I’ve spent the past few months looking into the information-seeking habits of triathletes for a research paper. As a baby triathlete (I have a few sprints under my belt) and as the wife of a crazy triathlete who can’t seem to stop signing up for Ironman races, I’ve seen how useful these forums have been in answering all sorts of questions.
That being said, I would love your assistance in helping me gather some more info! I have posted a link below to a SurveyMonkey with 10 questions. The questions primarily ask about your main sources of information in regards to triathlete specific topics.
Question 2 is kinda misleading. It asks about frequency of participation but I don’t think the question itself is a fair account of triathlon lifestyles. For example, a person should, realistically do 3 IM max in a given year (and that’s a crazy high number). But, they may be training for an IM and doing several shorter races (sprint/ Oly/ HIM) during the build-up. In a typical IM year, I will do 2-3 HIM and 3-4 Oly, but only 1 IM. But, the IM is my focus. Your question asks for frequency, so in this case I do Oly’s more frequently than IM. The IM is my A-race and the Oly’s are hard, fun training days.
Tri-Banter - Thank you for the feedback. I included that question so that I would be able to get a sense of what types of races survey participants were focused on. I completely understand your comment, I saw the same thing with my husband.
In my experience, most triathletes have “their distance” or a distance that they prefer to compete in, and that’s what I was trying to get at.
Perhaps another way I could have phrased this question would be - “What distance is your focus?” or “What is your preferred distance?”
In my reply I noted that one of the largest sources of information was race specific websites. No single one of these websites would be in my “top 5” but taken collectively as a group they certainly would be. After hitting submit I realized that this probably applies to equipment as well. For example, while I might look at a review of a bike or running watch, I will almost certainly go to the manufacturers website and look up information about it.
Just some additional feedback.
Any chance you might post data on this poll when finished?