USOF power calculation methodology and sample application

See previous document here


This is the test use of Global  USOF power algorithm I'm proposing.
10'000+ data records from 2008 and 2009 events were used to calculate Power of each runner.

I intentionally use Power instead of Score, because score is " Take 4 best and half of remaining etc...", while  Power is plain average of ALL scores person ever run within current period in question.

As an example  I apply resulting numbers to predict run times at recent Tilden Park Golden Goat (2009-03-29, BAOC)
Goat is in a way perfect example, because it technically might be called Blue course, but actually many people running it are not in "Blue age".
Therefore, Standard System would not be able to predict anything. as most of the people do not know their "Blue Score".

I calculated scores of all runners (2600+) and normalized them to be 50 on average. Graphical representation of the power ditribution curve is below  and also in PDF here
Histogramm of the power  distribution is here
Distribution is skewed to the lower scores, meaning 55% of the runners are below average and 45% are above average with maximum 
USOF_Power_curve_hist.jpg

Here is comparative average power of runners running corresponding courses.

This table effectively relates 100 Blue point to 100 red points etc  as 94.7 : 78.5 etc

CourseAverage Power
Blue 94.7
Red 78.5
Green 63.1
Brown 48.3
Orange 48.6
Yellow 39.1
White 36.1
Sprint65.1

And finally predicted and actual times of Recent Golden Goat Event.

Very reliable results only achievable for reliable runners, such as Tapio Karras, Steve Gregg or Manfred Kopisch. The rest are within the ballpark. Some people  like Roger Michel are way off, I wonder why?

Race

First 

Name

Last 

Name

Power

Predicted 

time

Actual 

time

N races 
Golden Goat Jonas Kjall 117.06 105.51 115.33 15
Golden Goat Sergey Velichko 110.72 111.54 119.15 19
Golden Goat Mikkel Conradi 102.08 120.99 121.68 27
Golden Goat Roger Michel 74.65 165.45 132.63 9
Golden Goat Francois Leonard 99.75 123.82 134.50 30
Golden Goat Steve Gregg 90.88 135.89 136.10 46
Golden Goat Tapio Karras 91.00 135.72 136.37 36
Golden Goat Roger Pruett 86.85 142.21 137.07 3
Golden Goat Greg Khanlarov 89.76 137.60 139.23 14
Golden Goat Matthias Kohler 84.21 146.66 139.88 25
Golden Goat Nubthar Nad  77.35 159.68 141.25 3
Golden Goat Roy Malone    74.36 166.09 146.10 3
Golden Goat Scott Porter 88.66 139.30 157.40 9
Golden Goat Alex Finch 73.77 167.42 161.13 25
Golden Goat Kent Ohlund 82.14 150.37 165.07 19
Golden Goat Penny DeMoss 75.22 164.20 167.25 17
Golden Goat Steve Stanley 74.79 165.14 168.70 2
Golden Goat Jonathan Owens 72.16 171.16 168.70 2
Golden Goat Werner Haag 71.19 173.50 171.58 9
Golden Goat Derek Maclean 78.42 157.50 178.68 21
Golden Goat Jim Waite 74.37 166.06 179.93 7
Golden Goat Luc Poppe 56.98 216.74 180.53 21
Golden Goat Andrew Peterson 62.18 198.64 191.20 4
Golden Goat Eric Rosenzweig 63.04 195.91 199.83 11
Golden Goat Damian Swift 61.18 201.88 208.33 5
Golden Goat Joe Inkenbrandt 49.59 249.04 208.45 5
Golden Goat Lou Lederer 58.90 209.68 208.58 5
Golden Goat Fyodor Konkov 66.35 186.13 220.23 32
Golden Goat Nasty Armpits 63.77 193.67 233.33 3
Golden Goat Jeff Dickert 42.14 293.07 233.35 8
Golden Goat Gavin Wyatt-Mair 63.65 194.04 249.02 35
Golden Goat Shura Krechetov 58.13 212.48 256.18 27
Golden Goat Anne Deucher 47.66 259.13 259.13 1
Golden Goat Curtis Caddell 43.47 284.12 259.13 3
Golden Goat Philippe Feru 47.30 261.10 261.10 1

Race

First Name

Last Name

Power

Predicted time

Actual time

N races 

Golden Kid Benjamin Legg 104.93 58.21 65.32 33
Golden Kid Anders Frick 92.57 65.98 65.98 1
Golden Kid Andrejus Masalkovas 87.94 69.46 71.10 20
Golden Kid Philipp Kopisch 59.56 102.54 80.10 28
Golden Kid Manfred Kopisch 71.37 85.58 85.18 28
Golden Kid James Wilson 70.38 86.78 87.05 9
Golden Kid Kevin McCarty 52.02 117.42 91.75 6
Golden Kid Michael Robinson 53.26 114.68 92.25 12
Golden Kid Anna Cunningham 41.14 148.45 94.95 2
Golden Kid Anders Odlund 63.62 96.00 96.00 1
Golden Kid Joe Maffei 57.21 106.76 96.85 30
Golden Kid Bob Cooley 67.92 89.92 99.98 27
Golden Kid Peter Graube 62.30 98.03 101.27 22
Golden Kid Daniel Kopisch 64.18 95.16 104.25 29
Golden Kid Greg Ehrensing 60.22 101.43 108.63 23
Golden Kid Carl Williams 58.30 104.76 111.85 3
Golden Kid Lauren Knight 56.19 108.69 112.45 12
Golden Kid Mark Blair 62.39 97.89 112.50 32
Golden Kid Marina Keating 42.86 142.51 113.07 18
Golden Kid Anna Dushistova 53.85 113.42 113.42 1
Golden Kid Mark Rice 48.25 126.59 113.52 9
Golden Kid Kent Hetherwick 51.98 117.50 113.57 2
Golden Kid Wayne Caplinger 65.05 93.90 113.78 15
Golden Kid Brian Kirshner 53.38 114.43 123.12 3
Golden Kid Chris Roper 49.61 123.12 123.12 1
Golden Kid Catherine Tuglus 49.61 123.12 123.12 1
Golden Kid Wes Erck 45.85 133.22 137.17 14
Golden Kid Oleg Shakhnovsky 44.39 137.58 149.93 12
Golden Kid Rick Whiffen 43.88 139.18 152.05 7
Golden Kid Jennifer Kerr 44.52 137.18 178.02 30
Golden Kid Jim Fish 42.63 143.29 178.57 50
Golden Kid Jeff Lanam 41.91 145.74 203.52 25
Golden Kid Jennifer Ruby 28.20 216.60 216.60 1
Golden Kid Mitchell Ruby 28.20 216.60 216.60 1
Golden Kid Nancy Lindeman 24.78 246.47 269.13 29


Feel free to contact me at krechet -at-gmail-com if you have any questions.
Shura