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Date: 20 Mar 2006 19:30:29
From: Robert Grumbine
Subject: Wava and other fiction
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Seems a shame to rain on parades, and by all means those who find
their WAVA percentages to be major motivators for their running should
continue using them.
Still ... they're numbers, and the meaning of them ... well, it's
a peeve of mine for numbers to be taken as meaning things that they
don't.
The only thing that the WAVA figure does is provide a percentage
of world record pace, adjusted for age and gender, that you ran.
That percentage, though, means ... well, not much. Casual walking
pace returns a percentage, for instance, and there you're not even
running. Something like 30-40 '%' for walking briskly.
They seem to get used for 'competitiveness', and, worse, competitiveness
between distances. The thing is, the progression of speed with distance,
and, even more, how close to WR pace you need for a given level of
'competitiveness' depends on the distance you're looking at.
It's no big deal, at least to my mind, to hit '70% WAVA'. The reason I'm
underwhelmed by it is that a) I do so for some sprints and b) I'm a
terrible sprinter. 'Terrible' in the sense that in any large sampling
of people, I'm far towards the back of sprinting speed.
A figure aimed more at how competitive a time are Purdy points
(or Gardner-Purdy points, depending on which journal article you work
from). A drawback is that this link:
http://www.cs.uml.edu/~phoffman/ex1old.html
only computes with respect to open class males, not masters or women.
Still, it correctly detects that I'm a poor sprinter (times from a few
years ago, contemporary with each other, when I was showing up at
sprints as well):
Dist Time Purdy:
100m 14.5 288
200 30.8 247
400 66.0 368
1500 5:19.6 415
... or at least, that I'm a worse sprinter than miler.
For inter-distance comparisons, Purdy is much better than WAVA percentages.
Some descriptions:
500 is a fair figure for a back of the pack, but on the team, HS
distance runner (something like 5:28 mile, 11:55 2mile)
600 is middling-front (at least w.r.t. my team -- 4:59 mile, 10:50
2 mile).
700 is pretty good HS runner (4:40, 10:10, 16:25 5k)
800 is very good, 'state' caliber HS (4:25, 9:30, 15:20)
(Bob Kennedy was about here as an HS runner).
1000 is, by design, world record level (ca. 1970).
If nothing else, maybe the numbers fans can use a different series
of numbers now.
--
Robert Grumbine http://www.radix.net/~bobg/ Science faqs and amateur activities notes and links.
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much
evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less appreciated than they
would be had they been presented in a more abstruse manner." Two New Sciences
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Date: 20 Mar 2006 17:57:11
From:
Subject: Re: Wava and other fiction
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> It's no big deal, at least to my mind, to hit '70% WAVA'.
_
in my local experience, hitting 70%+ is the domain for the top 5% of
the field more or less. my club here in NYC just held the Brooklyn
Half-Marathon and less than 4.5% of the field hit 70% or better.
It's a big deal imo to be in the top 5% of anything in life. I would
not be surprised if nationwide, 70%+ is the domain of the top 5%.
Perhaps you can explain, justify, legitimize, and validate how and why
being in the top 5% is "no big deal".
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Date: 21 Mar 2006 12:19:26
From: Robert Grumbine
Subject: Re: Wava and other fiction
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In article <1142906231.771636.206590@j33g2000cwa.googlegroups.com >,
<lanceandrew@aol.com > wrote:
>> It's no big deal, at least to my mind, to hit '70% WAVA'.
>_
>
> in my local experience, hitting 70%+ is the domain for the top 5% of
>the field more or less. my club here in NYC just held the Brooklyn
>Half-Marathon and less than 4.5% of the field hit 70% or better.
>
>It's a big deal imo to be in the top 5% of anything in life. I would
>not be surprised if nationwide, 70%+ is the domain of the top 5%.
>Perhaps you can explain, justify, legitimize, and validate how and why
>being in the top 5% is "no big deal".
The 70% question was answered in the original post.
'Top 5%' is simply your assertion at this point. If you're happy
about it, then be happy about it. In some things, I'm happy to make
top 90%. In others, top 5% is doing extremely poorly, and top 0.5% is
a minimal requirement.
But you're making up stories as it is -- you do not consider top
5% of _anything_ to be a big deal. Several folks here hit that
level or better in their events and you're quite dismissive of
both the events and the people.
--
Robert Grumbine http://www.radix.net/~bobg/ Science faqs and amateur activities notes and links.
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much
evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less appreciated than they
would be had they been presented in a more abstruse manner." Two New Sciences
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Date: 21 Mar 2006 01:54:00
From: Dan Stumpus
Subject: Re: Wava and other fiction
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"Robert Grumbine" <bobg@radix.net > wrote
> For inter-distance comparisons, Purdy is much better than WAVA
> percentages.
Mebbie, for the full range of running distances.
But...at longer distances, WAVA seems to correlate pretty well with
Gardner-Purdy. These are my Ancient PR's, with WAVA and Gardner-Purdy
points:
5k: 16:05 80.66% wava 725 pts.
10k: 33:35 80.32% wava 731 pts.
marathon: 2:37:10 80.7% wava 733 pts.
The two methods are pretty consistent at these typical road racing
distances. I used Gardner Purdy (my yellowed edition was published in '79)
religiously back in the day, and still refer to it.
Wava has the advantage of working for over 40 types and women, and it's
empirical (I think) rather than purely mathematical.
Purdy predicted a 53 second 440 yd, and my best was 62. No way could I run
a 23 second 220 -- my best was 29. So the Purdy method broke down for me on
the real short stuff.
So both methods are imperfect -- for example how do you control for the 70%
fast twitch types versus the 70% slow twitch types? I recall that Ingrid
Kristiansen was told that she'd never be any good because she was slow on
the track. Yet her 2:21 marathon was the world record for 13 years, and
held other WR distance records.
Anyway, good luck. And how did you tear both rotator cuffs? A wicked golf
swing? Gymnastics?
-- Dan
.net/~bobg/ Science faqs and amateur activities notes and links.
> Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too
> much
> evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less appreciated than
> they
> would be had they been presented in a more abstruse manner." Two New
> Sciences
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Date: 21 Mar 2006 12:49:28
From: Robert Grumbine
Subject: Re: Wava and other fiction
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In article <Y0JTf.6809$Bj7.2052@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net >,
Dan Stumpus <dstumpus_NOSP@mindspring.com > wrote:
>
>"Robert Grumbine" <bobg@radix.net> wrote
>
>> For inter-distance comparisons, Purdy is much better than WAVA
>> percentages.
>
>Mebbie, for the full range of running distances.
>
>But...at longer distances, WAVA seems to correlate pretty well with
>Gardner-Purdy. These are my Ancient PR's, with WAVA and Gardner-Purdy
>points:
>
>5k: 16:05 80.66% wava 725 pts.
>10k: 33:35 80.32% wava 731 pts.
>marathon: 2:37:10 80.7% wava 733 pts.
>
>The two methods are pretty consistent at these typical road racing
>distances. I used Gardner Purdy (my yellowed edition was published in '79)
>religiously back in the day, and still refer to it.
>
>Wava has the advantage of working for over 40 types and women, and it's
>empirical (I think) rather than purely mathematical.
The age and gender corrections are a very good thing. What I'd like
is Purdy's method updated with age and gender.
Purdy wasn't purely mathematical, and wava pretty much is (was -- another
story in a moment). Purdy went down, empirically, beyond just the
world record to find something of what the distribution was like. Wava
relied solely on world records. Not even that, as WRs were imputed
for several age/sex ranges on grounds of the actual times not being
as good as they 'should' be.
The imputation business, I understand, contributed to WAVA (now Master's
Running?) discontinuing that edition, at least, of rating system.
While it's easy enough to find the WAVA tables still, they're not
used even by the organization that caused them to be developed.
>Purdy predicted a 53 second 440 yd, and my best was 62. No way could I run
>a 23 second 220 -- my best was 29. So the Purdy method broke down for me on
>the real short stuff.
That's the thing. It _isn't_ a prediction method. It's a descriptive
method -- descriptive of who well you run different distances. To be
as competitive at 400m as you were at 5k, you'd need about 53 seconds.
Your actual time being substantially slower says that you aren't
as good a quarter miler as a distance guy. No surprise, and is a
confirming of the method. The converse that happens for me with wava
saying I'm a better sprinter than distance runner is a mark against
the score.
>So both methods are imperfect -- for example how do you control for the 70%
>fast twitch types versus the 70% slow twitch types? I recall that Ingrid
>Kristiansen was told that she'd never be any good because she was slow on
>the track. Yet her 2:21 marathon was the world record for 13 years, and
>held other WR distance records.
Neither is, really, a prediction method.
I do know _a_ method that pays attention to 'fast twitch' vs. 'slow',
anaerobic capacity vs. VO2 max, age, mileage, ... -- see Tom
Ehrensburger's Runpaces software. I have the link to it from my running
page, http://www.radix.net/~bobg/run/ He also has an article or two,
which I either have copies of posted or links to, on method verification.
The thing which annoys me a little is that Tom has never described the method.
I've used the program, and it does perform pretty well.
Tom, by the way, used to be a regular here.
>Anyway, good luck. And how did you tear both rotator cuffs? A wicked golf
>swing? Gymnastics?
The left, last year, I nailed while swimming. It didn't inflame until
two weeks later, while I was running a 10 mile race. Running your last
5-6 miles with an inflaming rotator cuff that objects to running is ...
not pleasant.
The right inflamed in 2002. I hadn't been doing anything particular
at the time. But it turns out that the time of the inflaming can be
years separated from the time of the tear itself. So we have to go
with guesses: flinging discus in 2001, doing a practice with sprinter
bungees on my arms in 1999, or my star softball career :-) in '93-'96 (?).
I favor the sprinter bungee practice, since that summer I'd totally
lost my throwing arm. 3rd basemen who can't make the throw to first
any more are pretty noticeable. This one, though, I was able to run
with, and PR'd 10k in torrential rain a couple months after it inflamed.
--
Robert Grumbine http://www.radix.net/~bobg/ Science faqs and amateur activities notes and links.
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much
evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less appreciated than they
would be had they been presented in a more abstruse manner." Two New Sciences
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Date: 21 Mar 2006 09:12:53
From: Tom B.
Subject: Re: Wava and other fiction
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Dan Stumpus wrote:
> "Robert Grumbine" <bobg@radix.net> wrote
>
> > For inter-distance comparisons, Purdy is much better than WAVA
> > percentages.
>
> Mebbie, for the full range of running distances.
>
> But...at longer distances, WAVA seems to correlate pretty well with
> Gardner-Purdy. These are my Ancient PR's, with WAVA and Gardner-Purdy
> points:
>
> 5k: 16:05 80.66% wava 725 pts.
> 10k: 33:35 80.32% wava 731 pts.
> marathon: 2:37:10 80.7% wava 733 pts.
>
> The two methods are pretty consistent at these typical road racing
> distances. I used Gardner Purdy (my yellowed edition was published in '79)
> religiously back in the day, and still refer to it.
>
> Wava has the advantage of working for over 40 types and women, and it's
> empirical (I think) rather than purely mathematical.
>
> Purdy predicted a 53 second 440 yd, and my best was 62. No way could I run
> a 23 second 220 -- my best was 29. So the Purdy method broke down for me on
> the real short stuff.
>
> So both methods are imperfect -- for example how do you control for the 70%
> fast twitch types versus the 70% slow twitch types? I recall that Ingrid
> Kristiansen was told that she'd never be any good because she was slow on
> the track. Yet her 2:21 marathon was the world record for 13 years, and
> held other WR distance records.
Count me as another person who fits the WAVA tables quite well. At
least, I fit these tables well:
http://misweb.cbi.msstate.edu/~rpearson/masters.html
I haven't really looked around for other age-graded tables. I think I
first found Rodney's tables by linking from the "running widgets" page
at runnersweb.
But like I said, these tables have been accurate for me. They do NOT
list any sprint distances, though, just 1 mile and up. And thinking
about it, that kind of makes sense for a couple of reasons:
First, it seems like the shortest event (1 mile) is already long enough
to measure someone's aerobic/distance ability. So while someone could
be better at the marathon than the mile, you won't have the huge
mismatches like you would have between the 100m and the 5000m. At
least, it seems that way to me.
Second, these are tables for MASTERS runners. Not to hate on sprinters
(and believe me, I am a sorry-ass sprinter), but sprinting is just not
something that masters runners do. Sure, there are probably all sorts
of benefits we masters fatties could reap from adding in a few sprints,
but almost no post-collegiate adults compete in the sprints. I realize
there are age-group track meets, and all sorts of different classes of
age-group records, but that's only a tiny fringe of the running scene
for masters, compared to road racing at 5K - marathon distance.
So if you're one of the rare masters who competes in sprints, then
maybe WAVA is not so useful. But for the remaining 95% of us (my own
estimate), I think WAVA is pretty good.
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Date: 21 Mar 2006 06:36:04
From:
Subject: Re: Wava and other fiction
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>5%' is simply your assertion at this point.
_
No. You are wrong.
>But you're making up stories as it is -
How am i "making up stories"? Please be precise and exact.
>you do not consider top
5% of _anything_ to be a big deal.
...and where is this coming from?
>Several folks here hit that
level or better in their events and you're quite dismissive of
both the events and the people.
What are you talking about? You seem very shaken and uncomfortable
with my response. Why is that? Wow, I simply placed your comments in
perspective and context and it's apparently disturbed you and ruffled
your feathers.
I note you were nonresponsive to my on topic point in my response to
you. You Robert Grumbine were the person who elected to declare
"being in the top 5% is "no big deal". Now perhaps you were unaware
that that is indeed what you were saying, but that is in fact, at the
end of the day, what you were saying. You know seem want to avoid
owning up to your statement.....and are upset with me? LOL. Oh, it's
my fault you've said this?
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