Could Pro Triathlete Craig Alexander win the women's olympic marathon if he were fresh? (no bike or run before)

Yes. Even more so if he trained exclusively for marathoning.

- rovatti

No run before? So, he's not allowed to warm up?

Zippy chance. He is strong but he can't improve 20 minutes. No way. Ladies would crush him. No matter what, he is still a tri queer.

Zippy chance. He is strong but he can't improve 20 minutes. No way. Ladies would crush him. No matter what, he is still a tri queer.

Mark Allen could have. he ran low 2:20's in a straight marathon just missed the oly trial qualifying time.

No, he runs in Newtons. No real seriously fast runners run in Newtons. Especially ones that want to beat the women's Olympic champion.

On a side note...If he were to stop triathlon training completely (no swim or bike) and just run so he would lose all his upper body mass and most of his thigh mass, and lose about 10 years of age (he's upper 30's), then he might have an ice-cube's chance in Kona, but only if he didn't race in newtons.

On an other side note, I think there are other top level IM pros that would have a slightly better chance, such as current IM world champ Pete Jacobs.

He'd be within +/- 10% of the winner.

I don't think Alexander could do it off of Ironman training. If he trained specifically for marathon then maybe he'd have a shot, but he's not a young guy anymore. I expect the Brownlees' or other top ITU guys would be competitive with the top women off of their triathlon training.

Is he allowed to wear compression sleeves and arm coolers?

ASU GUY wrote:

Mark Allen could have. he ran low 2:20's in a straight marathon just missed the oly trial qualifying time.

No he didn't.

Also keep in mind that Ironman "Marathon" courses are about 10% short to make up for T1 and T2.

Um no, Ironman marathons are not short to make up for T1 and T2. The distance from T1 and T2 are not included in either the swim, bike or run distances or splits - they are running a full 26.2 miles.

anonamous wrote:

they are running a full 26.2 miles.

Sometimes yes. Race directors have 10% allowance for all 3 legs. Most of them cut the run leg short.

zero chance off ironman training. to win the women's OM, one has to be in roughly 2:19 shape (or at least in shape to beat 2:19 women). there are surges and tactics that are completely nonexistent in an ironman marathon that he wouldn't be able to handle.

if he trained full-time for the marathon, he might be able to win it but my guess is that he wouldn't. his body type is much larger than most guys who run sub 2:19. mark allen failed miserably when he tried to run a stand-alone against professional runners. the skill-set to run a 2:4x marathon with even pacing after swimming for 50 minutes and biking for 4:30 is very different than the skill set to run low 5-minute pace for 2 hours and 20 minutes.

TriDude wrote:

Also keep in mind that Ironman "Marathon" courses are about 10% short to make up for T1 and T2.

Kona has no 10% cut off on any of the legs. Most Ironmans are high enough caliber athletes that it'd be cheating them to take 10% off of anything.

20 minutes from 2:40 for a man use to racing 6 hours a day would be nothing if he geared more towards the marathon. The only thing having me say no to Craig doing this feat would be his age.

rovatti wrote:

Yes. Even more so if he trained exclusively for marathoning.

This ^

If Craig trains just for marathon for one year, 2:18.

I'm not convinced he would be all that much faster if he were fresh.

My theory is that the top triathletes are so well accustomed to the swim-bike-run routine that they already perform very close to their potential in the run even when it looks as if they aren't "fresh" in our eyes.

Using an example of one...

There's a local pro triathlete who runs some of the road races around my town. He's a good runner (a much better triathlete though), and routinely runs mid-high 31's for the 10k off the bike during the Olympic distance tri's. Guess what he runs for the flat 10k? Yup, mid-high 31's. I know that's just one guy, but I get the feeling that most of the pro triathletes are similar.

pablo wrote:

I'm not convinced he would be all that much faster if he were fresh.

My theory is that the top triathletes are so well accustomed to the swim-bike-run routine that they already perform very close to their potential in the run even when it looks as if they aren't "fresh" in our eyes.

This would make sense, similar to how elite runners can close distance races at speeds near their 400 PR.

If he had run 2:40s when he was younger and trained exclusively for marathoning for a couple years, I see no reason why he wouldn't have been able to go 2:20. Late 30s, however, are too far along in age to take off significant time like that, especially when already training at such a high level.

pablo wrote:

I'm not convinced he would be all that much faster if he were fresh.

Agreed. Pedaling uses a different set of leg muscles than running; different enough that you feel surprisingly fresh after getting off the bike.