Splitsbrowser

One of the major advantages of our electronic timing system is that it gives us lots of data to play with. And you don't have to have an unnatural interest in statistics to do it - as all the tools are provided, and some very useful information can be gained without much effort.

You can use your printout to compare split times with your friends on the day, or you can wait until the full results appear on the internet. In a previous edition I promoted the use of Routegadget - a powerful website which can be used to compare route choices and even replay a virtual head-to-head race.

It's a shame that not more people make use of this as not only is it a great way to learn it is good fun too. But this article is about a feature within Routegadget, called Splitsbrowser.

Splitsbrowser uses everyone's split times and draws graphs which very quickly show the progress against time. The default view is "time loss" compared to the fastest time - a typical view is shown below. The steepness of the line indicates whether on each part of the course you were good, average or made a mistake.

This example is from recent QOFL at Triscombe. I have shown my performance compared to Will and Gavin. Their near straight lines show they were fairly consistent from start to finish. Meanwhile my zig-zag line tells a different story. To be fair I already knew about the two mistakes, so I didn't need Splitsbrowser to show me that. But before looking at this graph I hadn't realised that I was quickest in the middle of the course, or that things went a bit wrong at the end.

The advantage of all this? It's all about finding your strengths and your weaknesses. If you want to improve, wouldn't it be a good idea to first find your weaknesses?

Richard Sansbury

Skilling Up #27, from QuOnicle 164 Nov 2015

More on post-race analysis

Berkshire OC's guide

Share & learn - including Routegadget