In all cases, there appears to an excess of results just before the minute-mark, and a dearth of results just after the minute mark. So what’s going on here? Imagine you were about to pick of the jump rope for your final set of 35 and the clock is at 19:15… if you *really push it* and go unbroken you could finish under 20! A time of 19:59 just sounds sooo much better than a time of 20:01. You know that; the coaches know that; the crowd knows that...and so my theory is that bubble-athletes just dig a little deeper in the final seconds to get across the line under the critical mark.

This has at least one practical implication that comes to mind: Suppose you pick the jump rope for the last time and see that the clock is at 19:50. You know you won’t finish under 20, maybe you’re disappointed, but you gut through the final set and collapse knowing you tried your best... but did you really try your best? Statistically, people on the bubble found another gear in the final seconds, even though they were just as wiped out as everyone else. The reality is, probably a lot of people had another gear that they could have reached if they found themselves on the cusp of breaking their goal. Knowing that, my take-away is: don’t let yourself get discouraged when you have a bad day or don’t beat the time you wanted on a WOD - just find that extra gear whether you’re about to finish first or last. And if you don’t think you have an extra gear - think again!