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This year, as you probably already know, USAT has implemented a weighting system for swim and run miles. Since those distances are harder to accumulate than bike miles, each swim mile is worth 10 miles and each run mile is worth 3. Simple. 

So which miles are shown on the Race-Tracker site? It depends. Weighted miles are shown in some places, actual miles in others. Here's the breakdown:

Home page total mileage display: actual miles. This is the widget that shows total miles to date for all clubs.

Widgets on the widgets page: actual miles. These are widgets you can embed in your own website with a few simple lines of code.

Standings pages: weighted miles. Since the standings are based on the weighted mileage, these are shown that way. 

Team results pop-up windows: weighted and actual miles. In the standings page, click any team name to see an athlete-by-athlete breakdown of swim, bike and run distances. Both actual and weighted miles are shown.

Statistics page: actual miles. The statistics page shows average and total miles by gender and age group. For the true tri geeks among us.

A quick post to answer some questions club reps have been asking about how to enter swim and run distances.

This year the swim and run distances will be weighted as outlined on the Rules page on the NCC site. Every swim mile will be worth 10 miles, and every run mile will be worth 3 miles. BIke miles remain the same, ie. they are un-weighted. 

The question is "should I enter the actual miles or the weighted miles when I enter distances for my club?"

The answer is enter the actual miles your athletes swim (or bike) or run. The weighted distances will be calculated automatically, you don't have to do that yourself. 

You may enter your swim miles in either yards or meters. The distances will be automatically weighted and converted to miles for the team standings.

The end of January is almost here, and you know what that means: another month of winter has been put behind us. For northern triathletes that is definitely something to celebrate, although it also means the beginning of February. Not exactly everyone's favorite month, is it? 

The end of January also means that T2 in the National Challenge Competition is coming up fast. Time to lift the hammer and let the bike legs cool down a little? Not likely. Given the results to date it seems more likely that all teams will be going full gas right to the line in order to secure the highest possible standing in the bike session. Of course there are no wobbly run legs to worry about when you don't have to go straight from the bike to the run, so feel free to keep the hammer down until midnight tonight. 

Again, we are keeping the session 'open' for mileage entries for 48 hours. That means club reps have until midnight on February 2 (Groundhog Day!) to enter all miles for the Bike Session. For anyone else checking the site, you'll see the current session status change from Bike to Run, but you will not see any run miles until February 3. 

For club reps, just a friendly reminder that only miles accumulated during January can be added to the Bike Session, and only miles accumulated during February can be added to the Run Session. 

See you after Groundhog Day, folks, and let's hope the wee beastie doesn't see his shadow this year. 

Wow. December 2009 will now go down as the most successful swim session in NCC history, with 88 clubs registered and over 260,000 miles covered. Great job to everyone. 

The Official Results will be coming soon from USA Triathlon, but for now here's an unofficial roundup of the results. 

Top Club: Tri Club of San Diego (T1) with 1017.28 swim miles. TCSD also led the pack with an overall distance  of 18,867.42 miles. 

Top Athlete: Kim Rodriquez of the Tri Club of San Diego powered through 136.61 miles in the water. 

Highest Average Swim Miles: Team Fraser Multisport of Fraser Michigan, with only 28 registered athletes, still managed to swim 559.45 miles for an average of 19.98 miles per athlete. 

Top Ten Clubs

1. San Diego T1 (Div 1)
2. F.A.S.T. (Div 2)
3. Jet City Tri (Div 3)
4. Alaska TC Red Biting Bunnies (Div 1)
5. Alaska TC White Wabid Wabbits (Div 1)
6. Buffalo TC
7. Team Fraser
8. DC Tri Club (Div 1)
9. Boulder TC (Div 3)
10. Northwest YMCA TC (Div 4)

The teams without divisions noted above have still not submitted a full roster to USAT, so club reps please make sure you submit your roster as soon as possible. Prizes are being awarded this year based on divisions, so don't miss out.

Next up is the bike session. The session just opened for entering results today and there are already several clubs in the mix. This should be interesting. 

If you haven't been on the forum yet, you will have missed a couple of recent questions asked by your fellow triathletes. There are replies on the forum but let's try to answer them here as well.

Q. What's the deal with the divisions? Are they based on the number of athletes competing, or the total  number of athletes in my club?

A. The second one. If your club has 1,000 members you'll be competing in Division 1 even if only 25 club members are smart enough, cool enough, and good-looking enough to sign up for the National Challenge Competition. If that's the case, get on the blower and convince those other slackers to sign up. It's a long winter, but it will go a lot quicker if they spend more time training and logging miles for your club and the NCC.

Q. How many yards in a mile? Seriously, I'm a swimmer and we sometimes count a mile as 1650 yards.

A. There are 1,760 yards in one mile. The NCC does not use 'pool miles' (something I had not heard of until today, so I guess I can't be much of a swimmer) so please make sure you count your miles correctly. 

Q. My club uses indoor trainers for winter cycling, but they don't have computers. Can we estimate our mileage based on time? 

A. Sorry, but that would not be a fair or accurate way to log bike miles since everyone rides at different power outputs and rates of speed. Also, there is no way to make sure that all stationary bikes and trainers are set up to provide the same resistance. Please ensure that if you are riding an indoor trainer your computer is accurately calibrated, and that you actually have a computer in the first place. 

Q. Shouldn't swim miles count for more than bike miles? They are harder to accumulate, after all, and warm weather clubs have an advantage since they can ride outdoors where it's easier to pile up the bike mileage.

A. In theory, the southern clubs have an edge. In practice, however... not so much. Take a look at the top 10 clubs right now (December 14) based on total mileage and you'll see two of three Alaska teams, one from Buffalo (where they get more snow than Alaska) one from Michigan and another from Boulder. That's not bad for clubs where the riding isn't so good in December.

Still have questions? Submit them here in the comments field, or better yet sign up for the forum and ask them there. Racetracker and USAT staff monitor both locations every day. 

Happy training, everyone.