Do you run Age Group or competitive heats in obstacle course races? Do you ever look around and stack yourself up against your competitors race day morning? Do you get a little scared thinking that a lot of these other racers might be in your Age Group?

We wanted to find some information out. And that is. Which Age Groups are the most competitive out there racing on course?

Well. The data has been retrieved and analyzed. And here the findings.

Findings Summary

The following analysis is of the Top 20 men and Top 20 women finishers from Sprint, Super, Beast and Ultra distances in the United States between Q4 2023 – Q3 2024. By examining the Age Group distribution among top performers, we aim to identify the most competitive and the strongest Age Groups in Spartan races.

Competitive meaning: The difficulty level of placing Top 3 or getting an Age Group podium due to how many other people in an Age Group are making it into that Top 20.
Strongest meaning: Within the Top 20, seeing what the average placement is for each Age Group.

Key findings include:

• The most competitive Age Groups overall, between men and women, and by race types,
• The strongest Age Group overall, between men and women, and by race types, and
• Other relevant findings that can be discovered within the data.

The Data

The goals of the dataset to be analyzed included:

• Pulling data from popular race venues within the United States over a 1 year period (Q4 2023 – Q3-2024).
• Including 10 datasets or race venues from each race type among standard venues (not National Series)
• Including 6 datasets from the Elite & Age Group National Series occurring in 2024. (Jacksonville, Utah & Big Bear).
• Pulling a mix of race venues from all across the United States and among different parts of the year.
• Overlapping race types would be minimal and only done with race venues that are highly popular and attended.

Race venues and race types used in the dataset include:

• SPRINT: 2023: Nashville & Michigan. 2024: Las Vegas, San Diego, Killington, Austin, Charlotte, Washington DC, Palmerton & TriState NY.
• SUPER: 2023: Central FL & Newberry. 2024: SoCal, West Virginia, Atlanta, New Jersey, Austin, Houston, New England & Palmerton.
• BEAST: 2023: Central FL & San Luis Obispo. 2024: Houston, Atlanta, Fayetteville, New Jersey, West Virginia, Houston, Montana, Killington & SoCal.
• ULTRA: 2023: Dallas & Newberry. 2024: New Jersey, Fayetteville, Cincinnati, Montana, Colorado Springs, Killington, Hawaii & San Jose.
• National Series: 2024: Jacksonville, Big Bear & Utah.

Pulling data from 10 races of each race type and the National Series, of the top 20 men and women resulted in a dataset of 1,840 entries.

Note: The 2023 race year included Elite and Age Group competitive heats. These were combined to pull the top 20 as to match the 2024 standards of having only Competitive heats.
Note: Within some Ultra distance races, there were not a Top 20 in the women’s field. In such cases, the Open wave was reviewed on times to reflect the Top 20 overall for the day.
Note: For the National Series Elite & Age Group races. If there were not 20 men or women participants, or if Age Group participants had a better time than the Elite side, the Top 20 would be adjusted to reflect the Top 20 overall.

The Most Competitive Age Group

When looking at the most competitive. We want to uncover which Age Group is going to have the hardest time achieving a Top 3 or Age Group podium based on how many others in the same Age Group are within that Top 20.

After reviewing the data, these are the findings:

The 35-39 year olds are the most popular Age Group that show up in the Top 20 overall.

Not that they are an outlier. As 30–34-year-olds are close behind and 40-44 just behind them.

There are 9 Age Groups listed here and those Top 3 make up over 60% of the total.

Note: the 14-17 Age Group was grouped into the 18-24 as there were very few in the dataset.

What’s also interesting here is that the most popular to least popular is exactly the same across men and women as we see in the charts.

The Strongest Age Group

We saw above which Age Groups are most popular in that Top 20 Overall at Spartan race venues.

But what about which Age Group is the strongest?

Just because the 35-39 year olds have the most participants that show up in the Top 20, it may not necessarily mean they are the strongest overall in the field.

To uncover this, we are going to take the average placement that Age Groups are receiving within the Top 20.

And this one was a surprise. See below.

Shown above is the average placement. Overall, Men’s and Women’s.

And the winner is.
The 25-29 Age Group.

Although we are only seeing 25-29 year olds in the Top 20 roughly 13% of the time, when they do show up in the Top 20, they tend to have better placements than all other Age Groups, for Men and Women.

Breaking it down further. Check out this chart below showing these results by Race Distance.

As shown, the 25-29 year olds are dominating among all race distances. With the 30-34 year olds in a close second with those shorter distances and 35-39 year olds in a close second in the longer distances.

So, 25-29 year olds are the strongest competitors.
Right?

Well, sort of.

Mark Twain once said, “There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics”.

Meaning. Stats can be messed with in so many ways and made to prove or disprove arguments.

So, what happens if we adjust the way we view this.

The above Stats are for the Top 20 Men and Women, where 25-29 year olds place the best.
What if we look at just the Top 3 overall, then Top 5, then Top 10. See those below.

Were we able to change who the Strongest Age Group is?
A little bit.

When looking at the average placement for the Top 3 overall, we now see that the 30-34 year olds have the strongest record. Followed by 25-29 and then the 40-44 crowd.

And when we add to the list and see a Top 5 overall, these stats remain the same.

But. It’s when we get to the Top 10 that the 25-29 year olds start to shine and outpace the rest of the pack.

So let’s restate who the winner is here.

And now the winner is.
The 25-29 & 30-34 Age Group.

Want to dive in more?!?!
Let’s do it.
One more finding we’ll point out.

Reviewing charts, pivot tables and graphs in all sorts of different ways. There was one more stat that came up that was interesting.

And that was, the strongest Age Group for Men in the Ultra distance.

The 40-44 Age Group is twice as likely to achieve a Top 3 overall in the Spartan Ultra’s versus all the other Age Groups.

Final Summary

If you didn’t make it through all these numbers and just want the quick and dirty of it.
Here’s your summary.

• The most competitive Age Group in Spartan race venues is 35-39 year olds. Followed closely by 30-34 and 40-44, and
• This is the same among Men and Women racers.
• The strongest Age Group are 25-29 year olds when reviewing the Top 20. Or 30-34 year olds when we view Top 3 or Top 5 overall.
• And, if we focus in on the Ultra distance. It’s the 40-44 year olds who hold the edge well in the Top 3 spots.

What are your thoughts?
Is there anything within this data that you think would be interesting to pull out?