Submitted! Looking forward to seeing the results. Best of luck!

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KOM Cycling

Survey questions answered!

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Next races on the schedule: none at the moment

Thanks, Agl3712! I will definitely share the results when I gather and analyze all the data!

Thanks, Alex! Good luck with the marathon tomorrow!

An interesting study would be if people who use these sport watch functions are any faster than people who just use an ordinary watch.

Are you going to look at this?

Probably those that use the gadgets will be the more serious athletes so I would expect they are faster but it would be interesting to see if using the various metrics do enable better more effective training.

That's a great idea, Trev. I'm not looking at that for this study, but that might be next on my list!

I think you're right that more serious amateur triathletes will be wearing the multisport watches. It may be difficult to measure if users of the multisport watches actually use these metrics, though. Maybe having a question asking if they use the watch to track or improve any of those variables?

Personally, I have the Garmin 935, but there is so much data that the watch provides, that I'm not sure what is important to pay attention to. That's part of the reason why I started this study.

I know if you look at professionals in the sport, there are very few, if any, Olympic distance pros who wear a watch (during a race at least). In this case, these men and women are the most serious, but they don't wear any watches- multisport or otherwise. In that case, I might have to look at the long-course racers because even those who compete at the highest level are likely to wear a watch.

Anyway, I'm just thinking out loud. Thanks again and have a great day!

Good point, long course is a big topic of interest and you're right they do a lot of research on long course triathletes. I guess I am just disappointed I cannot participate.

On a separate note how long will you be collecting data? Im looking around for possible olympic races to see if I can help out still.

Next time, dcolv!

For this study, I'll be collecting data probably for the next month or so. Any chance you'll be able to find a race to do before the end of the year? I'm not sure about the rest of the country, but triathlon season is finished here in Michigan!

So most pro triathletes race by feel?

Exactly. At least in the Olympic distance. I don't know that I've ever seen or heard of a pro wearing a watch during an Olympic distance race to see what their stats are. They have to worry about getting with the pack and if they miss the pack because they're looking at their watch or because they're not hitting a certain power, cadence, stride length, etc., that wouldn't be good haha.

For most of us, we're racing the non-draft legal, so we are racing our own race instead of trying to make a draft pack and key off others. This allows us to race our own race a little more and pay attention to these stats the watch gives. That's partly why I'm limiting my current study to non-professionals. It might be interesting to look at training numbers for pros vs. amateurs if the pros use these watches in training, though.

Long-course is a different story because even the pros race non-draft legal. Most of them have power meters on the bike that measure power, cadence, etc. and then wear a watch on for the run. You also have to pace yourself a little more over the course of 4-9 hours of long-course as opposed to the ~2 for an Olympic (for pros, anyway). So hitting those power numbers or pace and cadence are going to be a little more important.

There is a chance I might be able to find one before the end of the year that I could travel to since I am in school right now. But at the moment I am just trying to survive the mayhem of assignments.

Any races down south you could suggest?

Florida has a few! Might be a nice Christmas break destination after school is finished :)

I’ll have to check and see what I can find in Florida then! Does the race have to be officially sanctioned by usat?

Good question, dcolv. The race does not have to be sanctioned by USAT. It can be any Olympic distance tri whether it's USAT sanctioned or not. I know some people have submitted data from races in Europe (which obviously aren't sanctioned by USAT) and those qualify as well! So if you want to go to Europe to race, you could always do that :P Might be easier to get down to Florida and race, though!

Thats good to know, I was concerned it would be limiting if the race had to be USAT sanctioned. I think that is pretty awesome that you had athletes submit data from races in Europe! Haha I don't know if I can swing a race in Europe, but I might be able to figure something out for Florida.

I have a Garmin 920 that collects all the data/race metrics. I do wear a heart rate monitor, is that one of the variables you are looking at?

So, heart rate isn't something that I'm looking at for this study. Although, I would like to look at that in future studies! I think it would be interesting to see how HR on the bike influences HR for the run and the subsequent running performance. It would also be cool to see what an athlete's HR does during transitions. Are faster athletes able to get their HR down and "reset", so to speak? Or does a higher HR during the transition mean the athlete is pushing themselves more and likely to go faster? Fun stuff!

Thanks to everyone who has taken my survey so far. I only need about 10 more people to take the survey so if you haven't done so yet, please do! Also, if you know anyone who raced an Olympic distance tri in the last year, pass the message along.

Thanks!

This is an awesome idea!

Just as an fyi regarding your above comment, I raced several of the OLY distance Escape Series pro events this past year organized by IMG and Premier Event Management. At Des Moines, just by luck, I was racked two down from Javi Gomez who was doing the event as a "tune up" for Chattanooga. I can tell you the vast majority of pros during this event series, including Javi, had their Garmins on their bikes for the bike and wore them on their wrist for the run.

Thanks, Michael. I guess I meant triathletes who compete in the ITU pro race circuit. They might have a computer on the bike to track power, but I've never seen any of them wear a watch in any of the disciplines for an ITU race. If they do, I'd love to see some of those numbers!

That's pretty cool you were racked right next to Javi, too! And if he did wear a watch during the Escape Des Moines, maybe I need to recruit him for my study! ;)