I'm a fan of options and having tris that are say approximately equal time per leg (or more balanced than now) would be great.

If we limit the discussion to long distance stuff, (ironman I hear you say) then I for one would love a longer swim an shorter bike.

Swimming 10km is hard, simply because we don't train for it. Ironman, even as it's currently done, is hard, and requires training. If the IM swim was 10km, some people would drop out of the sport and some new ones would come aboard.

None of us do IM, or any tri because it's easy, we do it because it's hard and we feel great when we succeed at it (success by our own measure). If the swim was 10km then it would be a little bit harder, and the bike might be shorter so we're not out there more than all day :-)

Over the years there have been all manner of variations on the tri theme and they have mostly fallen by the wayside for one reason or another. We have super sprint, sprint, Oly's half's and IM's. All are similar-ish proportions and for me at least, that is disappointing.

As a proportionally better swimmer than cyclist or runner, I'd certainly give a tri with more equal splits a go. But that's just me

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

Cost/Availability of pools for training aside, there is also the question of the skill level required.

I can go out and bike/run a ton and get (at least a little) better at biking and running.
Based on most of the swim threads here, if you haven't been swimming since you were 2, you'll need some kind of professional (read expensive) help to even become a marginal swimmer.

Based on that, I think the proportions are reasonable. "What can a mildly obsessed adult with no strong background in any of the disciplines accomplish?"

I've heard this argument many times before. Having watched prob 5000 guys/girls swim as adults, or try to swim, i think it is a matter of natural aptitude, i.e. some peeps just pick it up with ease, even at age 30 or 40 while others struggle for years and never quite catch on. Some peeps can just watch a good swimmer and imitate him/her and within a few weeks they're doing pretty decently, whereas most can not do this. I'm not aware that U.S. Masters Swimming keeps any records on how many of their swimmers swam growing up but based on observations at meets i'd say around 50-60%, which is a lot but that still means that many 1000s learned to swim as adults and actually became competitive. I can think of at least 10 guys i know personally in my local area plus there are quite a few here on this forum. I hate to say it but i think the reason so many runners and cyclists struggle with swimming is simply a lack of aptitude for the sport. Swimming requires good ability to be able to visualize what your arms and legs are doing even if you can't see them, and ability to correct what you're doing wrong when someone points out a flaw in your stroke; swimming requires a good "feel for the water", i.e. the ability to be able to "feel" when you're really grabbing the water vs when you're not; swimming requires a fair degree of upper body strength and endurance; swimming requires excellent flexibility in your shoulders and it is helpful to have excellent flex in your hips, knees, and ankles; swimming requires the ability to put your head underwater without panicking; and last but not least, swimming requires a good sense of rhythm as virtually all good swimmers have a very rhythmic, well-timed stroke. It appears that only maybe 10 of the population as a whole has most of these traits and hence can learn to swim easily.

One other point: in the need for natural talent, swimming is not that different from running, as very few people are naturally gifted runners. Cycling possibly requires less talent to be respectable at, but still obv natural talent in cycling is required to ride at a high level. In summary, natural talent is needed in all three. Also, regarding the need to pay someone to coach you, sure, you might need to take 3-6 lessons at $20-$50/ lesson to get the basics down, but after that, you could prob continue to improve just from asking good swimmers to help you. I've never met a good swimmer unwilling to help out a beginner/intermediate swimmer.

Of course, in my saying that you should be able to "get the basics down" in just 6 lessons, i'm ass-u-ming that you will catch on fairly quickly, which obv not the case with the majority of peeps. OTOH, I fully believe that, given sufficient dedication, anyone under age 70 can learn to swim "decently", as in able to hold say 1:45 per 100 yd for 1000 yd.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

The bike leg is way too easy.

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Nanoo Nanoo

>I guess I'm just weird then b/c I truly do enjoy my swim workouts.<

Me too. I'd much rather swim, particularly ows, than ride. In fact, I havn't been on my bikes in 18 months- more time to swim and run

Same here, have not been on a bike inside or out, since Feb 2014. I prefer the pool to OW though b/c of the generally smoother water, plus the ability to time myself for set distances of each stroke, plus no worries about boats running over me, or snakes, etc. It is just very easy to drive 15 min to the pool and hop in, and then swim, kick, pull all four strokes, with paddles and/or fins if i feel like it. So many diff ways to swim, vs really only one way to run and bike. Assuming a person kicks a fair amount, swimming is truly a full-body workout. Also, i swim in an outdoor pool 9 mon/yr which is nice.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I am a relatively decent swimmer, a ok to mediocre cyclist and a piss poor runner

In any Ironman, if i was given the option after the bike between running a marathon or swimming another 2.4 miles, I wouldn't even hesitate to get back into the water.

In fact if we had the option to mix/match... I suspect Ironman would suddenly turn into a 3 x 2.4 mile swims.

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I do the same thing as them, just slower

Ha, nice way to look at it!!! I think the 3 x 2.4 might well happen for many if we could "mix and match" but i suspect that those swimming slower than a certain pace would not want to have to 3-peat the swim. I'd guess the pace at around 1:45-ish for the 2.4 mi swim, i.e. 105 min/38 x 100 m = 2:46 per 100 m. People swimming that slowly (or slower since the cut-off is 2:20) might not want to do it twice, let alone 3 times.

Actually, this gives me an idea for a new thread that might further elucidate the obvious:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Sound like me.

When i first started racing i would swim <1:30/100m and run well over 25min for 5k off the bike, I always got mowed down by this guy who could run well under 20min but could barely stay afloat.

I like racing sprint and Olympic for the balance, I doubt i'll ever be a good runner even though I'm not a big guy, I'm just shit at it.

Interesting thread. Rather than a long post, a couple of key takeaways/theses:

1) Swim most technical; difficult to get there by purely training endurance (classic xc skiing is similar). Base levels/speed for athletes with no training tend to differ massively vs cycling. Not sure what an IM Swim time is you can force to get to training for years. Maybe 65min?

2) WTC as a business tries to make the swims easier to get more customers, as it has a certain scare element deterring first timers

3) Flat bike courses and associated (legal and illegal) drafting (on pro/KQ level) is the bigger worry. Makes IM's becoming pure run races subject you can "hold the group" over the first 2 disciplines with a base fitness (akin to ITU)

4) Swim training is extremely healthy for your body and complementary if added to cycling/running. It's also key for all the narcissits in our sport justifying strong upper bodies.

5) Swimming lacks a standalone popular race culture (at least when comparing participant numbers versus running and cycling). You dont want to move tri in that corner and keep this a smaller part you can "get over" also if you dont have a personal history of swim races done.

I guess there is a good reasons why things have stayed where they are and other formats (whether its Isoman, ITU long distance or Duathlons) have continued to be more niche.

So all good the way it is, isnt it?

Cheers
Roberto

I suppose it is OK the way it is:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

You are basically the equivalent of a kicker in football complaining that it isn't fair that FGs are only 3 pts when TDs are 6.

Without trawling the 5 pages, has anyone mentioned the original Nice Triathlon dist? 4/120/30 seems like a better spread for a long dist event. Shame it's pretty much died apart from the ITU LD Worlds, which has limited kudos.

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29 years and counting

Not really. The kicker doesn't compete in isolation.
If you said it was equivalent to a team with a really good kicker making this complaint then it would be a much more accurate but not terribly useful analogy.

Why does anyone need a justification for a strong upper body and what is narcissistic about strong upper bodies? Are you talking about triathletes with aspirations to body building or people who want a balanced healthy body?

Worse - more like the punter.

What you do kinda/sorta matters, but almost never actually counts in the final score, unless you screw it up royally.

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float , hammer , and jog

That for me would be the perfect distance.

I was a swim team swimmer as a kid through HS and still keep a bit of a sharp edge 40 years later with regular swimming and masters workouts - so I have thought about this some. I would like a race tuned to ME.

Then I reflected back to the Boulder Stroke & Stride series which is a weekly 'training race' at the res with a 750M / 1500M swim option, followed by a 5K run. For me that works out to about 25 minutes in each discipline, give or take a few minutes... hard to argue that a race that is 50% swim doesn't play to my 'strength'.

The results are pretty similar to my Tri's - upper MOP, never threatening the podium.

Another data point I laughed at was at IM Madison in 2011 - looking at the detailed race splits, my race position at T1 was the identical race position at the finish. I was passed by about 100 people on the bike and passed exactly as many back on the run (in the overall race) so my swim was a perfect predictor of my overall result.

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" I take my gear out of my car and put my bike together. Tourists and locals are watching from sidewalk cafes. Non-racers. The emptiness of of their lives shocks me. "
(opening lines from Tim Krabbe's The Rider , 1978

Here's my Ironman: 5k swim, 30k bike, 30k run. :)

That's roughly the time for a half...so 10k, 60k, 60k would be a full...sounds like fun!!

I meant 50k run

While this similarity in finish place may hold for you, I believe that for the majority of peeps, a longer swim would cause a diff result, either better or worse than the conventional IM distance.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Since when is strength or muscle size critical to swimming fast? One may be the result of the other, but it's not a requirement. The best swimmers do had a certain build.

One of if not the fastest amateur swimming at IMWI 2 years ago was a guy I ran into on the street. Probably 30lbs overweight, unassuming, though tall with broad shoulders. I think he finished in about 13 hours, but swam I think a 50:xx. Apparently he swam at the Olympic trials for the 1500M in college. By the 2nd turn he had to have been a over a 1/4 mile ahead of me already... a dot on the horizon.

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TrainingBible Coaching
http://www.trainingbible.com

The typical muscular swimmer body is, I presume, more a characteristic of short distance pool swimmers rather than long distance OW swimmers? Would that be correct or no?
Regardless, I never said strength or muscle size were critical to swimming fast. My comment was purely in response to teambernina's remark about narcissism.