Lies, damn lies, statistics and training

OK, there is no getting away with it any more.  I have a confession to make.  I really can't do mental maths.

I might have mentioned that before, so it should come as no surprise.  However I haven't said what I do/did for a living.   I am a Chartered Accountant with (mumble mumble) years of experience, and have a MSc in Astrophysics.  But I still need a calculator to tell me how fast I need to run if I want to complete 10km in an hour or less.  I blame the kilowotsits.

A few weeks ago, Inspirational Steve mentioned a statistic used to work out how good a swimmer you are.  He called it swimming golf.  He said that you count the number of doggy paddles it takes to swim some distance involving metres, add it to your PIN and square it.  And then feel inadequate because whatever the number works out to be, it isn't good enough.
Well, actually to be honest he lost me at the word "count" so I may have misinterpreted slightly.

However, as I also mentioned previously, I have a "poolmate".  It's a brilliant contraption that looks like a watch, but counts the number of lengths you swim so you don't have to.  I discovered that it does other things too.  It can record the number of times I wave my arms around manically for each length I swim.  And it can go one further - it can add that number to my PIN, square it, etc and give me an efficiency rating.  All I had to do was enter a very long very specific combination of buttons that would reveal the answer.

Interestingly enough, all you have to do to erase all the data is to enter a very long very specific combination of buttons not completely dissimilar to the ones required to calculate my efficiency.

Ask me how I know.

I went for a swim last week.  Mainly to get some data back into my poolmate as I was curious to know what my efficiency was.  To my absolute delight, not only did I press the right combination of buttons and keep my data this time, but I also managed to achieve an average efficiency of 110.  That's more than 100.  That's <reaches for calcuator> 10% better than 100.  That's 110%.  That's pretty awesome.

Actually, that's unbelievable.

I consulted the manual again. The watch counts the number of doggy paddles it takes to swim 50m, and then adds this to the time it takes to swim 50m.  The aim of the game is to reduce this number as much as possible.  So 110 is not a %.   It's a number.  It's also known as the swimming golf number.  And the reason why it's called a golf number is that it is normally around 70-72 to start with.  There aren't that many golfers with a handicap of <reaches for calculator> 38 are there.

In other news.....  My new sofa arrived today.  This one is the mother of all sofas. It cost more than all my triathlon gear put together (I know my priorities), and I've been waiting for it for over three months.  It comes with a poofe with an accent at the end, apparently because the word "poof" is un-PC these days.  It also has a matching chair which you plug in (no, not like that - it's an electric recliner).  I was supposed to meet Inspirational Steve for coffee, but had to cancel because I couldn't tear myself away from the sofa.  Really.

Stay tuned until next week, when I will have taken part in my first "proper" 5k of the season.  I got out of breath going up the stairs today, so that should be fun.  CS is going to watch.  Well, actually he's also taking part, but he will finish so far ahead of me that he will still be able to watch me waddle most of it.  And point. And laugh.