I forgot to mention that I am a newbie and don't know much about the backrounds of the past or present athletes in triathlon.

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IMHO, If you are a rockstar runner and get competitive on the bike and are competent on the swim then you will do AWESOME in the half and full IM distances. To be great at sprints and or Olys you pretty much have to be great at everything.

Two names come to mind...Ryan Grote and Darren Shearer. Grote was a pretty good distance runner out of NJ. I believe he was around 2:15 for the marathon (could be a little off on that) and sub 50 for 10 miles. He did Placid a few years back. I think he did ok. Shearer was a top steeplechaser and 1500 meter runner. Ran the trials. I also believe he went around 3:55 for the mile. He's racing out of Florida. He's pretty competitive. You can google to find their results.

pat

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Pat Dwyer
@pdwyer99

A friend of mine is a borderline elite runner and last year was her first for doing Tris. She did IM Wisconsin and got second in her A/G and got a Kona slot. She didn't have a very fast avg on the bike (high 17/ low 18) but came back with a 3:30 marathon!

Plus her first HIM with only a 50 mile ride before it she got 3rd female behind a pro and 5 seconds behind the 2nd place woman. So, rockstar runners have an advantage, IMO

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I would think they could do well as long as they were conservative enough in their swim and bike splits to come into the run fresh.

But with the top male pros and AGers doing sub 3 marathons and sub 1:25 halfs, it would be hard to make up any real deficit if the runner had a bad swim or bike.

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Rick, "Retired" hobbyist athlete
Trying to come back slowly from acute A-Fib

I used to be a decently fast runner (31:00 10k, 8:30 track 3k, high 14s track 5k) and got into triathlons when I graduated from university and didn't have any team to run for anymore. In my first season of triathlon I was usually in the high 32 -low 33 min range for 10k in a tri. My biking and swimming was terribly slow though. I did my first half in my second season and ran 1:18 after a bike split around 2:45. Now I'm faster on the swim and bike and will run around 1:20-1:22 depending on the course if I'm in a half. I'm still trying to figure out how to keep everything together to use my run strength fully in an IM. I went 3:12 at IMFL in 2003 which is my fastest IM split and was just off that with a 3:15 at Kona in 2004 but I think that I should be able to get much closer to 3 hours .......and likely was in shape to run faster at Kona in 2004 if those winds on the bike hadn't kept me out there for so damn long :). Overall my fastest half is 4:20 and fastest IM is 9:27.

If I were in charge of picking a batch of unproven folks and forming a long-course team, I'd pick proven runners (who can maybe swim a little) with my first-round draft picks. Bike power (at the levels required to be competitive in IM) is highly trainable, and in a short amount of time. Running isn't.

One of the keys you might want to add here is "heavier built runners". You don't want any 130lb runner weaklings like myself. There is a typical body build here that nearly removes all hope of ever becoming decent swimers; too much weight density in the legs and no upper body strength. We can be trained as cyclists and with work will eventually excel, but I've not yet met someone my size with my running background that made much of a swimmer.

HOWEVER, the great equalizer that is the wetsuit makes a magnificent difference. The only problem is that some races don't allow them :-)

Chris

True enough. I've said before, give me a 29' 10k guy who weighs at least 150 and I'll give you long course AG winner in two years. ;-)

I won't say that I was particularly suited to the longer distances in running, but I was high-15s for 5K, and had a half-mary PR of 1:06. My half-IM time was 4:44 and change, and in that I wasn't trying to gun it the whole way.

Agreed, though -- some one who already has the running legs and can get competent on the bike and in the water will do well.

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Crap, that's damned near the same pace :-)

Chris

I was a serious runner (no laughing matter) with PRs of 15:50 5k, 33:30 10k, 1:14 21k, 2:40 marathon (all of these run at altitude of 6000ft, so a bit faster at sea level).
Have never done a half or IM though, so it's hard to say..
When I was running well, cycled so slowly that the run didn't matter, 17m 5k didn't help after a pedestrian bike leg.. took me several years to get the bike up to reasonable levels.
Generally speaking it's best to begin as a swimmer who can run. I can't think of any world-class triathletes that started as runners.

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There has been some interesting information on this thread thus far. Thanks for taking the time.

Doesn't look like there have been too many runners making big splashes in the sport. Interesting.

The reason I asked the questions about past runners is because I am obviously a runner, hence the name, and just wanted some benchmarks for the half/full to compare myself to in the upcoming years.

Haven't run a 10k in 5 years but my best training has certainly been since that time (75MPW than to 120MPW about 2 months ago) and it was low 29:20's than. My weight is 170 (6 foot 1) so I stand out (weight-wise) on the marathon starting line .

I have no idea what I will be able to do and I don't really care to guess. As of right now, I am happy training and picking up cycling and as of tomorrow, swimming. As long as it is fun I will keep pushing myself to new fitness levels.

Got the bike and bike fit from Tom at Bikesport. Just need to make sure I get my swimming form down as good as possible.

Nice forum and nice people, a bit different from Letsrun to say the least.

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"Generally speaking it's best to begin as a swimmer who can run. I can't think of any world-class triathletes that started as runners."

I think that finding the swimmers that are not too big and powerful is the key to finding a fast triathlete. I used to coach a girl at my school that was a pretty good swimmer regionally but not quite fast enough to be a top provincial calibre swimmer. She was a shorter and a lot thinner than most of the really fast swimmers that were her age. When track season came, I just gave her "fine tuning" track sessions a couple of times each week and one easy run to go along with her 15 hours of swim club workouts. She placed 5th in the provincial championships 3000m that year in 10:21 as a 15 year old.

One interesting observation with respect to running form and swimming form (a little off topic from the original thread). When I swim, people that know swimming always comment that I should try to improve my body roll (constant rotation while running is, of course a bad thing that I learned not to do for many years). When I watch good swimmers take up running (I've coached a few), they have the opposite problem of trying not to curl their arms up in front of their chests and rotate their bodies when they run.

exactly how good of a swimmer are you talking about? I know someone who is about 5'7 and 130 lbs who consistently does 18:xx+ in OD swims and his main sport is running.

FYI... the run course record at IMC, 2:38, is still held by a serious runner (open marathon of 2:20?), who got fit enough at swimming and cycling.
Final time was low 9 hours I think.

Almost everyone has much more potential than they think. You happen to have a particularly exceptional dose of potential. :-)

Keep swimming and biking!

The bike is going to be a challenge for most guys weighing 130 pounds. I've found that the key for most of the lighter weight men on the bike is a low, very aerodynamic bike position.

I'm 5' 11" and 130lbs. That's the kind of skinny I am talking.

Additionally, when I say runner, I mean 31-33 minute 10k.

Chris

well apart from the height, 31-33min is about right for my friend.

i know. i'm about the same height and weight too. Absolutely hate that all you big guys can cruise at 25mph on a flat road so easily...

I'm pretty sure Scott Tinley came from a "serious" running background. I think he was a little over 30 minutes for a 10-k way back in the day.

He's one of the "Big Four" of triathlon since you may not know.

I suppose is depends on what you consider training "seriously", but for me I started seriously last year w/12 hrs per week. I ran 32's over 10k (not exactly blazing, but I got injured a lot) and have done 1/2 IM's in a bit under 4:30. The key is getting enough mileage in on the bike so that you can cruise on the run. I fried myself in my first 1/2 IM on the bike and cramped BIG time on the run. Oh, and not being fried after swimming is good too. With the training volume that this forum considers serious, who knows? ;)

That IMC course record is Colin Dignum. I used to race him back in my high school and university days. He was a pretty fast guy (low 14s for 5k and around 30 min 10k then but hadn't done any marathons back when I raced him). I heard that when he set that record he spent a good deal of time in T2 and actually got a short massage or soaked his legs in the hot tub or something crazy like that to loosen up after the bike then went out and smoked the run ..... could a "tri-urban" legend though.