I am more of a duathlon guy, but my favorite race used to be 5km road run, 35 km bike ride and 6 km trail run to finish. It lasted for 30 years. Then they were "forced" to take it to a ITU friendly format and it went to 2.5k, 20k, 5k. Still kind of fun, but not quite the same. The old version really seemed to be a great equalizer between runners and cyclists.

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Ian

This is, of course, sparked by the Mark Allen article. And only a chronic IM distance racer would consider a 5.5-6 hour race the break even point between speed and endurance racers!

They don't understand basic sports physiology that, any race beyond 15 min in length, is almost 100% about your endurance fitness! :)

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

I really would like to see more of the Nice distance on bike/run. Swim could be shorter or as long.

Basically,

2-4km swim, 120-130km bike, 30km run

The nice thing here is that it still allows a real long course specialist to be very competitive, something that's changing at the 70.3 distance. But it's not so long that you can only do it 2x a year and, that if something goes wrong, you are left burying yourself simply to finish or are faced with dropping out.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

As a fish, I'd like to see short format races with the segments broken down such that if you were equally competent in all three disciplines, you'd spend ~= time on all three. That would make a Sprint something like a 1.25k swim, 12.5k bike, 5k run, while and Oly would be 2.5k, 25k, 10k. I don't think this scales very well beyond that, though.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

Equal time races are a great suggestion, but somehow never catch on. It might be due to the question of whose equal times you select (world record holder or 50th percentile racer) or because it doesn't seem to equalize the "stress" of each event. You've got to really pick your distance carefully because two hours on a bike is generally considered not nearly as painful as two running or in the water.

Mark's theory from the article. But I think that once you have a series of races at any distance that stays around long enough, racers that click with that distance will start to swarm to it and you end up specialization like you are suggesting is happening at 70.3.

Random thought: In running, you see an aging progression in which athletes give up the shorter races for longer races as they lose top speed. I wonder if that exists in triathlon and whether you would see it cap out at a certain distance given the total duration of the races.

I like the equilateral IM triathlon idea:

12km(7.5mi) swim / 96.2km(60mi) bike / 42.2km(26.2mi) run

I think it's because most triathletes only tolerate the swim. Change the format to give the swim more influence on the final outcome, and interest will largely vaporize.

The current allocation of the three disciplines, time-wise, probably matches very closely the interest level in each discipline. I think triathletes are mostly "bike people."

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

In the UK we have one:
https://www.isomantri.com/

The Isoman Full 7 Miles (11.2 km) Swim, 61.3 Miles (98.7 km) Bike, 26.2 Miles (42.1 km) Run
The Isoman Half 3.5 Miles (5.6 km) Swim, 30.6 Miles (49.2 km) Bike, 13.1 Miles (21.1 km) Run
The Isoman Quarter 1.75 Miles (2.8 km) Swim, 15.3 Miles (24.5 km) Bike, 6.55 Miles (10.5 km) Run

Amazing!!!! Are there any races in North America like this??? Really would love to do a race like this!

I don't know if they're mostly "bike people" but it does seem they're NOT mostly "swim people", myself included.
However I agree with the earlier comment that equal time at each discipline does not equate to balanced stress by discipline. In a theoretically equal duration event (somewhat dependent on the relative paces they use to choose the distances) the swim would IMO take on disproportionate importance. Good swimmers would take disproportionately bigger leads than could be gained on the bike. I think the ITU distances are more balanced than IM but since my preferences are bike 1st, run 2nd and swim 3rd, I prefer the IM ratios. If I were to choose my own distances for a race I'd enjoy. I think I'd go with something like:

Swim: 1.5km
Cycle: 75km
Run: 15km
So about 80% the distance of a 70.3 race but with, similar swim emphasis and a little shifted from the run to the bike. You could have the same proportions in miles and a smidge longer with:
Swim: 1 mile
Cycle: 50 miles
Run: 10 miles

Until last year there was the aquaman triathlon in northern Vermont. They stopped having it, attendance was quite low.

Damn. My roundtrip bike commute (I only do it once a week) is longer than the full distance bike, but I think I would literally die if I tried to swim that far in one shot.

Just spotted these on the Isoman site (no dates yet):
http://us.isomantri.com/

For many years prior to Ironman's involvement in Muskoka, Canada they used to hold the Muskoka Chase in June with distances of 2k swim, 55k bike, 15k run. This was a unique event that sent the female pros off with a 15-20 min advantage and then the male pros would "chase" them to the finish. If I recall, the race has been won over the years by Simon Whitfield, Lisa Bentley, Craig Alexander, Samantha McGlone among others. To give you an idea about the strength of the world-class field that would show up, here's a partial list of some pros from 2005:

Simon Whitfield - 2000 Olympic Gold Medalist
Lisa Bentley - 8-time Ironman Champion
Samantha McGlone - 2004 Canadian Olympic Team
Luc Van Leirde - '96 and '99 Hawaii Ironman Champion
Luke Bell - 2nd 2004 Ironman Lake Placid
Jamie Cleveland - Ironman Florida Champion
Craig Alexander - 2004 Australian Long Course Champion
Bryan Rhodes - 2-time Ironman Champion

* Sam McGlone won in 2005, Simon Whitfield was 2nd.



I always felt the 2-55-15 distance worked really well for a stronger swim-runner: swim was long enough to separate the good from poor swimmers, bike was challenging in the Muskoka environment and run was more of an endurance effort.

@Kid

Man, I've made a lot of progress on my swimming from BBOP to even 'podiuming' my AG in the swim almost regularly, but I'm so habituated to triathlon distances that I had to pause and do the math for the Isoman Half - a 30.6 mile bike sounded ridiculously easy (like 3/10 on my personal difficulty scale), whereas a 3.5mile swim sounded really tough (like 7.5/10 on my personal difficulty scale).

But turns out they are all in fact probably in the 90min-range per leg, as claimed by the Isoman. Kinda crazy to figure that a 3.5mi swim will take me similar amounts of time as a 30 mile bike - I would barely even consider a 30mile Sat bike a 'real' weekend bike workout, whereas I'd mark down a 3.5mi (6160 yds) weekend swim as a big swim training day!

I'd sign up for this in a heartbeat just because it would shame me into really getting my weakest leg (swim) legit. I like to believe I work on my swim weakness hard, but gotta be honest that my swim training always lags my bike/run.

The question i've always wondered about is if the original iron swim distance had been 7 miles, would ironman have caught on the way it has??? For the purpose of my thought experiment, i assume that the first few years would've been somewhat similar, e.g. Julie Moss, or some other attractive girl, crawls to the finish line on national TV, which spurs a huge increase in interest. If the swim had been 7 miles from the beginning, would people have responded in the same numbers as they did from '83 onward, or would most have said, "Hell, I'll never be able to swim 7 miles..."??? Is a 7-mi swim all that different from 2.4 miles???

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

Clear obvious answer here - NOOOOOO.

IM would have died a brief, early, unknown death if it were a 7 mile swim to lead it in as the standard distance. I'm probably a good mainstream AG example, and in my nonswimming days, a 7 mile swim would = literally impossiblle (and still very, very hard for me now given I never swim that far!)

I think you're over-estimating the difficulty. When i did my first 10K swim in the pool, i had "only" been swimming 4000 yd/day, 6 days/wk, but yet with good pacing i was able to swim 11,000 yd (did it in a 25-yd pool) negative splitting every 1000, i.e. each 1000 was faster than the last one. So, if a person could do 6 x 4000 yd/day each week (and for you, i think you could sub 4 Vasa workouts and just do 2 actual swims per week), then he/she could swim 7 miles (12,320 yd) w/o too much problem. The 24,000 yd would take around 6-8 hours if swum as 6 x 4000 yd straight, aiming of course to swim each 1000 faster than the last.

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

We are lucky in Ontario to have two races, Rose City and Kingston that fall into the category of not quite a half distance Ironman but longer than an Olympic distance. Thank you John and Multisport Canada for having a variety of distances :) 2kish swim, 55-60km bike and 15kmish run I think.

I miss the half-Nice distance. I used to love Muskoka for that.

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I don't get why duathlons aren't more popular. We had a swim cancellation recently because of a shark and the amount of people high fiving and smiling was ridiculous...

The swim definitely needs to be lengthened for all distances. People can get away with being average/poor swimmers and still excel. Whereas if you suck at the bike or run, you're most likely not going to get near the podium. There are a few exceptions.

I think it's stupid that for a 70.3 pros and top AGers are riding for 2 hours and running for 80 minutes yet swimming for little more than 20mins. Ideally I reckon 3.8km swim, 90km bike and 21.1km run. That would encourage people to be strong across all disciplines. for a recent 70.3. top 5 for my AG, guys placed in the swim:

1st.18th
2nd. 34th
3rd. 45th
4th.11th
5th. 54th

No incentive to swim train

5 mile swim (2 hrs)
45 mile ride (2 hrs)
15 mile run (2 hrs)


Or a half or double version of that.

Training 8 hrs swimming alone is one thing , swimming 8 hrs.while training bike run for an ironman+ is another!