Ironman Arizona is a math equation. Really. Take two athletes, Jeff and Greg. Take what they’ve done, what they want to do, where they are at, plug it into a quadratic equation, divide that answer by the square root of both of their previous IM PB’s added together then divided by three and presto the solution.
Both of these athletes had some specific goals, Greg wanted an overall PB as well as a new PB in each segment. Jeff had the goal of wanting to beat my IM PB. Now a few years ago, Jeff had that same goal. But back then he was a 12:30+ IM dude. Could I turn Jeff from a 11:35 IM guy into a sub 10:57 IM guy? Greg was a 13:10+ IM guy. How much faster could he go, he set a huge half IM PB early in the season, could he do that for IM?
Goals in, solutions out, training done and the final exam. Now that the papers are graded and both athletes have their grade, how did they do?
Greg, knocked off 69 minutes from his record, setting a new IM PB of 12:02. I’d have to say that’s an A for the race, and I think there is room for him to knock off another chunk like that. His new self was only 8k or so ahead of his old self by the end of the race.
Jeff, reduced his PB by exactly 60 minutes going 10:35 and accomplishing his goal of smashing someone’s fastest IM. As a coach I couldn’t be happier about that.
All in all I couldn’t be happier with the whole weekend. Saw some old friends, made some new one’s, connected some circles, formed some dots. The racing went well and the beer tasted good.
Congrats – but leave the math to us pros, please.