Ironman Lake Placid 2018: Age Group Results and Kona Qualification

Latest statistics for Ironman Lake Placid

This week’s race analysis is for Ironman Lake Placid. There are no major course alteration to account for this time – it’s a straight forward comparison with past performances. Lake Placid is a large race with around 2,300 athletes racing for 40 Kona slots on offer to age groupers. This year’s race appears to have been on the slower side for the course.

I’ve spotted inconsistencies in my copy of the 2014 result set from Lake Placid, so have excluded that data from this analysis.

Distribution of Finisher Splits at Ironman Lake Placid 2018 Compared with 2009-2017

This year’s results very clearly trend much slower than the amalgamated results of the previous 10 years. The biggest shift appears on the bike, but the run is also slower and as a consequence we see quite a big difference in the overall distribution too. The shift appears to be consistent from front to mid and back of pack. There’s a lot of weight in numbers towards the right of the distributions.

DNS and DNF Rates at Ironman Lake Placid
Year
Listed Athletes
Swim Finish
Swim DNS/DNF
Bike Finish
Bike DNF
Run Finish
Run DNF
Overall DNS/DNF
2002
2062
1834
11.1%
1773
3.3%
1624
8.4%
20.6%
2003
2066
1829
11.5%
1763
3.6%
1671
5.2%
19%
2004
2277
1939
14.8%
1921
0.9%
1882
2%
17.3%
2006
2446
2141
12.5%
2108
1.5%
2036
3.4%
16.7%
2007
2528
2177
13.9%
2138
1.8%
2051
4.1%
18.9%
2008
2587
2305
10.9%
2259
2%
2193
2.9%
15.2%
2009
2566
2239
12.7%
2159
3.6%
2051
5%
20.1%
2010
3013
2536
15.8%
2551
2471
3.1%
18%
2011
2902
2459
15.3%
2430
1.2%
2356
3%
18.8%
2012
2896
2555
11.8%
2435
4.7%
2280
6.4%
21.3%
2013
2536
2477
2.3%
2426
2.1%
2342
3.5%
7.6%
2015
2798
2300
17.8%
2235
2.8%
2093
6.4%
25.2%
2016
3055
2484
18.7%
2387
3.9%
2268
5%
25.8%
2017
2333
2328
0.2%
2269
2.5%
2195
3.3%
5.9%
2018
2307
2288
0.8%
2177
4.9%
2094
3.8%
10.3%

DNF levels on the bike are on the high side for Lake Placid – higher than we’ve seen over the decade. run DNf figures are typical for the race, clearly the bike presented the biggest challenge of the day. Allowing for the fact that older data often includes DNS numbers as well I’d view this year’s race as having slightly higher than average DNF rates.

Median Splits by Age Group at Ironman Lake Placid 2018
Median Splits by Age Group at Ironman Lake Placid 2008-2017

Age group medians largely follow the same pattern as the distributions. Bike splits are consistently slower, but run splits are more varied with instances where they trend faster.

Top 10 Nationalities at Ironman Lake Placid
Country
Count
Percentage
United States
2386
86.1
Canada
195
7
United Kingdom
35
1.3
France
11
0.4
Belgium
11
0.4
Philippines
10
0.4
Ireland
10
0.4
Japan
9
0.3
Mexico
9
0.3
Australia
7
0.3
Ironman Lake Placid 2018 Predicted Kona Qualifiers by Country
Country
Percentage of Slots
Percentage of Field
United States
67.5
86.1
Canada
22.5
7.0
Belgium
2.5
0.4
Mexico
2.5
0.3

Lake Placid doesn’t tend to draw too many competitors from outside North America and it keeps the slots there too.

Changes in Male Finishing Times by Position at Ironman Lake Placid
Changes in Female Finishing Times by Position at Ironman Lake Placid

Tracking times for specific placings across the age groups shows that in most cases there’s a slow down this year, pushing this race towards the slow end of the spectrum. That said, it’s not true of every division, for example M45-49 is comparable with previous results.From the distribution it’s clear that the overall pattern was slower, but within some age groups this is less evident.

Ironman Lake Placid 2018 Predicted Kona Qualification Times
Age Group
Slots
Winner
Average Kona Qualifier
Final Qualifier
M18-24
1
11:04:40
11:04:40
11:04:40
M25-29
2
09:37:22
09:40:31
09:43:40
M30-34
2
09:34:38
09:39:37
09:44:37
M35-39
3
09:18:28
09:29:15
09:39:39
M40-44
3
09:47:59
09:53:17
10:01:03
M45-49
4
09:53:27
10:09:13
10:15:56
M50-54
3
10:16:20
10:20:09
10:22:19
M55-59
2
10:14:14
10:19:12
10:24:10
M60-64
2
11:43:45
11:52:01
12:00:18
M65-69
1
12:58:05
12:58:05
12:58:05
M70-74
1
13:24:40
13:24:40
13:24:40
F18-24
1
11:11:58
11:11:58
11:11:58
F25-29
1
11:43:05
11:43:05
11:43:05
F30-34
1
10:43:33
10:43:33
10:43:33
F35-39
2
10:37:25
10:47:58
10:58:32
F40-44
2
10:56:05
11:09:07
11:22:10
F45-49
2
11:01:06
11:09:12
11:17:18
F50-54
2
11:40:17
11:45:28
11:50:39
F55-59
1
12:14:20
12:14:20
12:14:20
F60-64
1
12:21:39
12:21:39
12:21:39
F65-69
1
14:21:49
14:21:49
14:21:49

Based on the start numbers I’ve estimated the slot allocation and from that the final qualifier times. These numbers may vary an the final qualification time will depend on roll down too. You can compare Lake Placid with other Ironman races on my Kona qualification page.

Top Twenty Male Performances and Kona Qualification by Age Group at Ironman Lake Placid 2018
Top Twenty Female Performances and Kona Qualification by Age Group at Ironman Lake Placid 2018

Finally the top twenty times within each age group. For the most part these are slower than average, but the change here is smaller than we saw at the median. It’s also inconsistent with some age groups trending closer to, or faster than, the average. Overall it does look like it was a slower year for the Lake Placid course, but some of the impact on the results distribution comes from a larger mid to back of pack.

You can access a spreadsheet of the full results from Ironman Lake Placid 2018 on my Google Drive.

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