Pacing in ultra endurance sport : investigation into pacing differences between sex, age, and finishing performance during Muskoka Ironman 70.3 Triathlon.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare between males and females, young, middle, and old age groups, and top and bottom performers, the pacing of participants completing the bike and run portions of an Ironman 70.3 event. Publicly available data uploaded by participants who completed the 2019 Muskoka Ironman 70.3 event to www.strava.com (Strava) was analyzed in this study. The analysis included 271 participants from the cycling portion of the event and 226 participants from the running portion. Pacing profiles in both events were compared between men and women; between young (<34 years), middle (35-54 years), and old (>55 years) age groups; and between fast (top 25%) and slow (bottom 75%) finishers. Pacing was measured as the difference in average speed between the first half and the second half of each event portion. No significant pacing differences were detected between groups for the cycling portion, with all groups having a faster second half demonstrated by a net increase in speed of between 0.94km/hr to 1.57km/hr. During the cycling portion of the event, males showed significant increase in speed from their first half pace to second half by 1.14km/hr (p=0.002) whereas females did not, however, between groups comparisons show that there were no significant difference in changes of speed between sexes (p=0.761). Similarly, only middle aged athletes showed significant increase in speed from first to second half by 1.19km/hr (p=0.009). In the running event, all groups had a slower second half, with the only significant difference being the top performers slowed less than the bottom performers (0.37km/hr vs 0.60km/hr, p=0.003). Males, bottom performers, and middle-aged athletes showed significant change in pace from first half to second half, slowing by 0.55km/hr, 0.59km/hr, and 0.55km/hr respectfully. Overall, these findings contradict previous research on marathon running suggesting females have less slowing in the second half of the event compared to males. This study was the first of its kind to use publicly available data from Strava to observe performance and physiological variables for an ultra-endurance sport, and captured an accurate sample representative of the population of athletes compared to the verified results from Ironman, allowing for future use of Strava as a means of collecting performance and basic physiological data for research purposes of real life events.