So…when I compete in duathlons to have a good run split I need to be less than 6% over my open run time on the run legs. Ideally I am am 2-3% over my open run times for the run legs of a duathlon. When I do triathlon it seems like par for the course is more like under 10% over my open run times (ideally 6%). Why do the runs seem so much slower in a Triathlon? I don’t think swimming takes that much out of you? Is running just so much a smaller percentage of the race that triathletes don’t train as much for the run as duathletes?
There are swim coaches, swim clinics, and OWS with the local tri club. There are group bike rides with the local Tri Club, a half dozen bike training and indoor racing apps, there is aero testing, etc. It seems like everyone wants to get faster on the bike and in the water. What are people doing to get faster on the run? Do people care if they get faster on the run?
Last week I did a Triathlon on the same course were I did a Duathlon last year. I was trying to make All-American in Duathlon last year and so I was going for a PR and end up setting a course record. This year I was doing my first triathlon in 2-1/2 years and really didn’t care about my time. I just wanted to get the feel for doing a Triathlon again. My 5K run time at the Triathlon was 1:45 slower this year than at the Duathlon a year ago but still the the 4th fastest time in the Triathlon. It made me wonder if the run is viewed differently by AG athletes in the Triathlon than it is in the the Duathlon even though times should be about equal. Is the run just the cool down after swimming and biking, or is the swim and bike just a warm-up for the race that starts when you begin the run?
I’ll preface that I’m not a podium contender. In my area, we do a lot of mock triathlons so of course there are runs (a sprint every weekend). But most of us just run solo or with running clubs. I have always heard to be a well rounded triathlete you should try to do what the athletes of all the disciplines do… swim with the swimmers, bike with the cyclists so run with the runners.
In my own experience, running is incredibly tolling on the body. It’s hard to recover from and has a major impact on training. I’m a “survive the run” type person. Many athletes try to improve their bike so they can be in a better place for a solid run.
everyone has their strengths in triathlon. being the bike leg is longest, i would be willing to bet triathlon attracts more of those who bike as their hobby. If you bike hard it will take a lot out for the run
You are viewing the run part of triathlon like a typical runner/duathlete. You are probably used to putting in plenty of miles, you know that run volume matters more than all the little minutiae that can trip people up in running, and you are used to how running makes your body feel. That is just not true of the triathlon population at large. Years ago I did a little informal poll on ST to ask triathletes which sports they like the least. Generally, it was fairly even between running and swimming with the small (odd) population that did not like cycling. Here are a few things I observed.
People don’t like swimming because it feels like an elite cabal that you had to enter in as a child by sacrificing to the swim gods. Yes, there are adult-onset swimmers, but they are the minority. Swimming is inconvenient for most folks, and frankly, boring as heck, while you are staring at the bottom of the pool. Real swimmers spend a lot of time complaining that the swim is irrelevant in tri and, unless they learned to run, spend the whole race being passed after taking an early lead.
Cycling. The only people who don’t like cycling are the ones that are afraid of bike equipment and/or trucks. Bikes are a mystery to them. And some find it boring (really?) The rest love how fast it is, they love drafting their buddies and feeling faster, they like the social aspect, and they love that they can buy speed. Most of them don’t know how to be really fast on the bike, but they don’t care. Cycling is just fun.
Running. Running is super simple in that it needs shoes/basic equipment. Oh, the elitists can still buy speed in the form of $275 shoes, but you still have to put in a lot of work to be fast. It beats you up. Not everyone is biomechanically efficient. Some of it feels like a slog. A bad run can just be the worst. Compared to the bike, I mean, even a bad ride feels fast and breezy and fun. Running is just hard and doing a lot of it takes time and patience and effort. Certainly, there are social runs, but running with your buddy won’t make you a faster runner because drafting doesn’t matter.
And don’t get me started on duathlon. Duathlon eats its own. The first time a triathlete starts the second run of a duathlon, the world ends and pain begins. They ran to hard ont he first run, they rode the bike with way too much enthusiasm and their first running steps of the second run feel like someone beat their legs with a bat. And they never come back. And honestly, there is very little you could do to change that.
If you gave me a bunch of money with the intent of promoting duathlon, I would create run-bike duathlons that eliminated the second run. I don’t think that is a true duathlon, but you might get a few folks to come back for a second race if you did not make them run twice.
I’m 54 years old now, so take that into consideration.
my peers only have so many hours a week to train, so running 6 days a week usually isn’t an option…not to mention the elephant in the room…injury.
so yeah, even if time allows it…I can only run so many days per week without risking injury.
lastly, no matter the age of an athlete, biking takes alot out of the legs in any given week, which increases the odds of a strain of some sort or another if running too much.
I’d say AG triathletes care the least about the swim. Masters groups are quite social so not a mystery why they are well attended IMHO. Especially in winter in northern climates. Once May comes around attendance drops.
I started off as a good runner before triathlon. Now proportionally swimming is my best thing.
With a wetsuit on I usually am top 10-20 percent in swim
I go to open water swim races and I am mid pack and some of those swimmers are tritathletes. Take away my wetsuit and close to bottom.
I am working on the non wetsuit swim.
I’m wondering if the question should be “Does running performance matter…?”
I’m thinking there are some triathletes (speaking for myself, especially) Running will ALWAYS matter - in fact, that’s all I do now
For others, it might be Cycling; still others, it might be the Pool
For whatever reason - whether it’s injury prevention, or just “this is my happy place” - I think we’re all going to find ourselves doing only one thing as we age (I’m upwards of ‘4-dozen & something’ years on earth, so far)
A little off the topic, but where are triathlons won? On the bike? On the run?
Where are duathlons won? On the bike? on the run?
In a triathlon if you are a strong runner there may be a lot of people who beat you on on the swim who are a slower runner than you. They get a head start out of T1 and if you don’t catch them on the bike the odds are still pretty good that you can catch them on the run. You might be running 10% over your open run time but you are passing people right and left so you feel pretty good about yourself. You could go faster but there isn’t a lot of motivation to do that if no one is passing you. So, you become very casual about the run playing a prevent defense rather than a blitz offence.
In duathlon if someone is out of T1 before you they are a faster runner so your only chance of beating them is on the bike. You are playing pursuit the whole bike leg then you are running for your life so that those faster runners don’t regain you. If you are at 10% over your open run time you will be crushed on the run. At 6% you might hold some of them off, but you need to be 2-3% over your open run to have any chance of having a good run and improving your place.
So, the same person with the same legs off the bike might have very different splits for the same run course. It would seem there is a lot of low hanging fruit for triathletes on the run.
I think we also have to consider that sprint distance races aren’t well attended anymore. A decade ago, some of the best triathletes were fighting it out bi-weekly/monthly in short course in prep for nationals. In my area we’d have 10-20 all Americans absolutely going at each other, it was a blast.
We’ve seen a large migration away from USAT nationals and more to 70.3 than ever. As a coach I really encourage athletes to do more local short course racing but many choose to put all eggs in the Ironman basket. So then, are the best runners there? Probably not. You’ll find many running faster in the 70.3 run leg than the local sprint.
You also have to consider the time suck that is swimming. 20-30 minutes drive, 10 min to get ready, 1hour to swim, 20 min to shower/pack up, then the drive home. It takes a lot of time away from bike/run time wise so we often find athletes struggling to fit in the volume. Duathletes don’t have that time drain.
My experience in duathlon is much different than yours. I found and still find that duathletes and most anyone that does a duathlon tend to pace very poorly. They run way too hard on the 10K or 5K, they ride too hard early in the bike ride and then then slowly fade. Every year I raced nationals the same pattern repeated over and over again. By 30K on the bike, most everyone was cooked except for the very elite guys with massive fitness. My time gaps over my competitors were usually bigger in the 5k than they managed to put into me in the 10K over twice the distance. I was going slower than my 10K pace, but most of them were going MORE slower. And that is if I did not already pass them on the last 10K of the bike.
I think it is silly when people ask where duathlons or triathlons are won. They are won from the beginning to the end of the race. I never could stand swimming well enough to be fast, so my best ever races in triathlon were pretty much catch-up for 1-3 hours. I clearly lost those races in the swim, but the winner still had to ride and run very fast to beat me. If you want to win tri’s you have to be a reasonably balanced athlete. I was generally about a 1/3 of the way back in my wave as a swimmer and even a top 1/10 swim would have won me some races, but that never happened.
Thanks for the perspective. It sounds like the run just seams slower to me in a Tri than Du because I am closer to the front in a Du than a Tri when I leave T2. Ha…ha…
Yes, everyone has seen poor pacing in multisports events. I have had my own share of faded runs. I have done two duathlons that had the same distance opening run as closing run. If I remember correctly I was the athlete who was the closest to an even split opening and closing run at both of those events. My last two duathlons I had a faster pace for the 5k than the 10K run which I also am proud of. It took me 3-4 years to get where I could pace multisport races correctly. I have to credit that to my coach that I had via scholarship several years ago. He told me to negative split every triathlon run I did. After a race I might be excited to tell him that I set a PR on the run or that I was the fastest run split in my AG in the run and he could care less. All he would ask was if I negative split the run and I would always have to say “no” and he would always tell me that I ran poorly and that we had work cut out for us to make improvements. I never did get to a negative split but I did get to near even splits in the 70.3 races I was doing at the time. I think my best was a +2 second run split on the closing 13.1 miles of a 70.3.
