Full, half, ironman, 70.3, marathon. What do you call them?

Triathlon Forum
1

My curiosity was prompted by this post on another thread:

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with calling a full a full and a half a half. Renaming it to 70.3 and 140.6 didn’t really change the way people look at them.

If your curiosity isn’t likewise prompted, I’d recommend not reading any further. Leave now. You’ve been warned.

I’m old school.

I still refer to it as ironman or if an unbranded race, perhaps “ironman distance”. Never “full ironman”.

Same way you won’t hear me say “full marathon”. It’s tautological. A marathon is 26 miles 365 yards/42.195km. Half marathons exist, but the descriptor “full” is superfluous.

“I just ran my 100th full marathon.”

“Congrats, but just because you may have a quarter in your pocket, I bet you’re not going to say you paid ‘100 full dollars’ for the entry fee.”

An ironman is an ironman. A marathon is a marathon. A dollar is a dollar.

As for the EFKAHIM (event formerly known as half ironman), I still say “half ironman” rather than 70.3.

Why? Because 70.3 feels cringeworthy and unnatural for an event that is marketed and raced globally with most courses measured, marked and raced in kilometres, by people who talk and measure their training in kilometres. If you’re from the US, what would your response be if Half Ironman had been rebranded Ironman 113 instead?

So, what’s your vernacular?

And yes, the topic is pedantic, irrelevant and trivial, but I’m guessing I’m not the only pedantic fucker out there. :slight_smile:

2

To me, things are what they are and that’s it. Just state the distance or real name.

Vernacular in endurance sport, IMO, has been detrimental to getting folks into the racing they would actually be most happy and successful in.

All this “full” and “half” stuff for a marathon or an Ironman or XXXXXL gravel races just creates this “more is more is more is better” kind of mentality where people look down their nose at shorter distances.

You see this in the bike gravel scene a lot. It’s stupid. I’d rather ride my bike harder/faster/funner for 2 hours instead of easier/slower/slogging it for 6 hours. People will venerate the folks finishing the 250 mile XXXXXXL distance, but somehow the outright winner of a 50 miler is totally forgotten?

You even see hobbyists go down these rabbit holes not because they actually love the distance they’re doing but they start reading about stuff and seeing how folks finishing the IM or marathon or XXXXL gravel event get all this adoration.

I’m a person perfectly content going a LOT faster at a short distance than a LOT slower at a long distance. It fits my lifestyle and personally what I find “fun”.

I’d rather win a shorter and obscure time trial than be known as the guy who rode his bike for 24 hours nonstop.

3

I very much agree with you in regard to race whatever distances you enjoy, going fast is fun, and longer does not simply equate with better.

Ironically, those points you make are probably more relevant to the thread I took the quote from, because I didn’t want to derail that discussion. I have no problem with that.

4

My curiosity was prompted by this post on another thread:

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with calling a full a full and a half a half. Renaming it to 70.3 and 140.6 didn’t really change the way people look at them.
If your curiosity isn’t likewise prompted, I’d recommend not reading any further. Leave now. You’ve been warned.

And yes, the topic is pedantic, irrelevant and trivial, but I’m guessing I’m not the only pedantic fucker out there. :-)There’s not a chance of achieving ‘common language’ use but nevertheless merit in trying.

A ‘mile’ is 1760 yds (not 1600m)
All longer running distances speak for themselves (either in m, km or miles) until:
‘Half marathon’, which is half of a:
‘Marathon’
Anything longer is not worth bothering about, not because running that distance is anything but at least a ‘challenge’ but either they are specified as a distance or marketing terms are used. I might give a break to a ‘century’ (though it should be qualified by either ‘metric’ or ‘imperial’.
World Triathlon specify the different lengths of triathlon in their rule: https://www.triathlon.org/uploads/docs/World-Triathlon_Competition-Rules_2023_20221122.pdf see Appx A, p125 of 206.
Super Sprint Distance (S/B/R) 250m to 500m 6.5km to 13km 1.7km to 3.5km
Sprint Distance (S/B/R) Up to 750m Up to 20km Up to 5km
Standard Distance (S/B/R) 1500m 40km 10km
Middle Distance (S/B/R) 1900m to 2999 m 80km to 90km 20km to 21km
Long Distance (S/B/R) 3000m to 4000m 91km to 200km 22km to 42.2km
[I wonder why WT chose not to have 21.1km as the middle distance run limit.)

Other organisers call their races by specific names for marketing purposes but widely understood, eg Ironman, Half Ironman (and I suggest it’s entirely reasonable to use ‘half’ as part of that nomenclature);
or by total distance eg 70.3, 140.6, 100km, 200km (will there be the promised PTO one next year?). Challenge and Clash don’t seem to specify whether their events are long distance (>113km eg Roth) or middle distance: 113km, 100km, whatever length Daytona was this time (though I note that the 2022 1600m swim is below the ‘middle’ lower limit).
Beyond those, and/or with terrain (generally cycling and running surfaces other than tarmac) aberrations, names are understood by those sufficiently interested, and otherwise don’t matter.
So to @Nick’s comment you quoted, I agree ‘full’ has no merit but ‘half’ is useful for both a running race and a triathlon with a half marathon as the run part (includes races not organised by Ironman). A PTO 100 should not be referred to as a ‘half’: there’s perfectly good WT nomenclature (middle) for the distance bracket of those races.

5

What do I tell my friends that do 5K marathons? :slight_smile:

For me:
IM
HIM
Olympic
Sprint

Marathon
Half Marathon
10K
5K

6

For the record I often just say Ironman but sometimes say the word full because people often ask for clarification with IM specifically (compared to marathons). Not because of some desire to push the fact that it’s longer than a half. I suppose I could say 140.6 but as others have said that just feels weird and also silly when so many use metric. This isn’t usually the case with marathons as most people assume full when you say marathon, from my experience.

The whole point of all of this is that words are just used to communicate, and generally speaking full and half make the most sense. I also did a non IM race this year where the distance was about 95% of a 70.3 so I just called it a half distance race when discussing with friends, gets the point across and is more about the general idea.

7

I’m with you 100%. The “70.3” nonsense was created by WTC to enhance their bottom line. They want those who complete a Half Ironman to feel that they can say “I completed an Ironman,” omitting the “70.3” and thereby encouraging others to enter the (easier to complete) Half Ironman races.

8

Whereas in Ironman the annoucer proclaims “You are an Ironman”, I thought they changed the name from half ironman to 70.3 so the finish announcer would not proclaim as someone is finishing: “You are half the man”
.

9

Ironman (distance) Tinman, Olympic, Sprint.

10

Ironman says your not an IRONMAN until you do a FULL. This was on my FB feed just now:
“You’ve done an IRONMAN 70.3. You know what it’s like to set a goal and achieve it. Make 2023 the year you commit to becoming an IRONMAN.”

11

Same way you won’t hear me say “full marathon”. It’s tautological. A marathon is 26 miles 365 yards/42.195km. Half marathons exist, but the descriptor “full” is superfluous.

Keep in mind not everyone is from the same place as you.

I also call it half marathon and marathon because in most circumstances “full” is redundant. But in much of the world, “marathon” refers to any run distance race. For example check a Japanese sports retail website. They call the running shoe category “marathon shoe.” I’ve done some running races called “XYZ marathon”, where 42.2 wasn’t one of the distances.

So if I’m talking to certain friends, “full marathon” or “42km marathon” needs to be spelled out.

Like everything else, language needs to reflect the audience. “Full marathon” leaves no ambiguity regardless of who is reading it.

For Ironman, I think it has to do with the fact that not everyone discloses that their IM was in fact a 70.3. So those who do a full want to be 100% sure they get full credit.

From another thread:
We’ll have 4 customers a week come in and say “I’m doing an IM” or “I just did IM”. Which one? IM xx 70.3

12

Me? I call them ‘those stupid races that I should have trained more for’