Seventy-five start lines. One direction.
Every race since 2012 on the record: from the 77th percentile to the top 6% in fourteen years, and the data showing the twelve weeks before the gun decide the day.
Fourteen years of moving up through the field
Average share of the field finishing behind me, by year: 23% → 94%. Noisy year to year — but the endpoints don't lie.
Each point averages every ranked race that year. The 2021 dip is real: first season back after lockdowns, racing on a base that wasn't there. The dips stay on the chart — a ledger that only shows wins isn't a ledger.
The twelve weeks before the gun decide the day
Group all 52 ranked races by training hours in the 84 days before: quiet blocks beat 63% of the field. 120-hour blocks beat 89%.
r = −0.28 between block volume and finish percentile, n = 52 — modest, monotonic-ish, and honest: fitness also decides which races get entered. But it's the same dose-response the lake found in resting heart rate, now showing up on results sheets. Strava can't draw this: it has the hours but not the rankings.
Every start line, on the record
TOP n% = overall field position; AK marks races where only the age-group ranking survives. Blank cells are races whose result sheets predate the internet's memory — they stay in the ledger anyway. Latest chapter, two sprint triathlons in seven days → /race-engineering/