Triathlon 101

So what is a triathlon? It’s a three-event race (duh) consisting of swim, bike and run. The reason for the order of events is safety: the athlete should have the lowest heart rate in the swim, higher HR on the bike and highest HR during the run. (If you’ve paced yourself properly.) The last place you want an exhausted athlete, is in the water.

There are two kinds of triathletes:

Elites/professionals, who can be any age but are typically in their late twenties to early thirties. These folks train and race for a living, can win prize money, and attract sponsors. Many are triathlon coaches as well (including my coach, Kevin Cutjar. See the link on the right, Impact Multisport).

Age-groupers, ie. The rest of us. Age groups are split between male and female, typically in five-year increments: for example 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, etc. This allows our results to be recognized according to a group of similar age and gender. It wouldn’t be fair to compare the results of a 48-year old mother of two, to a 28-year old female pro. Therefore winning your age group is the ultimate result in a race, and winning an age group is as honourable as winning the pro race, because it recognizes the relative performance against your peer group on race day.

Age-groupers can win money and attract sponsors as well, but would need to be consistently finishing near the top of their age group. Due to the abundance of excellent training and nutrition information in the media and the internet these days, not to mention first-rate coaching, there are some amazing performances being turned in by age groupers. In fact, age-group records are falling more frequently than the pro records. Which suggests we are catching up!

The sport of triathlon has its origins over 25 years ago on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, in an argument over who was the fittest: swimmers, cyclists or runners. Navy Commander John Collins and wife Judy proposed combining three existing races to be completed in succession: the Waikiki Roughwater Swim (2.4 miles), The Around-Oahu Bike Race (112 miles, originally a two-day event and 114 miles) and the Honolulu Marathon (26.2 miles). “Whoever finishes first, we’ll call the Ironman,” said Collins. Fifteen men participated in the first event on February 18, with 12 completing the race. Gordon Haller was the first Ironman to cross the finish line with a time of 11:46:58.

Since then, the race has become the Ironman World Championships, and has relocated to the big island city of Kona, Hawaii. Every year, around 50000 athletes compete in twenty Ironman and seven half-Ironman events held around the world, for the right to race in Kona. Other race distances have spun off from the original Ironman distance:

Sprint: 750m swim, 20km bike, 5 km run.
Sprints are a great introduction to the sport for first-timers. Also good for veterans looking to practice transitions, or stay sharp between longer races. Race pace for experienced triathletes during a sprint will be nearly all-out, with fast times in the 1:00-1:15 range.

Olympic: 1500m swim, 40km bike, 10km run.
Olympic-distance triathlons are a TV-friendly length. With some good editing, both the women’s and men’s elite races can be shown in two hours. Canadian Simon Whitfield is famous for winning in the debut of Olympic distance at Sydney in 2000, which sparked worldwide interest in the sport. Olympic-distance races sanctioned by International Triathlon Union (ITU) allow drafting during the bike, but for elite athletes only. Drafting is not allowed for any competitors, in any other race distance. Fast times for elites are 1:45-2:10, for age-groupers 2:00 to 2:20.

Local Olympic distance races are usually staged along with a sprint race. There are at least a half-dozen in the Calgary area every summer.

Half-ironman: 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run.
The half-Ironman distance is exactly as it sounds. Half-Ironmans are good preparation for a full Ironman race, and the pacing is a little faster. Compared to Olympic distance racing, the swim is a smaller proportion of the total distance, so halfs favour those who are stronger on the bike and run.

There are a few half-Ironmans in the Calgary area every summer, the most popular being the Great White North triathlon in Stony Plain. It is the Canadian Long Course Championships, and a qualifier for Ironman Canada. Fast times are 4:00 to 4:30 for pros, and under five hours for age-groupers.

Ironman or iron-distance: 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile (marathon)run.
The granddaddy of all triathlons. Ironman is actually a brand name, owned by the World Triathlon Corporation, however the name has become synonymous with the distance. (Non-WTC owned events are actually referred to as iron-distance of full-distance.) The WTC licenses the Ironman brand to Timex watches, wetsuits, clothing, even pain relief cream. The WTC-owned Ironman events are all qualifiers for Kona.

There are typically 80 qualifying spots per race, divided proportionally among the age groups, depending on size. In other words, the larger the age group, the more Kona spots. They are awarded in order of age-group finish. My age group, the male 45-49, in a typical race has 250 entrants, but only five or six Kona spots. There is a rolldown process; that is, if an athlete qualifies but declines his spot, it will roll down to the next finisher in the age group until claimed.

Since the swim is only about 10% of the total distance of an Ironman, a strong bike/run combo can overcome an average swim. (That's my strategy, but not by choice.) Ideal pacing is zone 2 aerobic until about the last six miles of the marathon, where a strong finishing kick in Z3-4 can win the race for you. Fast times for male pros are 8:15-8:45, female pros 9:00-9:45, male age groupers under 10 hours, and female age groupers under 10:30. (Depending, of course, on age, weather conditions, course difficulty, etc.)

There are six North American Ironman races: Arizona, Coeur d’Alene, Lake Placid, Canada, Wisconsin, and Florida. Ironman Canada, the oldest of these and the most popular, celebrates its 25th anniversary next year. Other Ironman races are in Australia (2), New Zealand, Malaysia, Korea, Japan, South Africa, and several in Europe.

There are several other variations of distance in the triathlon world. Most notable are the Escape from Alcatraz, which starts with a swim to San Francisco from a barge near Alcatraz prison; and the Ultraman, which is a three-day suffer-fest that circumnavigates the island of Hawaii. Coach Kev won the Ultraman in 1995.