What is age-grading used for?
Age grading can be used to compare performances across different ages and sexes; track your own performance over time; identify your best events; set goals for current and future years; and identify your best ever performance. You can also use age-grading to predict your race performance. Essentially, this equivalent to assuming that as the distance increases, your average speed will go down, in proportion to the speed of world records at those distances. This seems a surprisingly accurate assumption for many runners, provided they train for the distances concerned.
