Ironman Santa Rosa 2019: Age Group Results and Kona Qualification
Ironman Santa Rosa is a relatively new part of the Ironman calendar with 2019 being it’s third year. It’s a mid sized race with the standard 40 Kona slots on offer. Course changes have been made over its three years which will impact somewhat on comparison of times. This years race doesn’t deviate far from previous results though.
This year’s race gave us a faster swim and a faster run, but was balanced with a slightly slower bike. So the overall distribution is similar to that of the previous two years of racing. If anything is notable in the results here it’s that there’s a particularly large spike in finishers in the 11:30-12:00 range.
DNF rates remain consistent with previous years. As well as being faster the swim saw a drop off in DNFs. Bike and run DNF rates are mid-range for the course.
Medians for individual age groups reflect the trends of the distributions. As changes are relatively small we also see variance across the age groups rather than a consistent pattern. Not every bike is slower and how much slower varies for example.
As we’d expect Santa Rosa is predominantly a US race with a selection of other nationalities present. Kona slots mainly stay at home, but a third went outside the US.
The changes in age group times for specific positions show modest variations over the three years for the major age groups (M35 through to M50). Front of pack athletes show smaller variation over the three years than those towards the back.
I’ve estimated the allocation of Kona slots to age groups in the above table and from that calculated the automatic Kona qualifying times. The exact allocation may vary slightly although I believe the algorithm I’m using currently matches the method used by Ironman. Roll down is not taken into account in these times. You can compare with other races at my Kona Qualification page.
There’s some variation in top twenty age group performances, but broadly 2019 isn’t too dissimilar to 2018 times. Age groups vary whether this was faster or slower than average. That variance and the fact many tried close to average suggest that for the most part this years Kona race was comparable with the last. There are exceptions: a particular fast M45-49 or a flat M40-44.
You can access a spreadsheet of the full results from Ironman Santa Rosa 2019 on my Google Drive.