Has anyone read or done their own study of the training habits of the middle to back of pack finishers at long course triathlons? I'm asking this question for several reasons:
- The vast majority of athletes are there just to finish. They have no expectation of winning anything.
- Within the "Finisher Group" there are two subgroups
- Triathletes who take training and racing very seriously, putting it on the top shelf of priorities in their lives and strive to finish in PR times or at least optimal times for their body on the course in the conditions on raceday.
- Then there's a large number who want to finish and finish healthy but have no strong urge to train with the intensity and volume that would enable them to finish in an optimum time for them. They have no room on their top shelf of priorities and they don't want to replace something on that shelf with triathlon training.
- It's group number 2 that I'm interested in.
- What kind of training are they doing?
- How many hours per week?
- How much time within the workouts is at higher intensity such as Critical Power or even VO2Max
- How does this group plan their training nutrition and raceday nutrition? Is it a KISS principle, which is en vogue with many elites now too and for good reason, it works. Or, is this group carrying a smorgasbord of supplies on a Sunday morning ride?
- Do they ride road bikes with no tech gear except an HR monitor or do they ride $5k carbon with power?
Shout out to Raymond Britt at RunTri.com. He has quite an array of cool statistics about finishers in Ironman races.
There are many training guidebooks that describe what "should" be done. I would love to get real data on what training is "actually" being done the "finish and finish health" group.
BTW, regardless of finishing on the podium at ~8:00 hours or finishing at 16:45 each athlete deserves respect and a lot of it for getting it done.