we multiply that by his finish time, which would be 90 minutes. 90 x .95234 = 85.7106."

Has your head exploded yet?

How many pace setters are there?
It actually depends on the race and who competes. Pace setters received rankings from the previous year. Some races may have five; some may have 50!
How do I get a score for my race?
Everyone's score for the race is determined by the par time, which is the average calculated time of the pace setters.
Par time is calculated by dropping the top 20 percent and bottom 20 percent of all the pace setters - only the middle 60 percent is averaged together. If there are 100 pace setters in a race, the top 20 and bottom 20 pace setters are not included, and the remaining 60 pace setters' calculated times are averaged together to equal the par time.
After the par time is calculated, the time of every participant in the race is compared against the par time. If the par time of John's race is 80 minutes, and he finished in 90 minutes, his score would be 88.888 (80 / 90 = .88888 * 100 = 88.888)

Who knew triathlon involved so much math. First Swim Golf and now USA Triathlon rankings. I may need to forgo my strength training every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and take a math refresher course.



Anyway, I take USA Triathlon's word on it that they have their math all in order.

Here's what I found interesting about the lists. And sorry, guys, I didn't even look at your list yet....just the women's. The list starts with 15 years and under and has 116 girls on. Yippee, that is 116 up and coming super stars!

 The 16-17 age category has 86 names; 18-19 has 99 names. Then a big jump in the 20-24 category with 579 names....then an even bigger jump in the 25-29 age group with 1,382 names.

The 35-39 age group has 2,293 names.

The BIGGEST group is the 40-44 group with 2,490 names.

Then a drop in the 45-49 group with 1,813 names.

My age group, 50-54, as I wrote above, has 1,230,

Then a big drop in the 55-59 group with 558 names.

The 60-64 group has 223 names, with the last name on the list being Sally Edwards. Sally Edwards is one of my heroes. Her book, Triathlons for Women, was the very

first triathlon book I read when I started competing two years ago. Get this....Sally has completed over 130 all-women's triathlons during the past 20 years and she INTENTIONALLY is the "final finisher" so that no other woman has to finish last.

Sally Edwards, #223 on the 60-64 list

There are 73 women in the 65-69 age group listing, and 28 in the 70-74 listing.

In the 75-79 listing there are four women, in order: Harriet Anderson, 76; Janet Weiler, 75; Barbara Robben, 77; and Marsha Smith, 76.

I want to meet these ladies and ask them what their secret is. I want to still be able to do triathlons when I am in my 70s.

The last list is the 80-84 age group and there is only one name on it. The lady has been my inspiration since I read her book, The Grace to Race.

 Madonna Buder, The Iron Nun.

 She didn't even start running until she was 48. Sister Madonna has completed more than 325 triathlons, including 45 Ironman distances.At the 2005 Hawaii Ironman, at the age of 75, she became the oldest woman to complete the race finishing one hour before the 17-hour midnight cut-off time. At the 2006 Hawaii Ironman, at the age of 76, she again became the oldest women ever to complete the race, finishing with a time of 16:59:03.

I am so honored to be on the USA Triathlon Ranking list which includes these fabulous women! These are the women I look to for inspiration and hope that I, too, can continue to compete in triathlon as I get older.....

Thank you for paving the way for me and all the other women on this list, and the women not on this list, who find joy in swimming, biking and running!!