Why does triathlon allow a 10% deviation in distance in the course?

what is so strange about someone complaining that you use run-on sentences that read like an 8-year old wrote them? try using some periods in the future. this is hardly immature. yes, i don't know you personally, but i do know that you have a hard time conveying your thoughts in written form.

why did you add the 7th, 8th and 9th sentences? they don't add anything and don't explain how a long or short run leg has any impact on how you race a tri. i don't even use my garmin on the run leg because there are so many other factors involved leading up to the run that impact how fast (or slow) i will be running. i'll repeat this for you: nobody cares if the run in a tri is exactly the right difference because it doesn't matter.

*distance.

Troll? Based on the irony of his/her own grammar, most likely.

Arrogant jerk? Who knows, and who cares?

Merry Christmas!

voiceofreason wrote:

Neither. It takes a certain kind of anal retentiveness to be worried about this.

mplatt wrote:

Liar or sheltered.

I would say you consider people who balance their checking account "anal retentive". Because it is about as congruent on the Freudian scale of oddities.

It is just a flat out lie that you have NEVER heard a triathlete complain about a poorly measured course. Not only that, but you probably just wanted to mention that you coach triathletes....jeezus, just a little common sense and a lot less bickering for the sake of bickering would go a long way.

Numerous runners and triathletes are bothered by significantly poorly measured courses. There are "races within races" or haven't your people let you in on this.

It is true, aside from people on this website in past threads and this, that i have never heard anyone even mention let alone complain that the distances are not accurate.

You link balancing your checkbook with being anal retentive? This doesn't even come close to the meaning. Balancing a checkbook is responsible behavior. Bitching about a run being .2miles short is petty, anal retentive and ridiculous.

I'm bothered more because of how bloody simple it is to accurately measure a course. Geez, its not brain surgery. Just measure it accurately, then everyone is happy.

Break it up. The trolls defending triathlons on this thread are too obvious in their responses. Just look at a triathlete, their gear, their incrementally itemized blogs on training and nutrition, and tell me they are not anal and narcissistic! Wrap this thread, move it along folks. 5/10 for the OP and his cohorts.

So someone who disagrees with you is automatically trolling because your opinion is the only valid one that challenging it is unimaginable? People never cease to amaze.

d2xccoach wrote: I would say runners are 90% more pr oriented than triathletes are. Even people who do both can usually tell you their 5k, 10k, half marathon, marathon pr's (maybe even their track pr's) a lot more quickly than their Olympic distance and half Ironman pr. Ironman distance is a different story triathletes can definitely tell you what their Ironman pr is..

Wouldn't that just be a self fulfilling prophecy? If nobody knows their real distance/time, you won't care to remember it. If runners ran races that always differed in length, they probably wouldn't know their PRs as well either. The fact that people competing on a properly measured course know their prs a lot more makes sense....and has little to do with the fact they are runners.

Good theory but i don't think its accurate because i would bet many triathletes don't even know if the courses are short or not.

I really haven't weighed in on this, except the anal part. I think the one guy above is definitely trolling. As far as you, maybe not, but from what I've see of triathletes, even training on my local trail, they must care. With all their aerodynamic bikes and gear, the computer odometers, Garmins for running, and racing singlets, they appear to care about measuring and shaving time A LOT, and therefore must be concerned about the correlative distance to justify this process they have invested in. Otherwise, why buy all the gizmos to measure everything and strive so hard to shave time?

The runners commenting seem to only care that the distances they signed up for are measured accurately by the company putting on the event. Is that too much to ask, given the payment made for the advertised product? The triathletes seem to care about and pay big bucks for everything else mentioned above to improve performance, so who is really the most anal of the two groups?

You can be anal about your equipment trying to get the advantage on the next guy but you all do the same course so being anal about distance doesn't give you a competitive advantage over the next guy.

i've measured our local 5k xc course walking the shortest and longest possible distances staying within the course's boundaries. while measuring the shortest possible distance, i hugged the turns and walked the tangents between points. for the longest distance i swung wide on turns and ran on the outside edges of the courses(like running in lane 8 on a track).

shortest distance: 3.03 miles

longest distance: 3.26 miles

SOOOOO they allow deviation because if the course is .2 miles too long, smart runners will be able to cut that and run the actual distance.

i know this was confusing but work with me.

voiceofreason wrote:

You can be anal about your equipment trying to get the advantage on the next guy but you all do the same course so being anal about distance doesn't give you a competitive advantage over the next guy.

Maybe it's just because the running section is last, but it may be a competitive disadvantage to runners, like the other guy said, if the section you are banking on making up the difference turns out to be 10 % short. Of course if it's 10% long, then that may become an advantage.

I don't get the big deal defending inaccuracy if distances are specifically advertised, so I'll just leave it at that. Why not just stick with a generic race-type name, versus advertise and identify any distances, if distances are not accurately measured?

This is a running board, so runner/triathletes appear to care how far they are running. As far as cross country distances, you know where everyone is from the start (unlike swimming underwater), so you can adjust and still compete against your similar-level runners from the outset. So I would agree with you if it were more similar to cross country scenario.

I have met a lot of obsessive triathletes and cyclists. Talk to them about bikes and the weight of them.

tybeanie wrote:

i've measured our local 5k xc course walking the shortest and longest possible distances staying within the course's boundaries. while measuring the shortest possible distance, i hugged the turns and walked the tangents between points. for the longest distance i swung wide on turns and ran on the outside edges of the courses(like running in lane 8 on a track).

shortest distance: 3.03 miles

longest distance: 3.26 miles

SOOOOO they allow deviation because if the course is .2 miles too long, smart runners will be able to cut that and run the actual distance.

i know this was confusing but work with me.

There are very specific instructions for measuring a run course. You can easily find them on the internet.

There is even an allowance to make sure a course is not short.

why are you commenting when you don't do triathlons and it sounds like you don't even know any triathletes if you are basing your entire opinion on what you have seen on your local trail. could you come up with an even less persuasive opinion? at least pretend that you know some triathletes and they have told you that it bothers them that the run was 6.3 miles in the last tri they did.

why is it so difficult to comprehend that having the distance exactly right on any of the 3 legs in a triathlon doesn't matter? what do you think you could run faster: (1) 6.1 miles after a choppy 1500M swim without a wetsuit and a 40K bike with 3000 feet of climbing, 30mph swirling winds and 30 turns or (2) 6.2 miles after a lake swim with a wetsuit and a 40K bike with 100 feet of climbing, no wind and just a turn-around at 20K?

why don't you just stop embarrassing yourself on this thread and go away? i'll repeat this for you: the only people who care about triathlons having the correct distances are insecure runners. do you think ritz or rupp sits around and complains that some tri in oregon had a run that was really just 6.1 miles? no, it's the 16 minute 5k guys who like to waste their time posting on here.

Uh oh, look who is back. Watch out, he'll call you names if you don't agree with him!

no, i'll just point out that you are a moron if you make moronic posts likes yours. you make it very easy. maybe one day you will talk to a triathlete, which will make your opinions on this thread marginally more persuasive.

another factor that hasn't been mentioned is the fact that you are running well before the run starts in a tri and sometimes it is far. there are tris with enormous transition areas that require one to run at least 400M before the run leg starts. how can you compare running 400M nearly anaerobically leading up to the start of a 10K (assuming it is measured correctly) to a stand alone 10K? you can't, which is just another reason why the actual times in a tri don't really that much.