I’ve averaged all the swim, bike, run and overall splits recorded. Swim + Bike + Run won’t quite add up to the overall average because the overall also includes transition times and because there will be some who DNFed and hence don’t add to the overall average, but they are included in the swim and bike averages if they recorded a time.

So those times are correct, but it should be noted that overall includes transitions too and that athletes who DNFed are included in swim and bike splits where appropriate.

I’ve also downloaded the DNF data Larry pointed me to and can confirm that the DNF rate at Los Cabos was 14.9%. The DNS rate was around 14% too. For most races I can only estimate the DNF/DNS rate from those who didn’t finish so hard to accurately place these figures, but they are towards the higher end I believe.

Russ

Thanks for pointing me to that, I’ll integrate that data into my database to see how it compares. I get my data from the Athlete Tracker as it means I need only a single tool to retrieve it, unfortunately Ironman.com doesn’t carry anywhere near as much info as it could. So a lot of that precise DNS vs DNF data is lost, as is the DQs. Be good to throw that in and get a better feel for the rates these occur at. I generally assume the majority of athletes in the tracker with no swim time are DNS and a relatively small proportion are DNFs, but that can vary with the race conditions of course.

Anyway, thanks for pointing me to that, will be useful as I try and look more closely at DNF statistics, I’ll have to look at a few more Ironman sites to see if they list results independently like that too. Now if only they routinely put Hawaii qualifiers on the websites…

Russ

The distribution method itself, beyond just 1 slot per age group tends to spread the distribution more than a truly proportional approach. I cam up with one method that does 1 per age group and gets very close to the actual proportions each age group has especially when more slots are available. What Ironman seems to do will put more slots in larger female age groups than a truly proportional system. Certainly knocks a few extra slots from elsewhere I have done some comparisons of percentage of athletes in each age group and percentage of slots and you see the differences.

Thanks for the info on Los Cabos, most of the stats get done before I see proper reports so hard to pick up how hard a race is going to be. What I’ve read afterwards certainly suggested it was tougher than expected. Sounds like it has a lot in common with Lanzarote then, and potentially ranks similarly among the Ironman races, will hopefully be able to look at that more closely once a few more races are done. A long swim makes a change though.

Funnily the one guy ahead of you in your age group was on the end-to-end of New Zealand Epic Camp with me a few years back.

Russ

So, to round out the general numbers the average combined DNF/DNS percentage for races in 2012 was 18%, with the biggest outlier being Ironman St. George at 43%. Most sit in the 10-20% range though. So Los Cabos had a higher than normal drop out rate whether DNS or DNF.

For interest I’ll also add that I can say that 75 dropped out on the bike and a further 67 dropped out during the run. There are 326 athletes who did not record a swim, but this includes those who did not start to and I can’t get accurate figures for that. That gives us a 5.6% drop out rate during the bike, versus a 2.9% drop out rate average for the bike over all of 2012 races. For the run portion that gives a 5% drop out rate in Los Cabos, compared to the 2012 average of 3.9%.

I do plan to publish more on the DNF rates of races at some point as I have started looking at that data too. Also seems it might be worth publishing DNF stats for future race analyses.

Thanks

Russ

I should have said, I don’t have the normal DNF average to hand, but even adjusting for DNS puts Los Cabos towards the higher end of the range, only a few have that high a percent with DNS.

Russ