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Re: "i can tell by his stride he is a triathlete" [Allan]
Allan wrote:
The original post said that the moron stated that he could tell the triathlete by his "stride" so M-dot tats, gps, 1 piece tri suits etc should not factor into the identification process ...

As someone who began competitive running at age 11 and ran varsity track and xc through university before becoming a triathlete 27 years ago (also a high school track/xc coach for 24 years), I will call BS and here is my 2 cents on this silly statement ....

Go to any 10k or marathon and look at the FOP runners vs. middle or BOP and you will see a huge difference in body types and stride lengths and techniques. However, you also see that among the FOP runners too. Look at Brownlee up on his toes vs any FOP guy in your local 10k ...... there are a lot of variations for fast running form. Look up a video of Gabrselassie and see a guy who runs like a machine but over pronates in a big way (the stride experts wouldn't like that but it sure worked well for him!). Last weekend I was watching a track meet streaming from Boston University and the variety of stride differences that I saw in 12 heats of the women's mile and 4 of the women's 3k was huge. These were all pretty fast ladies and I know that at least one of them is also a triathlete ..... I wonder if the guy who made the original statement could have identified her :) I have seen a lot of people at road races who are big and muscular and are not triathletes and they don't always have the smoothest form but run all the time. A guy who lives up the road from me and is his late 60s runs by my house regularly and has a very short, choppy stride .... has more to do with age and flexibility than whether he is a triathlete. My stride changes throughout the year due to footing in slippery winter days and how often I am hitting the track for quality speed sessions so maybe I would really confuse this observer.

One thing I've noticed with coaching swimmers who become track runners is that they tend to rotate their bodies too much when they run and carry their arms tucked up in front of them to facilitate this so maybe that is one sign ..... on a related note, a lot of runners turned triathlete-swimmers like me get told that we swim too "flat" and need to rotate much much more .... it is tough to change what comes naturally based on your athletic background!


OK, OK....which one of these guys is a real runner. No GPS no Mdot tat, no on the spot jogging at the crosswalk. The runner on the right appears to have the longest stride length and does not look like he's about to get a sunburn where his heart rate monitor strap is either


Last edited by: devashish_paul: Jan 31, 17 18:37

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