Remote Racing, US National Championship
For the first time, a US National Championship in remote racing was held during a week in November. Remote racing is not the same as virtual racing, key difference is that all results are being converted to a standardized course. Software by RaceX is applied in an attempt to take away real differences in the participants various courses and conditions.
I saw the invitation on my Facebook feed and for 50 dollars signup fee, I decided to give it a go. First, I thought carefully about where I could race safely at full speed. Swim had to be in a standard-length pool, and bike and run starting and ending at the same spot. After I had chosen my location, I did a trial where I also mapped the distance carefully (not going under) and took mental notes of turnaround locations.
I had one week to complete my remote race and make sure the results reached RaceX. I had to setup a RaceX account and verify my identity. I also had to sync my smartwatch to the software which proved difficult, because I am using a COROS watch. RaceX connects directly to for example Garmin, but I had to go through an intermediary; UnderArmour Map MyFitness (new accounts to set up). It worked and my training uploaded nicely.
Verifying my identity made me a little uncomfortable, and I almost pulled out. It was ok to give my address, phone number and personal data like age, height and weight, but I had to photograph my driving license on both sides and send it to RaceX. After a lot of hesitation, I did it and my ID was "verified". I just hope the information is safe with them...
Within 24 hours of starting the race, I had to make a video of myself in race gear, standing on a digital scale, showing that my weight reading was not interfered with. It was harder than I thought, my Iphone will not switch from selfie mode to normal mode during a video, so I had to turn the phone blindly and hope I was catching everything required, but I got it done.
For swim, only pools are allowed, 25 yards or meters, or 50 yards or meters. The software should take care of differences in time caused by pool lengths. I had a good swim, (I thought), 750yards at 15.59.
RaceX recognizes that it is difficult to find a safe bike and swim course near a pool, so Transition 1 is not timed, you only have to complete the swim during the race window before the bike and run. I swam at midday when my local pool is open and proceeded to bike and run later the same afternoon.
I managed the bike ride at 41 minutes exactly, the distance registering at 12.6 miles, just a little over the required 12.5 miles.
For Transition 2, up to 10 minutes are allowed, and I used just under 8 minutes. The rules state that there is no advantage to use less time than the allowed 10 minutes, but there are time additions if you use more. I ran 3.14 miles (3.11 required) on 29.01.
Happy with my efforts I waited for my data to sync, which it did not do. I was in contact with RaceX, Predictive Fitness and TriDot many times, and despite our efforts the problem could not be sorted out. In the end, I exported my data files directly to them and they added my files manually to the race, which I was grateful for. Interestingly, my COROS data was picked up and displayed by Strava. Hopefully, RaceX will soon incorporate COROS and other minor brands in their software updates.
So how did my results compare? After normalizing the course to Milwaukee US National Sprint triathlon course, I was given a total time of 1.39.22, Swim-18.58, T1-2.42, Bike-45.40, T2-2.42 and Run-29.20.
I did the real Milwaukee course back in August and had 1.31.18, Swim-16.50, T1-3.07, Bike-41.42, T2-2.07 and Run-27.35.
This is an 8-minute difference in the wrong direction. I am not happy with the calculated swim time, I have never on a real 750m swim course been as slow as 18.58. It may be caused by me not doing flip turns in the pool, which slows me down. Bike time also seem unnecessary long. I recognize that I will have been a bit slower competing by myself (and late in the year as well), but not this slow. I also see that Transition times are different between people, and this I don't understand. To be fair, it was recommended to use a power meter on the bicycle, something I do not have. Because of that, my results were automatically capped to a lower standard. I do not know if my competitors had power meters or if it had any significant impact on my calculated results.
My place in female 60-64 was 3rd (out of 4) and if I click on "equalize", I end up in 28th place (out of 95 women), I assume that is an attempt to equalize for age.
To sum up, it was an interesting exercise. I have concerns about my driver's license information being safe, and if your smartwatch is not a main brand, the data transfer can be a hassle. The software equalization is more or less, but I don't think good enough for serious competitions like a national championship. I am sure that it will become much better in short time as more calibration data is available. However, because of my concerns, I will not rush to do it again. / Gunilla
Links:
About RemoteRacing™ – RemoteRacing
RaceX – Optimized Race Execution (myracex.com)
Predictive Fitness – Transforming Data into Actionable Insight
TriDot - Optimized Triathlon Training
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