2007 Rankings

Before it becomes old news (and it's really only "news" to the few of us who are in the same age group and bother to do the required number of races to earn a ranking for USAT and/or Tri Northwest), I thought I should report on my rankings for 2007.

I worked hard last season, competing in 8 races - 7 triathlons (5 sprints and 2 olympics) and one open water swim - the Fat Salmon. Before and after the June-Sept. triathlon season, I did 7 or so running races (mostly 5Ks, 3 were 8K or 10K). It was a good year for racing and it all seems very far away to me now.

USAT Rankings
http://www.usatrankings.com/Pages/MemberPages/RankingQuery.aspx

Locally, there are 64 women in the 50-54 AG in the PacificNW region who earned USAT rankings in ’07 and I was 4th among them . My racing pals also show up near the top of the list: Valerie (8th) and Sandy (12th). The PNW region includes Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Alaska & Hawaii.

The 1st place woman is Ann S. and I believe she mainly does longer distance races, AG Nats is the only race I've been in with her that I know of. The 2nd place woman, Nancy A. is very close to me in swim and bike, but kicks my butt by several minutes in running, like by almost 5 minutes in the 10K at Issaquah Rotary Run in October (I did manage a win over her at Cascades Edge sprint when she was coming off an injury (my only hope of beating her – thighs cramping and another medical concern at that time). Bridget D. is ranked 3rd and she also placed 1st at Age Group Nationals. I suspect the rankings system has it's flaws. Bridget beat Nancy by around 13 minutes, Ann by over 6 minutes and me by around 16 minutes at AG Nationals. I think in any shorter race, Bridget should prevail even though she is ranked behind the other two.

Nationally, for USAT, I was 51st out of 1256 in my AG (for comparison, Ann was 6th, Nancy was 31st and Bridget was 38th nationally). Even though Danskin is USAT sanctioned, I didn’t earn any score towards my ranking there since going Elite eliminates that option (so I did 3 other USAT sanctioned races to get my ranking: USAT AG Nationals, Heart of the Sound (on Vashon Is.), Federal Escape – 2 olys and a sprint).

Now, since I just barely turned 50 at the start of the season, just for fun I should compare how I did with the AG just below me, the 45-49 group. For PNW, my ranking would put me at 27th/90 and nationally, a humbling 598th/2385. Well, on the bright side, that means I can still out-rank 70% to 75% of women up to 5 years younger than me who are USAT members and pursue a ranking.

Tri Northwest Rankings
http://www.trinw.com/pages/trinwframeset.html

Locally, Tri Northwest has their own races for which one earns a ranking. You have to do a minimum of certain races of the same distance (i.e.; 3 sprints, 3 olys, 2 Half IM or 2 IM OR 1 sprint/1 oly/1 half IM). Anyway, I did the 3 sprints (Cascades Edge, Seafair and Kirkland). That earned me 1st in AG (WA, OR, ID and MT are included in Tri NW region). BUT, there were only 4 women total who earned rankings in my AG (for masters women, i.e.; women over 40, I ranked 7th out of 32). So you might only think of me in the top 25% if you slice it that way.

It’s kind of hard to get all the required races in, especially when going after 2 rankings that don’t overlap their races, AND still do some favorites (like Danskin). I don’t know if I’ll expect the same of myself next year (I mean, this year… I mean next season).