Serious question. Why would you quit the sport just because races are not going on?

This question is obviously loaded and directed to more people than you. There is another great side of the sport that exists without events...just training to exercise and push ones own physical limits (like those people who go to the gym and lift, but never go into competitions). Its a great sport with or without competitions.

I am actually hoping that this pandemic gets people into the sport who just got active doing the sport individual components outside because their usual forms or exercise were locked up. These people are exercising for health and well being, not for competition. I think those new entrants when we have racing (or not) will be a great addition.

I am not disparaging people doing this sport only for racing (I have done 31 Ironmans myself so I totally get the attraction of the races), but it would be great if we can get more people excited about just going out to swim, ride, run for health and exercise first rather than any particular finish line.

You first reply was "all wrong".

In the sense that if you disdain swimming, then why do the sport and by extension, why do triathlon? We are not pros, and have to do something we dislike. If you disdain swimming, I would question why you were bothering with triathlon anyway. Or maybe it is a choice of words.

Maybe you just don't like that in swimming you put effort in and get almost no improvement which is totally different from running and biking where largely the more you train, the faster you get. Swimming is a bit like tennis. Everyone sucks at tennis when they first try it, and no amount of randomly bashing at tennis balls gets you good. There are 100's of small skills in tennis that you gradually get better and better at while practicing a zillion times to get near perfect (and likely never there). I am sure Roger Federer and Michael Phelps can point out 50 things that they believe they suck at.


So the only way in these skill sports to enjoy them is enjoy the process of acquiring the skill. Once you have the skill, you have it for life. But unlike the bike where its brain dead hammering, most of the enjoyment in swimming has to come from the process of acquiring skill, not by seeming times move on the clock (the latter is a certain exercise in frustration).

In terms of the type of people in the sport, if there is competition be it in running, baseball, football, triathon, tennis, there will be some super competitive people. That goes with the territory, but there are 90% of the field doing this for self improvement and the journey. There are lots of people to pick who you want to hang out with.

And why do you "have to do a trainer/road ride" instead of going for a mountain bike ride. I have done some of my best triathlon with a ton of mountain bike riding. Who says you "have to"? If you think you "have to" do any particular workout, then you have it backwards. You should go do the workouts you want to do. Again, we're not pros, so why bother doing stuff we don't want to do.

Its all stupid stuff from coaches making people feel they "have" to do any particular workout. Just go out and exercise. I can guarantee, that the person doing 10 hrs of random training per week will have a better half Ironman than the person doing 5 hrs per week and the person doing 15 hrs will do better than the 10 hrs person. The key is have fun and if you do more, regardless of what specific workouts, generally results will follow.

I did a full Ironman in South Africa, where my longest ride was 90 minutes on the trainer and longest run was 90 minutes. I was XC skiing, speedskating, swimming and just doing short intense trainer rides and lots of short runs for overall run volume. I had several 20 hrs weeks doing anything BUT specific triathlon training. On race week when I got to South Africa from Canada in march, I did two super easy rides of 3 hrs and 4hrs (like 130-140W average), just touring around, stopping for lunch etc etc. Race day came around and I had super solid day. I came top 10 in my age group, or "general training". It is amazing how far general training can get you. Specific tri workouts are actually most beneficial the shorter the race (like sprint and olympic). The longer the race, as long as you have total hrs and sufficient running weekly mileage, this will trump anything specific.

There is zero chance of a 3,000 athlete race going off in Quebec in June. And definitely not one with a large number of out of country athletes. Zero. I'm guessing they are trying to get the numbers down 50% or more on the off chance it happens at all.

I am registered for IMMT. I haven't received that email.

You first reply was "all wrong".

In the sense that if you disdain swimming, then why do the sport and by extension, why do triathlon? We are not pros, and have to do something we dislike. If you disdain swimming, I would question why you were bothering with triathlon anyway. Or maybe it is a choice of words.

Maybe you just don't like that in swimming you put effort in and get almost no improvement which is totally different from running and biking where largely the more you train, the faster you get. Swimming is a bit like tennis. Everyone sucks at tennis when they first try it, and no amount of randomly bashing at tennis balls gets you good. There are 100's of small skills in tennis that you gradually get better and better at while practicing a zillion times to get near perfect (and likely never there). I am sure Roger Federer and Michael Phelps can point out 50 things that they believe they suck at.

So the only way in these skill sports to enjoy them is enjoy the process of acquiring the skill. Once you have the skill, you have it for life. But unlike the bike where its brain dead hammering, most of the enjoyment in swimming has to come from the process of acquiring skill, not by seeming times move on the clock (the latter is a certain exercise in frustration).

In terms of the type of people in the sport, if there is competition be it in running, baseball, football, triathon, tennis, there will be some super competitive people. That goes with the territory, but there are 90% of the field doing this for self improvement and the journey. There are lots of people to pick who you want to hang out with.

And why do you "have to do a trainer/road ride" instead of going for a mountain bike ride. I have done some of my best triathlon with a ton of mountain bike riding. Who says you "have to"? If you think you "have to" do any particular workout, then you have it backwards. You should go do the workouts you want to do. Again, we're not pros, so why bother doing stuff we don't want to do.

Its all stupid stuff from coaches making people feel they "have" to do any particular workout. Just go out and exercise. I can guarantee, that the person doing 10 hrs of random training per week will have a better half Ironman than the person doing 5 hrs per week and the person doing 15 hrs will do better than the 10 hrs person. The key is have fun and if you do more, regardless of what specific workouts, generally results will follow.

I did a full Ironman in South Africa, where my longest ride was 90 minutes on the trainer and longest run was 90 minutes. I was XC skiing, speedskating, swimming and just doing short intense trainer rides and lots of short runs for overall run volume. I had several 20 hrs weeks doing anything BUT specific triathlon training. On race week when I got to South Africa from Canada in march, I did two super easy rides of 3 hrs and 4hrs (like 130-140W average), just touring around, stopping for lunch etc etc. Race day came around and I had super solid day. I came top 10 in my age group, or "general training". It is amazing how far general training can get you. Specific tri workouts are actually most beneficial the shorter the race (like sprint and olympic). The longer the race, as long as you have total hrs and sufficient running weekly mileage, this will trump anything specific.

I still haven't received the email. My brother is also registered for the race and he got the email. He called me asking what we wanted to do. <shrugs>

$350?

There is zero chance of a 3,000 athlete race going off in Quebec in June. And definitely not one with a large number of out of country athletes. Zero. I'm guessing they are trying to get the numbers down 50% or more on the off chance it happens at all.

So I decided to withdraw from the 70.3 and the full IM. This summer I have scheduling issues that would have made it hard for me to pull both races off. The offer of a refund sealed the decision for me. I completed the form before the deadline and waited.

Today the cheque arrived. For $154.50 Canadian. For both races. Not a full refund. Not even close.
I went back and looked at the email and the message from Active. All correspondence used the phrase : “refund of entry fees.”
Maybe I was incredibly naïve thinking they were going to refund the full entry cost, but the messaging really made it look that way. Based on the discussion on this thread, I’m guessing I’m not the only one that was fooled.
I didn’t really blame Ironman for deferring races to 2021 from 2020. Lots of people were pissed off, but I was willing to cut them some slack. This on the other hand... now I’m mad! Having a choice, I would have forgone refunds and tried to at least do one race.
Just wondering if anyone else withdrew and you were surprised by the partial amount. I’m planning to write and request a reversal. I’ll probably be out of luck, but I want to do something...

We (relay team) withdrew from IM70.3 Tremblant and received a full refund earlier this week.

I (thought) I had deferred my 70.3 2020 entry to 2021. Had the receipt for it. Then got a check from them a couple of weeks ago for the full refund. I double checked my emails and I had a receipt for both the deferral entry and then a deferral refund. Not sure how that happened, but chalked it up to "happy clicking" and the confusion of emails in French and English. At first I was disappointed, as this is one of my bucket list races, but then relieved, as I think the likelihood that the race will actually happen for someone coming from the US and can't quarantine in Canada for 2 weeks is pretty small. There's now a thread about this on the Facebook page for the race and seems like I'm not the only one who experienced this. Someone suggested to check your Active account to see if it has you as registered, which indicated I am. It sounds like there is a lot of confusion around registration with this race.