both are as hard as you make them

This may start some shit, but I swear duathletes are way faster than triathletes. You will know in about the first mile if you can hang or you are just there for a fast brick with t-shirt.

Brett

That's right!

Any weight bearing activity is more taxing than swimming.

Coping with high HR, muscle fatique, joint pounding TWICE is what makes DUs hard.

For an equivalent distance, I'd say du's are harder.

Duathletes do tend to be a bit faster overall because duathlon doesn't draw as many casual racers as do tris. Most beginners have heard of triathlon and that's what they want to do. Duathlon attracts the faster runners and those who don't swim so well.

It surprises me that the casual racer would train and race 3 disciplines instead of 2 but I think you're right.

I will give you another argument. Everyone(well, almost) can run. We learn to do it when we are infants. Running fast is physically hard but swimming is a complicated skill. Many triathletes never really learn to swim with good tecnique and view that part of the sport as a "nescessary evil". If you are reasonably fit and so desire, almost anyone could go out hard on the first run and hang with the leaders in a duathlon, making the race seem very hard. However,in a triathlon, without proper tecnique, you can thrash all you want and still lose time in the swim. My feeling is most triathletes dont get caught up in the "going out too hard" mentality because they lack the skill to do so and have realized over time that a lesser effort nets them the same or close to the same result. They save their first real hard effort for the bike. Duathlon may feel harder because you are going all out for 3 events, but because of the technical aspect of swimming, I would say triathlon is actually a "harder" sport to master.

Good points. Tri is definitely harder to master.

I'm a poor swimmer & a good runner and I still think du's are way harder given an equivalent distance. I think you are on to something about going all out the 1st run vs. surviving the swim.

Well... i've the opinion that DU's are far more physically aggressive than TRI's.. swim seams easy if you think of the idea of running 10K at 3:05 per Km.

But.. let us put it this way..

If you put a triathlete in a duathlon and a duathlete doing a triathlon.. which do you think it would be harder?..

Chris Hill (triathlete) was World Duathlon Champ 2 years ago... (unlucky benny..) ;)

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It's all relative to your strengths and limiters, I think. If you're a poor swimmer, tri's will likely seem harder to you, because you have to get through that swim. If you're a poor runner I'd imagine a du would seem harder, 'cause you have to run twice.

Based on my [limited] experience, I think I'd find du's harder for two reasons. First, I'm a decent swimmer and a poor runner. Second, I would think it's harder to get on a bike after running than it is after swimming, because you've just been using your legs as the major source of locomotion, as opposed to your arms. Then you gotta use 'em again for the bike leg and the second running leg.

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Steve Perkins

If your running sucks like mine you'll definately find duathlons harder. The thing I noticed at the only one I did is arriving at the bike already hot and sweaty. The swim seems more refreshing.

Is this because you train more for the bike and swim or just because you hate running?

agree with you. never done any du's but everything in life is as difficult and/or easy as you make it.

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I'm with Jay agreeing with Paul. Swim is my weakest link in a triathlon and yet I still find that dus HURT and I place better in tris. I think in part it's because I know I suck in the water, so I just take it easy. As for the placing, the run times in the dus I have seen are just much faster than in tris. I think you have fewer casual competitors in dus, and the guys who are serious about dus have more time to spend biking and running.

OK. along this line of thinking. How about an F1 style tri. Swim 400 m, run a couple hundred feet, swim 400 m agaia, bike 14 miles, run 2.8 miles, bike 14 miles, run 2.8 miles. That's a pretty tough race format. F1 triathlon in Roswell, NM in Augsut is this format. Way harder than any duathlon I ever did.

.

Perhaps the number of top-level fast people is greater in duathlon compared to triathlon, i.e., I think it's harder for a newbie to break into the podium status in duathlon. I do better in duathlons because my swim is usually only MOP (I get lucky every once in a while when I catch the right feet and am more relaxed than usual). I feel like I have worked harder after a duathlon of 2 hours compared to a triathlon of 2 hours, even though the swim often FEELS like hard work when I'm doing it.

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"Is this because you train more for the bike ...or just because you hate running? "

This year I'm running more than ever but I've always found the bike to be an adrenaline rush and running to be more like work. It seems I'm more naturally suited to the bike than to the run. Maybe it's because I never had a background in running except for 100m sprints and 4 X 100 relay in high school so running longer distances was foreign territory before starting tris. In fact, I didn't run at all for many years but kept recreational fit in my 30's and 40's with biking, swimming, roller blading and x-country skiing before entering my first tri. So when I started tri I also started running any kind of distance for the first time.

Also bikes have a high tech cool fun factor whereas running shoes, well they're just running shoes.

quote "Duathletes do tend to be a bit faster overall because duathlon doesn't draw as many casual racers as do tris."

I wish someone would have told me that before I entered my first du last fall. I went 1:44 for a 5k/30k/5k, beating my goal time of 1:45. I figured I was MOP, maybe a little towards the back. Then I checked the AG standings and found myself in dead last place. Talk about humbling.

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Andrew

"When will i learn, people do not want to hurt but will spend $500.00 bucks to go four seconds faster." - randall t

Bob's right. I race both disciplines and they both hurt like hell.

I think Dus are runner's races. I think they are way harder because the quality of competition on the run is much higher. My run splits in tris are competitive but I get shelled on the run in Duathlons because of all those rabbits. I think you can "hide" your weaknesses in triathlon because everyone will be weak in one of the disciplines, but in a duathlon the strong runners will take the day even if their bike is only adequate.

My strength is cycling but I like my skin too much for bike racing. The world needs more TTs!!!!

Leigh

I'm a BOP swimmer (and I sometimes debate whether my swimming is really "swimming"), a MOP biker and a FOP runner. Duathlons are physically more demanding. Since I'm such a poor swimmer, I find that tris are psychologically much more demanding. I can 1500m in 30 minutes (if I'm lucky) and I'll come out of the water a mess. In that same amount of time I can run 4.5 miles without breaking a sweat.

I almost always place much higher in a du than I can in a tri. I'll take a tri without a swim anyday!

Swim butterfly for a triathlon and see how you feel. As already mentioned, most people will run 'harder' for the first run in a du, then they will swim in a tri. I am a strong swimmer and biker, but a mediocre runner. I can do pretty well in tris, and have surprised myself by doing pretty well in some dus, mostly on the strength of my bike and second run. Checking splits, it's amazing how much most people slow down on the second run compared to the first. They are going out too fast and killing themselves. Think about your IM pacing if it was a duathlon with a 1/2 marathon at the beginning.

As the name implies, I consider myself a duathlete although I have done a number of traithlons. After the swim I usually feel pretty wiped but my bike and run times are as good if not better than my du times. I attribute that to the fact that Im not smoking my legs on the first run. It seems that here in the mideast region you have to go out hard on the first run if you want to be a factor. I know just in my last small local du the lead two guys went through the first mile sub 5:00 (I was 5:16) and they went sub 10:00 for the whole 2 mile first run and both can ride like the wind as well. I just put my head down and try to stay close on the bike and hope for the best on the second run.

I agree with this to a point, but if you go to a larger race, then the duathletes are all talented on the bike and running. I've led out a run during a 3 mi/14 mi/3mi duathlon and run splits of 15:50 and 16:35 only to get blown away on the bike by the same guy on three successive editions of the race.

At Powerman this year (and other years), Greg Watson wasn't the fastest runner, but always puts enough time on the others during the ride to win. Not that he's a slow runner, but if you look at his results in Draft-legal World Cup races, he doesn't do as well because the drafting neutralizes his strength.

My question is---Why are there so few duathlons? They don't require water, can be run at cooler times of the year and make a great prep for the summer triathlon season.

Anyone else going to Dannon Utah next week?

Chad

Dus are harder, but for a real gut buster, tri a swim-run-swim-run duathlon...

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