stevej wrote:
Anton84 wrote:
Looks like he rode a 4:08. A few miles in the run his lead over 2nd is holding steady (8-10 min). Did he change up his strategy where he did not feel that he needs to overbike to get a huge advantage for the run?
I think people have this mis understanding of Starky and his abilities (I used to be one of them). I no longer think he over bikes or ever has from what I remember. He is never going to be fast runner like his competitors. On his best day, he can run 1:17-1:19 at a 70.3 (he’s done well at some races with some low 1:2x splits too). For almost every other triathlete out there (except for starky), those run splits are just not going to cut it in the pro ranks. I honesty believe that if he gave up 3-5 minutes on the bike in a 70.3, he would run just barely faster.... maybe 1-2 minutes. He’s a big dude... like 185 lbs big. He’s not going to run 1:10 anytime soon. On those races that he has “blown up”.... from what I can remember he’s mostly been injured for those races (not much run training) or he’s injured himself during the race (IMTX 2016). So he gets a bad rap on here for blowing up but I now feel it’s really unjustified as folks don’t have the full story or picture. He’s a faster triathlete the way he races.... not the way folks on here think he should.
This is exactly the misunderstanding that people have of Bjorn as well, and it holds true there. If he would have biked 5-10 min slower, he would not run faster by the same amount.
With Starky I agree he will never be a fast runner, but I think he also has overbiked a few times to his own abilities as well leading to walking the run.
Terrible Tuesday’s Triathlon