ericmulk wrote:
HendrikMDik wrote:
Jctriguy wrote:
ericmulk wrote:
HendrikMDik wrote:
We could keep this post alive on the first page indefinitely if we keep having random chats here... :-)
Ya, we could and i plan to keep it alive since i still think that, just conceptually, adding such different types of miles has little to no meaning.
This is the fundamental problem with this thread. Who said that 140.6/70.3 have to have a meaning? 70.3 was started as a way to avoid calling or a 'half'. Beginning and end of story. It is a marketing slogan built by a company. In that sense, it means that you are racing a half distance ironman.
That's not the problem with this thread. That's the great thing about this thread. It does have meaning.
Maybe as Eric suggests, the numbers themselves don't have much meaning. But that doesn't stop them from having some kind of meaning to the people that chase them. And a lot of us do.
Whether you're chasing 'Ironman' and buy into the M-Dot tattoo franchise, or you're chasing some kind of a medal (podium, finishers) or you're a pro and in it for the huge gains. Or maybe you're a new dad and it's your way of stealing time to do something selfish because the rest of your life is dedicated to raising a family.
There is meaning in those numbers. It's not a Da Vinci Code kinda meaning. At least not that I'm aware... But to have so many of us dedicating huge parts of our lives in chasing it, there must be some kind of meaning in it.
A/C - to give up on this thread now would be to give in to the idea that there is nothing in all of these hours. To accept that, like Eric suggests, all of these early mornings and painful steps are worthless. And I refuse to do that. Until this thread has a 140.6 pages. It has to keep on going.
I have never said that there is no "meaning" in the 70.3/140.6 races but rather
simply that adding apples, grapes, and watermelons doesn't really make much sense. But, regardless of this somewhat pedantic issue, any race has meaning if you choose to make it so. You could focus on improving your 5000 m run time on the track, or your 1500 m swim time in the pool, or your 40K bike time in a certified, all-out time trial. All of these have meaning and require huge amounts of time investment to do your very best. Top swimmers and cyclists train just as many hours as top triathletes. Also, if you compete on a certified track, pool, or bike course, you know with certainty that you have improved, whereas IM courses vary in their actual length of the 3 disciplines, even year-to-year on the same course can be diff due to swim course measurement issues, and run/bike course changes due to traffic, road construction, etc.
In summary, there is no real reason to say that a 70.3 or 140.6 has "more meaning" than a well-raced shorter race that you've trained really hard for.
This last line feels rings true. But because I am a slowtwitch 'athlete', and by definition am prefer longer endurance races rather than 100m sprints, my opening post should have been:
No, I don't "think that 70.3 and 140.6 are kind of absurd, since adding miles of swimming, miles of cycling, to miles of running is kind of ridiculous," my answer to the opening question is a simple, No. And my reasoning is, that I learnt to count at a very young age, and one of the first things I did learn, was how to add.
Adding 1 apple, plus 1 grape, and 1 watermelon, gives you 3 fruit. Completely valid result and not in the slightest bit ridiculous.
Add 1 mile of swimming, to 1 mile of cycling, and throw in a mile of running and see who can travel those distances faster than anyone else, and you have a 3 mile race. equally not ridiculous. Increase each of those distances to the distances that were chosen arbitrarily to represent endurance distances for each of the distances that the Full distance triathlon sport's founders selected arbitrarily, and you have the 140.3. Halve those distances and you have the half distance triathlon. Not even slightly ridiculous. Unless you take the in the context of human experience, and as a species we've all been trying to find meaning in this since we could string thoughts together.
And it may be true, that there is no inherent reason that any race distance has "more meaning" than any other distance, but I'm not as good at shorter race distances, and my own inherent need to compete with other people means I'm drawn to the achievements that make any kind of competing feel more valid to me. And that opens a whole other kettle of fish as to why I feel so driven to compete. But the answer I have come to is that that is just something important to me.
And so I disagree fundamentally with your suggestion that a 5km race holds as much meaning as a Full distance event. This is slowtwitch, and I feel pretty comfortable suggesting that most of the people on here hold a special value for Full distances races and therefore fundamentally would say that Full distance is less ridiculous than a 5km race. And in true slowtwitch manner, I'll ignore any argument that doesn't support my position, even if it is supported by well constructed research (because we know even the best assembled argument as glaring flaws, and no-one can stop me from clinging blindly to whatever ideas I feel like holding onto) and if anyone suggest and alternate argument, I'll blow them off as ignorant.
Its about the entire journey, not just the moment you cross the line.
