What has this guy ever done?

PRs are an easy way to measure your best races at certain distances, but they still leave the question of which race is your best ever. That marathon PR may actually be less impressive than your 3rd-best 5K.

So we turn to the same method used to compare races between folks of different ages or genders: age grading. There are different scales and calculators and such; I use this one, although it bugs me that it doesn't work for ultras (not that it would matter for me, yet; my ultra times have all been unimpressive). I decided to take all my results from 4 1/2 years of racing and run the numbers to determine just what my best races ever have been:

Race	Location	Date	Time	Score
Get Ready to Rock 20M	White Bear Lake, MN	9/8/12	2:22:09	79.6
Run the Line HM	Texarkana, TX	2/20/11	1:29:51	79.4
Too Hot to Handle 15K	Dallas, TX	7/15/12	1:02:51	79.2
Texas Half	Dallas, TX	1/29/11	1:30:06	79.2
Dash Down Greenville 5K	Dallas, TX	3/12/11	19:23	78.9
Too Cold to Hold 15K	Dallas, TX	1/23/11	1:02:57	78.7
Boo Run HM	Cleburne, TX	10/30/10	1:30:42	78.7
Tour des Fleurs 20K	Dallas, TX	9/15/12	1:27:08	78.0
Plano Balloon Festival HM	Plano, TX	9/23/12	1:32:16	78.0
Rock 'n' Roll Dallas HM	Dallas, TX	3/27/11	1:31:42	77.8

As you see, the 10K and marathon distances are not represented in my top 10. For the former, it's a matter of sample size. I've only run one 10K since January 2010 and it was on a hard course (thus yielding a soft PR that I should crush at my next 2 10Ks in November).

For the latter, well, I don't have an excuse, but I have hope. The 3 Texas races from 2012 on this list were all warm. The top race was cool. If I stay in good shape and run Houston at that level in January, I'll be going back to Boston in 2014.