Equalizing tri segments

Triathlon Forum
1

Has anyone ever tried to structure a triathlon to present an equal challenge in all three segments?

It seems to me that the distances for each segment in triathlon are somewhat random. Yes, I know the history of where the ironman distances came from, and I assume somebody put some thought into the distances for the Olympic structure. But it seems to me that those distances were established based on “challenging” distances in the individual sports of running, biking, and swimming, and not based on creating an equal challenge in all three.

I would like to see an “equal challenge” triathlon. The way I would do it would be to set up the distances so that the fastest athlete in each split turned in a time of about an hour. Here’s how I figure it, using the pacing for male competitors:

**Swim: **In olympic distance races, the fastest male swim split seems to be around 14 min, which translates to about a 15:30 mile pace. I doubt that they could keep up that kind of pace for an hour. In the USMS 1 hour postal championship, the winning men seem to swim 5800 yards or more, which is 3.2 miles, but that’s in a pool and they don’t have to do the other segments. In Ironman distance races, the fastest swimmers come out in 48 minutes, with variations depending on the course, which comes out to exactly 3 miles/hr pace. So I’d set this distance at 3 miles. Makes for a nice triangular course if you have a big lake.

**Bike: **Fastest cyclists in non-draft olympic races seem to finish in 57-58 minutes, which is 25.7 miles per hour. Fastest half-ironman times seem to be around 2:25, which is 23.2 mph. 25 miles seems to be the right distance for a 1 hour winning split, especially since a 3 mile swim would take a greater toll than a 1500 meter swim.

Run: The fastest nonpro runners in olympic distance triathlons seem to turn in about a 6 min/mile pace. The fastest nonpro runners in half-ironman races also seem to turn in a 6 min mile pace. Some of the pros can go a little faster, although not many. Using a 6 min pace leads to a nice, even 10 mile run segment.

So how about a triathlon that’s a 3 mile swim, 25 mile bike, and 10 mile run?

Lee

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So how about a triathlon that’s a 3 mile swim, 25 mile bike, and 10 mile run?

I would definately be up for this, give us fish more of a chance.

3

I think it’s an interesting idea, but me thinks the distance you suggest might not be that popular. Only the very best swimmers in the sport could put in a split of near an hour for that swim. I think one of the assumptions made with the approach you take is that equal time in an event translates to equal effort. I’m not sure that’s necessarily a valid assumption. Ignoring time, a 25 mile bike ride is very easy for a typical person to muddle through. Not so for a 3 mile swim or a 10 mile run.

Rather than establishing the distances based on the capabilities of the elites in a given segment, if you establish them on the times for, say the top 40% of expected competitors, I think you’d come up a better set of distances. As an example, the top swimmers could easily put like 20 - 30 minutes on about 50% of the field during a 3 mile swim. The top bikers couldn’t create anywhere near that gap over 50% of the field in a 25 mile ride.

4

I think this is an awesome idea as well, and it’s come up on the board before. I think your distances might be a little too much for all but the most intense triathletes. BTW, this has come up on the board before, and if I recall correctly, in the past there was a race called the Equi-distance Tri or something like that.

When I thought about this idea, I though it would be cool to try and simulate an Olympic distance race finishing time (~ 2 hours), or about 40 minutes for each discipline. Roughly 3k swim, 27k bike, 11k run.

Obviously, this type of race would be awesome for the all-rounders, and suck for the single sport specialist. Race Directors…any of you interested?

5

Sounds great; If you want the swimmers to win most of the races. Bikers wouldn’t stand a chance. Swimming three miles is a MUCH bigger task than biking 25, or even running ten.

6

Sounds a good idea to me, save me having to spend the winter working my butt off, on the bike. Would make a change from all the good bikers/runners winning all the races. Agree that 3 miles is maybe a bit far though 2 would make it more interesting and at least I would feel I had a chance then.

7

Also, you’d need to make the race an invitational or qualification based, or you would have a lot of drowning going on. Given the number of people who do triathlon without proper training or preparation, while many people can survive a 1 mile swim, or even the 2.4, with its convenient land-break in the middle(except Hawaii) I think that an unbroken 3 mile swim would be too much for a lot of people. But don’t think people wouldn’t sign up anyway. I think the RD’s liability would huge, disclaimers or no.

It is an interesting idea, though.

8

Count me in! Since we’re brainstorming, how about we go with run, bike, swim? Sure would be nice to swim the kinks out of the legs after the run/bike.

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For anyone looking for a bigger challenge, how about the longest distances contested in each of the three sports at their respective world championships:

Swim (FINA open water worlds): 25km ~ 15.5 miles
Bike (UCI world champs): 250km ~ 156 miles
Run (IAAF worlds): 42.2km ~ 26 miles

Should only take the best athletes around 15 hours.

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For anyone looking for a bigger challenge, how about the longest distances contested in each of the three sports at their respective world championships:

Swim (FINA open water worlds): 25km ~ 15.5 miles
Bike (UCI world champs): 250km ~ 156 miles
Run (IAAF worlds): 42.2km ~ 26 miles

Should only take the best athletes around 15 hours.
They used to have double and triple IM races a while back. I don’t if they’re still around. Back in Belgium I had a clubmate who was racing and winning the double ones. It would take him about 20 hrs for the 4.8-224-52 mile race.

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lsilverman, I’m not sure of the basis for Dan’s (aka slowman’s) training program of assigning a point value for each activity to ensure you’re giving each equal attention, but it is something I’ve been using to track my training this season with decent results. He places a value of 1 pt for each 100 meters swimming, each mile biking and each 1/4 mile running. Using this method, a 1000 meter swim, a 10 mile bike and a 2.5 mile swim (or a multiplier of this) would give “equal” status to each event. I’ve been using this method to track my workouts and have really used it to focus on the part(s) (I was a competitive swimmer and a cat 4 biker but running sucks) I need to work on the most. Not sure if this adds much to your thoughts but just thought I’d share. Good luck!

12

I’ve always wanted to do a double-olympic triathlon.

3k swim - 80k bike - 20k run

The pro’s should be cranking out around 4:00

The reason I like Olympic distance triathlon is because the segments seem a lot more equal than a half IM. In a half you only swim 400 meters more, while bike 50k more and running twice the distance, which doesn’t seem very fair to the good swimmers.

Now seeing a double olympic with drafting would be interesting!

13

They still have double and triple iron races, and apparently there is a deca-iron distance race(swim 24, ride 1120, run 262) somewhere. There was a thread on this a few weeks back. Off road Iron distance races seem to be taking off too.

See http://www.oarevents.com for info on the doubles and triples.

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Back in the mid '80’s there was an event, I think on the east coast of the US, that had this format. I forget the distances, but the time spent doing each sport worked out to roughly the same.

Indeed, it would be interseting to see how some of the top triathletes do in a triathlon that was, say 4K/40K/15K( distances that would take many of the top men 50 min to an hour to do) Obviously the swim and run would be key and the role of the bike would decrease significantly.

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If it was up to me the absolute ideal Olympic length tri would be swim - 50 m, bike - 40 kms, run - 100 m.

Well hey, the 50 m swim and 100 m run are Olympic events aren’t they?

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I also like the idea a lot and have been thinking about this (mainly cuz I’m a swimmer and feel cheated…plus getting passed by all those good bikers/runners is disappointing). I don’t think the equal time thing works well as mentioned. You want the time difference between the fastest person and the average person in each leg to be equal. Then you need to cut the middle leg down a bit cuz the middle leg in these races is always the most important (time wise - just like in swimming IM - the 3rd stroke - breast is the most important - re-arrange the order of the strokes and you get different winners depending on their respective strengths). The other problem is that most triathletes are ex-runners and weak swimmers - so most triathletes would avoid a long-swim triathlon = no money = no race.

If I designed one - I’d go with top time vs. MOP time and look for the difference. Make all 3 legs have the same delta time -roughly. You could use IM/half IM/oly times and come up with a good estimate. This would still leave the swim short as the average triathlete is a much better runner than biker than swimmer…

I’d love to do one…

David

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There were two “equalized” events on the East Coast in the 1980’s.

The most famous was the Oxford Equilateral Triathlon, with a 5-mile swim, a 20-mile run, and a 50-mile bike. Won by Molina in its first year, but didn’t last long because virtually no one wanted to enter it. NOTE: The race director was Fletcher Hanks, one of the most colorful among the sport’s pioneers. Fletcher began with the Oxford International Triathlon in 1981 (2 mile swim, 20 mile run, 50 mile bike), and that race survives (on a somewhat different course and format) under current race director Rob Vigorito as the Blackwater Eagleman Triathlon.

The other “equalizer” was in fact the North Shore Equalizer, contested just north of Boston as a 4-mile swim, 60-mile bike, 15-mile run. The race director was Tom Carmody and the event lasted only a couple of years - in large part because not many people were willing to enter.

Race directors are, as a general rule, not predisposed towards any particular set of distances. If “they will come”, then someone will be willing to build it. But if not enough people “will come” . . . . what would be the point? In other words, it’s the market, stupid.

18

In the 3/25/10 structure that I proposed, the swim is much longer than most people are used to. I agree that while many people are comfortable with a 25 mile bike and a 10 mile run, a 3 mile swim might scare people away. I have three reactions, which might contradict each other.

The first is: it’s a triathlon! It’s supposed to be a little intimidating. I think people welcome the challenge of a non-standard format race – look how fast Alcatraz sells out. Alcatraz is a good example of a race where you’d think the swim would scare off a lot of people, but triathletes can’t get enough Alcatraz. The reason the 3 mile swim is intimidating and the 25 mile bike and 10 mile run are not is the training routine we’ve all developed. Anyone who’s training for a 1/2 IM puts in 90-120 minutes running or cycling quite often, but rarely do we swim for that long. And very few of us are lucky enough to have easy access to open water, so we rarely experience swimming continuous long distance. So a 3 mile swim sounds hard because we’re not used to it. But I bet if someone did 3 90 minute training sessions a week in each of the three sports for 3-4 months, they’d be very comfortable in a 3/25/10 format race.

My second reaction is that while 3 miles sounds longer than a 25 mile bike or 10 mile run, it really isn’t. Very few people will finish the 3 mile swim in 60 minutes, and there will still be people in the water after 120 minutes. But the same can be said for the 10 mile run. In fact, I would bet that if you graphed the time to complete each segment for all competitors, you’d have a bell curve from 60 minutes to 120 minutes that would be very similiar between the swim and the run. The curve for the 25 mile bike will probably be more compressed, with most people finishing in 60-90 minutes.

One problem with picking the swim distance is that the fish are so much faster than us mere mortal swimmers that they throw off the curve. A good compromise might be to set the distances so that 20% of the participants finish each segment in an hour or less. Someone with more time on their hands than me can download the results of several ironman swim segments to get the exact swim distance, several oly bike segments to get the exact bike distance, and 1/2 IM run segments to get the run segment. If you did the math, it would probably lead to a 2.2-2.5 mile swim, a 23-24 mile bike, and an 8-9 mile run. I think someone suggested a 4k/40k/15k format, which might be about right.

Would I do a 3/25/10 format race? Well, I’d need to train a lot more for the swim, that’s for sure! But absolutely, I’d do it.

Lee

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And very few of us are lucky enough to have easy access to open water, so we rarely experience swimming continuous long distance.

You’ll have to move to Australia, more open water than we know what to do with (and all the better for the Great Whites to swim around in)!!

As I’m just starting out, the swim leg is already long enough at the moment (I missed out on the Australian infatuation with swimming in my early years). I do see the discrepancy and agree the fish among you are disadvantaged, but that’s the way it is.

How about we get the Olympic gold medalists for the 1500m swim, the individual time trial, and the 10,000 track and see how they go in a Olympic triathlon (would like to see how Grant Hackett runs - he’s a big bloke)!

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Something smells in this thread…it must be all the fish! I think it is amazing how well you good swimmers can move through the water…I’m envious.

However, here’s the biggest problem as I see it: we had a race three weekends ago where they moved the swim to a small pond…had to go in a “W” pattern just to get the 750 yards. At the pre-race meeting (yes, I actually attended and listened!), the RD announced that the swim would be somewhat short…600 yards. A great cheer arose from the six-hundred and fifty-plus competitors. Oh, there MAY have been a moan of consternation from some fish, but nobody heard them.

The second biggest problem, safety. Where are you going to get all the kayaks and volunteers? That’s an awful lot of water to cover.

Which leads to another problem, which could be rectified by doing laps…large enough bodies of relatively clean water. Not everyone is located next to such a spot.

It’s a great idea for the swimmers, but, swimmers are in the minority. It’s a shame, because the swimming workouts help keep the triathletes from looking like a bunch of upper-body-atrophied-skeletons, like the pure runners, and even some pure cyclists, remember the pictures of Tyler Hamilton?.

Sorry, I guess you’re relegated to being passed a lot. I’ll try to be more supportive as I go by :wink:

In the meantime, I’m trying to make myself swim more, and more efficiently, and hopefully faster. Maybe one day I’ll exit the water on your heels and will pass you running through T-1, instead of somewhere else out on the course. That’s one thing that’s so good about this sport, there’s always some weakness to train…even if that weakness is all three sections! I just don’t see the “equitable length of time” races as popular enough to be supported by the participants.

As long as we’re tinkering with the format, I propose a race of swimming (no more than 250 yards!), biking 50 miles, running 5K, golfing 18 holes (speed golfing…a score based on time and strokes, carrying your own bag), weightlifting (squats, bench press, total number of pull-ups, and deadlift), and ballroom dancing. I really figure I’ve a good chance of placing in this endeavor, as I can do all of the events fairly well, and have finished on the podium in all 6 events, except for the swimming, of course. Sadly, I’m afraid not many people would buy the ticket to compete.