WatPower is a website that consolidates running performances for analysis and global rankings. Running performances are submitted by certified officials from member organizations referred to as race organizers or event producers.

Individuals are certified by WatPower to validate accurately measured courses and operate electronic timing systems in order to submit official running performance results that can be trusted and used in national rankings. Any race organizer can become a member of WatPower providing they can demonstrate competency in the design of running courses, organization of events, following specific timing protocols, and data handling. Results can be submitted from races or time trials providing they are validated by a certified official.

WatPower Points

WatPower aims to compare running performances across all standard race distances. Times in each distance are converted into a points system. The intention is that a specific amount of points represents an equivalent performance in any distance and also between men and women. By using this system, we can rank all performances together from 100m sprinters to Marathon runners. It's important to note that the points system does not take into account age, this is partly intentional as it still allows results to be broken down into age groups, ranking them using the same system. This points system was developed after analyzing a number of existing points systems along with a huge amount of race performance data. I want to mention that during this research I studied the IAAF points tables and found them to be inadequate for this purpose for a number of reasons: Overall I found that the points allocation didn't fit the data well enough or align with other methods of ranking performance; The points do not extend far enough into the amateur level to be inclusive for most athletes which was the focus of WP; The points did not take into account the differences between road and track performances. Using the IAAF tables as inspiration, I was able to carefully calculate a new system.

The top end of the points system is very accurate due to large amounts of results data existing for elite performances - i.e. it's easy to compare equivalent performances at a national and world level between both men and women over all distances. It gets much harder to generate equivalent points scores at low levels where no meaningful data exists. Essentially, 1500 points represent the average of the top 30 world performances in recent years, this puts most world records in the 1520-1570 range. WatPower, however, is less interested in the outlier performances, but rather focused on equating the performances of the average amateur athlete. The 0 points threshold in each distance is intended to be a respectable and achievable target for beginner runners to work toward before climbing up the points ladder. Points scores were intentionally not extended lower in order to incentivize training towards an early goal. The WatPower Points system is organized in such a way that attempts to add a numeric representation to say that the 10,000th best men's 200m performance has the same points score as the 10,000th best women's 5km performance. The points are intended to be equivalent over the general population. This means that it is not expected that an individual will score similar points in all distances. The reality is that all athletes have some physical bias or advantage in specific distances, this may be sprinting, middle or long-distance depending on a number of biological factors. A long-distance runner may score highly in the marathon and very poorly in sprints, a middle-distance runner may score similar points in 1500, 3000 and 5000m but do less well in sprints and long-distance. Essentially the points system can be a great way of identifying an athlete's optimal distance and then tailoring their training program in that direction.

Collating the performances of amateur athletics results provides WatPower with a great opportunity to tweak the points system at the lower end, making the comparison of these results more accurate over time.

Analysis of an individual's running performance

When an individual has collected enough performance results over a range of distances, WatPower is able to automatically analyze their strengths and weaknesses, highlighting the performances which are above and below average of what is expected of them based on their best performances.

Fitness Factor

WatPower Points are a measure of pure performance in comparison to the general population, it doesn't account for age, weight, or height for example, merely who the fastest runner is. That's where FitnessFactor (FF) comes in. By knowing an athlete's height and weight during the race, we can calculate an FF score which now means we can compare the performances directly for all athletes, giving them an equivalent weight graded men's time and in turn, a weight graded points score. This closely measures fitness and is a very good indicator to the level of training an individual is doing. Individuals doing similar training are likely to achieve a similar fitness factor regardless of their weight or actual time. It's important to note that FF is not an absolute measure of fitness, FF is a product of Absolute Fitness x Running Economy x Pacing. As we are unable to easily measure an individual's running economy, we can't absolutely measure fitness however where possible we can factor in the pacing score to more accurately represent the FF. A very fit person with poor running economy may have a lower FF than someone who is less fit but has very good running economy. This is just an example of a limitation to numerically represent true performance. What we know for sure is that good coaching on running form and pacing could lead to an increase in performance without actually increasing your absolute fitness or training schedule.

Pacing

Pacing is another metric we can use to determine an athlete's ability. It's well known that running an evenly paced race or even slightly negative splitting can greatly improve your performance. Here at WatPower, we have developed a formula to generate a pacing rating for any performance that involves 2 or more laps or splits. We can use this metric to rank athletes in a particular race, over a global set of data or even create average pacing scores over a number of performances (This is what P5, P8 and P12 represent; giving the average of your best pacing scores - This gives a more detailed metric about how consistent you are pacing across many races compared to the global community). By measuring pacing we can show athletes how they could easily improve their performance only by adjusting their approach to a race. The formula will give a close to 0 pacing if you run all sections on the race at a very even pace until the final part which should be slightly faster. Based on real world data, we know that a very consistently paced race followed by a slightly negative split in the final section to be ideal, certainly in distances of 1500m and above, where the athlete uses up their anaerobic reserves in the final 5-10% of the race.

Optimal Pacing

Having calculated the pacing score, we can use this to determine what your optimal race pace should have been and calculate an optimal time. This gives athletes some advice about how to better pace the race next time.