Morgan Pearson Cc college runner wins nationals triathlon in First ever race. Lol.

Hell yea haha

TriathleteBen wrote:

Triathletes of all are eating crow.

A runner won nationals today in first ever debut.

Wow.

Is there such thing as a second ever debut?

He won the race by putting down a 14:13 5k. His bike split was a few mi8nutes slower than 2nd.

Do people care about sprint distance triathlons? I always assumed that they attracted even less talent than regular triathlons.

Fixed that for you.

thetrailrunner wrote:

He won the race by putting down a 14:13 5k. His bike split was a few mi8nutes slower than 2nd.

It is a backdoor to getting his pro card. Is he with the #tinmangang or is he part of the USAT developement program. Since he doesn't have to work due to family wealth, not that big a deal to beat amateurs.

I don't think triathletes are laughing. Many triathletes ran track in college (others swam in college), so it is not that unusual. Look at the 2016 Olympians: Gwen Jorgensen (college runner at Wisconsin and Olympic triathlon winner), and Katie Zaferes (Olympic triathlete, ran at Syracuse). Runners tend to make good triathletes (except those that can't swim).

Can confirm. I ran xc and track in college. Killed it. I'm a solid biker as well. Can't swim worth a damn. I mean I can, but not fast.

comedyrelief wrote:

I don't think triathletes are laughing. Many triathletes ran track in college (others swam in college), so it is not that unusual. Look at the 2016 Olympians: Gwen Jorgensen (college runner at Wisconsin and Olympic triathlon winner), and Katie Zaferes (Olympic triathlete, ran at Syracuse). Runners tend to make good triathletes (except those that can't swim).

Morgan also swam in high school, so this is not a huge surprise to see him winning a triathlon. That and he is a 13:36 5K runner.

The "main event" for the weekend was the Olympic Distance race on Saturday.

Morgan's run - was the fastest run in either event or gender.

His swim - was competitive amongst the top age group athlete at the event. (But not strong enough for the ITU circuit).

His cycling would have been "pretty good" amongst the top 50-55 men.

(He is going to need to make MASSIVE improvements here, if he is going to be competitive with the pros).

Lest recognizable runner of all time

Velocibuddha wrote:

His cycling would have been "pretty good" amongst the top 50-55 men.

(He is going to need to make MASSIVE improvements here, if he is going to be competitive with the pros).

Aren't these events draft legal now? If he manages to get out of the water near other people it shouldn't be a big deal, right?

ggfsgasdfs wrote:

Velocibuddha wrote:

His cycling would have been "pretty good" amongst the top 50-55 men.

(He is going to need to make MASSIVE improvements here, if he is going to be competitive with the pros).

Aren't these events draft legal now? If he manages to get out of the water near other people it shouldn't be a big deal, right?

The highest level of professional racing, at this distance IS draft legal.

Morgan is NOT yet fast enough on the swim, to make a fast bike professional bunch.

But he is not that far off.

(He swam 10:00 - I guess the fastest ITU bunch would have swum 9:10 for the slowest in the bunch)

Morgan's bike would be TERRIBLE amongst the pros.

He would certainly get dropped.

(His bike split yesterday was 30:56 a top ITU cyclist would have easily gone 26:55. And a good 50-55 triathlete cyclist would go 30:59).

Morgan's run would have been competitive in a top pro

race.

"Improve 45 seconds (8%) on the swim and learn how to cycle well....."

Sounds easy enough.

Not that easy really.

Remember what happened to Alan Webb.

(Although Morgan can invest the necessary years to improve).

Alan Webb's triathlon history:

1) Alan swam competitively up to 10th grade in high school. He demonstrated what likely would have been division 2 collegiate swimming ability. (Maybe better.... but he would have needed to improve relative to his peers).

2) Alan went on to be one of the best runners ever.

3) In his early 30s Alan decided he was going to become a pro triathlete.

4) Runners everywhere proclaimed that Alan would "easily be one of the best triathletes ever."

4) Within a 6 months Alan did show some potential:

a) He was swimming fast enough to make the second bike bunch, in a 2nd tier professional race.

b) He was able occasionally able to avoid getting dropped on the bike (from the second bunch, in 2nd tier pro races).

c) He was NOT running as fast, however, as the fastest pro triathletes.

5) After a year and a half Webb was STILL not swimming fast enough to get into a top tier race. And his running off the bike was no where near fast enough to make a difference.

6) Alan's "triathlon career" vanished from our collective memories.

All in all, Alan made a decent showing.

But being a "top" triathlete is no easier than being a top runner.

If I were the "greatest endurance athlete of all times" I would prefer cycling (1st) and triathlon (2nd)- over running (for financial reasons).

I love crapping on the triathletes with their $20,000 bikes and other overpriced gear, but at the end of the day, he didn't really pwn the best triathletes in the world.

Don't get me wrong, sub-hour is seriously fast, and his 5k time alone would impress anyone outside LRC. And he was running it alone, with the next guy almost 2-minutes behind him. And he also had the fastest T1, which is impressive for a first timer.

That said, the Olympic distance is much more competitive. I don't think the Sprint was even an official event until this decade. 6 Olympic distance guys in Nebraska went sub-2, but only 2 sprinters went under 1. (Olympic-distance world record is sub 1:40.)

Of note: the more snobbish triathletes use the term "age-grouper" the exact same way the LRC uses "Hobby Jogger"

Anyone know why Conner Weaver was DQ'd from the Olympic distance?

He did the race on a road bike, not a time trial bike. That's stunning to me. Put him on a decent tri bike with aero wheels and a half decent position and he wins by another 1:30 or so. Dude has potential; I hope he sees how far he can go.

He was recruited by USAT out of college based upon his running times and his swimming background. Dude has real potential.

I'm a little late to the Morgan Pearson AGNC Sprint win discussion, but I still wanted to share a few pieces of insight from my inside work with the USAT Collegiate Recruitment Program.

First, it is true that the Olympic distance is more competitive at AGNC than the sprint. That said, Morgan's goal was to earn his elite card at the event (he did) and his training last summer was more geared towards a 20k vs. a 40k on the bike. I do want to bring up the concept of the "score" an athlete gets for every USAT race he does. From the USAT site:

"All athletes that complete the minimum required number of races will be used as pacesetters in the following season. The significance of the pacesetter system is to provide us with a “par” time for each event in the current season. The “par” time is the projected time in which the fastest amateur athlete could finish the race. The “par” time is calculated by taking each pacesetter’s finish time in the race multiplied by the pacesetter’s previous year's overall ranking divided by 100. We then drop the top and bottom 20 percent of the calculated times and average the middle 60 percent in order to create a“par” time. Now that the par time has been calculated, it can be used to calculate a ranking for every participant. This is done by taking the member’s finishing time divided by the “par” time in minutes, inverting it, and then multiplying the inverted number by 100."

OK, so I'm a math person, and I geek out on this. And so do most of the age-group (gasp, she said those words!) athletes. It's a good way to compare different races and different distance races over years. Triathletes don't get into comparing times (sub 2hrs for example) as the variables with a hilly bike, long transition, wetsuit swim, just makes it comparing apples to oranges. So the score is the way to make all races apples.

I looked at the scores for the OD and the sprint at AGNC. Here's a snapshot:

OD:

1- Bill Jones 110.35 (raced elite for many years but license lapsed so he came to AGNC to renew it)

2- Ian Hoover-Grinde 108.9

3- Todd Buckingham 108.65

6- Evan Culbert 107.37 (see below, raced the sprint, too)

7- Kevin Denny 106.8 (see below, raced the sprint, too)

11- Marty Andrie 105.17 (I put Marty in here because he is another collegiate recruit, 13:45 5k)

Sprint:

1- Morgan Pearson 110. 30

2- Kevin Denny 107.10

3- Evan Culbert 106.61

You can see that Evan and Kevin were fairly close in their scores in the OD and sprint. From the score, you could at minimum suggest that his win was legit in awesomeness, especially if you consider he ran most of the run by himself, knowing he won because all contenders were in his wave, whereas Bill was racing the clock because he was racing all athletes from waves who started minutes before and after him.

Second, yes, Morgan was on a road bike with regular wheels and no aerohelmet. It was also rainy that day with slick roads and he rode conservative because, going back to the goal of the race, he didn't need to be risky in order to earn his elite card. He definitely left time on the bike course compared to the other more experienced (rain) riders.

It was an impressive race and we are excited to see where he goes in this sport. I hope the running community will enjoy and take pride in following his journey!

Well this was awesome! I appreciate it when people post things like this because it really puts things in perspective and end much (not all) of the debate.

Has Morgan done any racing since this? Or is he just training?