I have gotten a lot of questions regarding what a triathlon is, so here is my version. Triathlon comes in roughly four different varieties:
Sprint Tri
500-750yd Swim
13 mile Bike
5K (3.1) mile Run
Olympic or International Tri
1500 m Swim
25 mile Bike
10 K (6.2) mile Run
Half Iron
1.2 mile Swim
56 mile Bike
13.1 mile Run
IRONMAN
2.4 mile Swim
112 mile Bike
26.2 mile Run
This is what they are like:
Sprint - Sprints are called sprints because they are. Don't let the distance fool you, the guys that are racing are turning 5 minute miles on the run and are pushing 26 mph on the bike. If you do this race right you want to throw up the whole time, and if you time it perfectly you will vomit .5 sec after you cross the finish line. You don't fuel (eat or take in calories during the race). Depending on the course these take from under an hour up to two or three if you aren't prepared or having a bad day.
Oly - A little bit further, and the favorite of swimmers. The most balanced tri of them all, you gotta be fast in all three disciplines if you want to compete. You push almost as hard as a sprint, but the suffering lasts longer, a lot longer. You need to think about nutrition on the course here. Most people will take in all their food on the bike and gut out the run. These races will take you most of the morning, going from 2.5 hours up to four or five hours.
Half Iron - The step child of the tri world. Many racers consider this as the warm up to IRONMAN. If you can do one of these you might be warped enough to think about he big show. The swim is not that much longer than an OLY, but you spend a considerable amount of time on the bike (enough to catch the good swimmers) and you have to think about the run -almost nobody can gut out a half marathon. This is a great distance and really separates the wheat from the chaff. Times will vary from just over four hours to well north of seven depending on the racer, and there will be lots of pain. Secrets to this race are in pacing and having enough left in the tank for the run. Believe me, it is a long way home when you are out of gas at mile seven...
IRONMAN - The grand daddy of them all. I have not yet attempted this one, but I understand it goes like this:
Get through the swim. IMs have mass starts, which means that you will be in the open water with 2000 odd racers all kicking and swinging their arms. Many people have ended their day with a kick to the gut or an elbow to the eye. Chaos to be sure, but if you can find some feet to swim behind your day will get a lot easier. The swim will take anywhere from 50 min to 2.5 hours when they close the course.
Ride your race on the bike. It is a looonnng day out there and you will be on your own (IMs do not allow drafting), settle into you rhythm and ride into the horizon. This is where you will need to fuel, A LOT. The bike is the best place to take in some of the 5,000 odd calories that you will be burning on what is hopefully a beautiful day. Some will use this as a place to rest, the winners will use this as a place to dominate. Speeds will vary from 26 mph (yes that fast for 112 miles) down to 13 mph, and you will be out there for 4-8 hours depending on how ready you were. IM races will close the course so make sure you do not dawdle. The goal of the bike is to not lose too much time and make sure that you can still run a marathon.
Get running and keep running. The run will suck. Even good runners will say that this is hard. Try not to get in a hurry to finish the race, because there is a lot of road between you and the finish. Hopefully you have a full tank of calories from the bike so you should not need to eat too much on the run, but it has been a long day. The good news is that they don't close the run, and therefore the race, until midnight. Giving any racer exactly 17 hours to cross that line. So you can walk, if you want, if you don't have any hopes of going to the real BIG SHOW in KONA. The really hard part is that the pros will run a sub 3 hr or just above for this race finishing in somewhere just below 8 hrs to just under 9 hrs depending on the course.
My goal is first to finish, second to run sub 10 hrs, and third to go about 9:30 and chance to qualify for KONA.
KONA - This is the one that everybody knows about because it is on NBC every year. The real name is the IRONMAN World Championship and it takes place every year on the second Saturday of October. 2,000 of the best Triathletes in the world competing against the island, each other, and themselves. The best athletes in the world have been broken in the lava fields here. This is where the best come to fail and the once average come to triumph.
Kona is a qualification event, which means that most of the competitors here have already done an IM and won. They are the elite, they are the strong, and yet many will fail.
There are also about 500 lottery and award slots. Some of these stories you will see as you watch the NBC coverage. The homemaker, the cancer survivor, the addict, the paraplegic. The people that you and I are moved by, the ones that make us think that we can do this, and we can... Every year they are the stories that we tune in to see, not the superstars, not the men and women that burn up the asphalt, but the everyday men and women of IRONMAN.
One of the big reasons that I got into the sport was the Hoyt's, let me tell you why. Please click the link to hear the whole story, but every year watching Dick and his son race brought tears to my eyes, quite literally. I thought that if they could do this, then I could do this, and every time I want to give up, I think of them. There are greats in this sport, Mark Allen, Dave Scott, Paula Newby-Fraser, Natasha Badman, and the like, but nothing in comparison to Team Hoyt.
So that is Triathlon, well, as best as I can explain it anyway...
