#What the number means
Age-grading compares your time to the world best for your exact age, not to the 25-year-olds at the front. 100% would be the age-world-record. The bands are simple:
| 90%+ | World class | You should be on a podium somewhere international. |
| 80–90% | National class | Fast enough that strangers ask what your secret is. |
| 70–80% | Regional class | Sharp end of the local race. A genuinely strong athlete. |
| 60–70% | Local class | Solidly competitive — the club-runner engine room. |
| <60% | Building | Where every rebuild starts. The chart only cares about direction. |
The open-class equivalent flips the same math around: it's the time your effort is worth at peak age. It's the fairest answer to the question every masters athlete secretly asks —"am I actually still getting better?" With age-grading, you can beat your 40-year-old self on a slower watch time. That's the whole game.
Chase the percentage, not the clock. David's 10K watch-time will never touch his 1987 self — but his age-graded score can, and that's the honest scoreboard. Targets in the rebuild are set in age-graded percent for exactly this reason.
RULE: PRs ARE MEASURED IN PERCENT NOW. THE WATCH IS JUST WEATHER.