A new feature for the website: I did some statistical work to track the age-adjusted results of the masters teams. After each race I will post who has set an age-adjusted PR for the previous 12 months. In other words, if at the most recent race your age-graded percent was higher than at any of your other races over the last 12 months, look for your name in bright orange, right here. I will also post any other interesting data that come up.

Maybe this will motivate a few people to set some fast times – if we can’t set absolute PRs anymore we can at least set age-adjusted ones.

FYI I am using the NYRRC database, including only races above one mile, and excluding cross country races and the marathon. I will keep the numbers on a trailing 12-month basis, so a race will drop out of the data after a year. I will only consider athletes who have completed 2 or more races in the trailing 12-month period, and let me know if I have a number wrong. From the NYRRC website:A performance level of 100% is approximately the world-record level, 90% equates to world class, 80% is national class, and 70% is regional class.

The stars of this week’s race are two women: Yumi Ogita and Mary Rosado. Yumi posted an impressive 82.2% this past weekend, winning her age group and establishing her best age-graded percent of the year, over five races.

Mary’s accomplishment is inspiring not just for her speed, but also for her ability to keep improving over a long season. Mary has done 11 races over the past 12 months, more than all but two of her teammates, yet she was able to set a PR after all that training and racing. After looking closely at the data, it seems clear that peaking after 4 or 5 races is more common. 

As for the men…nothing to report. No one set a age-graded PR this past week. That is probably because 15 men did so at the club championships a few weeks earlier, but come on! Someone has to be running fast. Any training tips, Mary?

David Greenberg

Dgreenb300@aol.com