You read my point exactly right. And on further inspection it looks as though the guy that crushed him in the swim is not as good as we thought. He barely won the wetsuit division against a couple guys and girls just behind him, sans wetsuits , so maybe like a 2nd pack pro guy.

i don't know that the first 3 times were legit. maybe the alexander lindsey guy. so, how good is he? however good he is, AT is 2:30ish behind him, as of today.

just, to put this in perspective, would lionel have liked to have had AT's current swim speed in his first triathlon?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

i don't know that the first 3 times were legit. maybe the alexander lindsey guy. so, how good is he? however good he is, AT is 2:30ish behind him, as of today.//

Ya I couldn't find anything on the 15+ or 17+minute guys, probably mistakes in timing. But the Lindsey guy is a legit good swimmer and the results of him winning that Tahoe swim were pretty good. But like I said, he won in a wetsuit against several others that were close without wetsuits, including on lady. So he really only won the wetsuit division and would not have won the scratch race. So good swimmer, but around 2nd pack pro or so I would say. Top swimmers would have been 16/17 minutes in Andrews race this weekend.


And I really don't know where Lionel started, guess he was pretty bad. And to tell the truth he has gotten all his low hanging fruit and most likely is in the group he will almost always come out with now. Making that 5 minute non wetsuit leap across what is typically clear water is not an easy feat, one almost never bridged by AOS's.


I would love to see a video of Talansky's stroke, that would tell a lot about his potential. I know you have talked to someone we respect who has swam with him in the past and he says he looks good, so a very good sign for dropping the 3+minutes a mile he will need to in order to be competitive.. He may also not make that 48/50 group, but all he really needs to do is make Lionel's/other uber bikers group, then he can work his way up like they all did this year..


Do we know when he is going to do a real race, one in which at least top AG'ers are doing? Maybe some 70.3?

i don't know his schedule. i imagine i'll be learning more. i talked to him in hawaii, he certainly knows me/us/slowtwitch, so, i'm hoping that along with guys like lionel, who seem to like slowtwitchers, AT will join the fraternity.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Would this performance even earn a pro card?

No. Moot point though because the race couldn't have qualified him, so we don't know how much actual effort went into this. Could have been an all out effort, could have been basically a threshold workout and him trying to practice putting it all together.

My guess is he’ll be part of the special consideration status which is for pro athletes in running/cycling/swimming and have been on national teams for said sport. All they need to do is finish top 10 and within 10% of winner in race with 200 participants to qualify for pro status in tri.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

So pretty far from a 33 min 10k then...

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Terrible Tuesday’s Triathlon

If the distances are accurate and the difficulty of the course was at least moderate, that's a pretty good first race. 20min swim, sub-60min bike, and sub-40min run off of 6-8 weeks of training?

If he can get his open 10k run time down under 35:00, this could get interesting.

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Shawn
TORRE Consulting Services, LLC
http://www.TORREcs.com

Why would it get interesting? a 35 min 10k is a pretty good amateur time, but terrible for a pro and would land him a spot waaay down. I mean the brownlees will have the same splits but then run sub 29. Things won't get interesting before he's sub 32.

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Terrible Tuesday’s Triathlon

He won't race Olys.

That is beside the point. It isn't possible to be competitive in Tri today if you don't have a killer run. Let's say he's in a 70.3 and hangs on to 2nd pack for the swim 3 min behind leaders, bikes his way to the lead, and enters t2 with a 5 min lead, if he runs 35 min open 10ks he is gonna do around a 1:20 during the race and he will get caught by halfway.

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Terrible Tuesday’s Triathlon

I mean the brownlees will have the same splits but then run sub 29.//

Couple things, first he is not racing the Killer B's at olympic distance. He swam a 21 minute swim, they would have swam a 16+ minute one on that course. Andrew has a killer bike as he should, but it is going to be tempered as he gains ground in swimming and running. He is most likely going to long distance, he needs that long ride to make up for gaps in the other two sports, short races don't allow for that make up time. I like what I see so far, he should continue to make big chunk improvements for at lest the next year, maybe two.


It will be fun to see where he ends up, hopefully not where Alan Webb did after his foray into our sport..

No you're right, he's not racing the B's in olympics, but he will be racing Alistair in 70.3. He has a great bike, but it's impossible to know how well it translates to the steady pace 70.3/ironman racing, and he will need a huge lead off the bike to be in contention. I just don't think anyone, no matter their cycling prowess has a chance at winning a competitive 70.3/140.6 anymore if they can't run fast off the bike. His current running shape is prob close to Cam Wurf's, and he is getting outrun by 30 min. Even if Talansky were to ride faster than Wurf, he needs huuuge improvements in order to be in contention. And I would say to go from a 37 min open 10k (where I'm assuming he is now) to get to a sub 1:14 half off the bike (bare minimum to win) is going to take a loong time if even possible.

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Terrible Tuesday’s Triathlon

It will be fun to see where he ends up, hopefully not where Alan Webb did after his foray into our sport..



What AW did proves just how good these triathletes are, and I see that happening here as well. I would guess AT will have a much longer "sink or swim" timeline that essentially was there for Webb. He essentially had really only 18 months to see if he could make the Mola/Murray swim group. He missed it barely in some big ITU events, and thus was no real reason to keep going (especially if funding gets pulled and it's on the athlete to pay for the journey).

ETA: The big difference is that AW was on the very very back end of his athletic career. He really hadn't run all those fast times consistently in years. AT maybe hadn't even hit his peak, so that's exciting in that he has a longer ability to "learn" the sport, and it actually allow him good result(s). Webb basically was thrown into the deep end and expected/required to either make it or not, and if he didn't he was out there to fend for himself from a funding standpoint.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

 I just don't think anyone, no matter their cycling prowess has a chance at winning a competitive 70.3/140.6 anymore if they can't run fast off the bike//

I guess this is the difference between you and I, I don't expect him to win anything for awhile, if ever. But it would be a success in my mind if he were to start cashing in pro races, and eventually be in the thick of the actual race itself, like Wurf is now. Cameron is a real contender in outside Kona ironmans, I expect if all goes well for AT he will one day be in that spot. But to compare him to Kona pros at this point is not really being fair to him, he needs his runway of improvements to play out before any of those types of comparisons are even a valid topic.


Right now he is a competitive AG'er, one who can win a local no cash race, lets talk about the next step, not how he cannot win Kona or beat the Brownlees.

In an Ironman, he'll need to be able to run 2:45-2:50. He doesn't need to have 29-min 10k speed to do that. 34-35:00 10k 'speed' with a large dose of endurance will get him close.

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Shawn
TORRE Consulting Services, LLC
http://www.TORREcs.com

There is no way someone with an open 10k of 35 will be running 2:45 in an Ironman. Look at the current top runners in ironman, they are also genetic endurance freaks, but they run a lot fast than that in an open 10k.
Patrik Nilsson for example has split a 33 min 10k during an IM and I would bet that all the guys running sub 2:50 can run a 33 min 10k tomorrow.

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Terrible Tuesday’s Triathlon

I think this sums up everything quite nicely :)

Expecting Talansky to just show up and be in a position to win would grossly underestimate the level of talent in triathlon. Even Lance - with all that came with him - whom had an actual tri background - did not sweep in and dominate his first race!

I also think its very hard to judge someones potential by one race where we don't know the exact course/conditions. Will be interesting to follow him going forward!

For what it's worth, I know someone who was at the race. She reported that the course is not particularly fast and that Talansky didn't even look like he was working coming off the bike and was just in cruise control on the run. She felt like he was simply out for a training day trying out swim/t1/bike/t2/run.

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"It's good enough for who it's for" - Grandpa Wayne

Article today on cyclingnews about Talansky's plans. He plans for Kona in 2018. Realistic goal?

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

As an amateur yes, but as a pro I don't think he'd have a shot.

Good article, it gives some good insight. He clearly knows that he'll have to completely destroy the field in 112 miles to have any shot at being successful. His races should be fun to watch!

"This isn't a one-year plan. The goal is to qualify and be in Kona in 2018, even that's ambitious. I think it's a three-year project. I think Kona 2020 is where we're going to see what I might be capable of. When I line up there, I'll be 31, and you can be winning Kona when you're 37."

Seems fairly grounded. He's a world-class cyclist who is still discovering how well he can swim and run. What do you suppose he should he be saying in an interview like this?

Agreed. Thanks, I wasn't thinking about the AG route

Edit: Still two IM in coming year. Isn't that quite a bit of running for someone who said he was going to build up slowly? Or does he have the speed to KQ with lesser run training?

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev