USA Triathlon is recruiting collegiate runners who can swim and is here to answer your questions (sponsored)

What events? wrote:

SanDiegorunner wrote:

Coronado HS alumni and Auburn XC/TF sophomore middle distance runner, Erik Armes went pro and he has sub 50 speed, 1:52 .21, and 4:10 mile speed. His dad is triathlete as well so he's well rounded in all three aspects.

Sub-50 what? Is that 400m run, sub-50 100m freestyle, sub-100yd freestyle? Is that 1:52.21 200m freestyle or 200 yard freestyle or 800m run? If those are 400/800 running times, that indicates nothing regarding swimming.

His father? That indicates what?

Erik came to my 9-day Collegiate Recruitment Program camp at the Olympic Training Center this past July. We were excited with his prospect and potential in the sport. He is a talent and wonderful young man as well. He just finished his last XC season at Auburn. As a side note, he did more triathlon training this fall than pure run training, and finished the season as their best runner and in his best running shape. College run coaches take note of the benefits of cross-training! Erik is on his way to Arizona to join the Project Podium squad under Coach Parker Spencer. I just shared the link to the article on a previous post about Erik going to PP.

Sub 50 is for 100 yard free and 1:51 for 200 yard free. Parental support is key in my job since these athletes are taking the non-traditional post-NCAA path, so his dad "gets it" as a triathlete himself.

joedirt wrote:

I did mean Bolton (of course it was twenty years ago, so I confused his name with another guy I used to run against in that era). He was a stud athlete. You should ask Morgan if he thinks Peirce would make a good triathlete. He has the running chops and one would think the surfing would give him a decent shot at the swim portion (although he is shorter, which doesn't help on the swim). I did Xterra events for a couple of years after college and the main issue with runners is their inability to swim. Finding the ones that can is definitely the way to go.

Thanks, Joedirt, I will! Regarding "Bolton," once you use the word "era," all reason for a mistaken name is understood. (I'm there, too!)

Morgan introduced me to fellow Buffalo Annie Kelly, who is a 16;12 5k runner and BEAUTIFUL swimmer. Annie just started under a CRP Scholarship with us in November and will debut elite this spring. Part of the purpose of a forum like this and my task of sharing the opportunities for post-NCAA runners plays into the fact that the running community knows each other so well. I guess that's what you get for spending so many long runs chatting together! I know my run buddies better than my swim buddies :). I've had many a recruit referred to me through a fellow runner or someone who has contacted me himself wanting to learn more about the CRP, wasn't a fit, but by learning more thought of a friend who would be a good fit. Spread the word!

Former runner, current Cat 2 cyclist weighing in just to say this is really cool. If swimming was easy I'd be doing triathlons instead of cycling.

Barb Lindquist wrote:

Thanks for the intro, Weldon! I'm glad to be back on letsrun.com to spread news about the opportunity USA Triathlon has via the Collegiate Recruitment Program to find, assess and support collegiate runners into our sport. It's a unique niche of runners we are looking for-- 16:18 or 4:22.5 for women and 14:00 and 3:46 for men in the 5000m and 1500m-- who also swam in their past. The letsrun.com community is an educated and vocal bunch, so I'd love to answer questions you might have about what it takes to make the transition to triathlon.

Here's a question:

If the sport is actively recruiting so-so college runners (like 14:00s and any guy who can stiff a 4-minute mile?? and those women's times?!) who simply have any history of competitive swimming, is it really at a stage of depth that it has any right to be in the Olympics?

thin on the ground wrote:

Here's a question:

If the sport is actively recruiting so-so college runners (like 14:00s and any guy who can stiff a 4-minute mile?? and those women's times?!) who simply have any history of competitive swimming, is it really at a stage of depth that it has any right to be in the Olympics?

A-standard for the mile is 4:05, even slower than I thought.

Most people would give you 4:03/4:04 as a "sub-3:46" standard conversion.

Considering the best men one mile T&F athletes tend to be 13% faster than women; the best men 500 yard swimmers tend to only be about 7% faster swimmers than women, are you getting a lot of: 4:47 women one milers and 5:10 women 500 yard freestyle swimmers walking through your door on a regular basis? I doubt a 19 or 20 year old Gwen Jorgensen was running AND swimming those times.

You would be wrong.

https://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/Athlete.aspx?AID=677970#!/L0

dex8425 wrote:

Former runner, current Cat 2 cyclist weighing in just to say this is really cool. If swimming was easy I'd be doing triathlons instead of cycling.

Appreciate the nod to the complexity of the swim. Have you considered Duathlon? Run/Bike/Run format, while not in the Olympics, has a National and World Championship at sprint (5k/20k/2.5k draft-legal!), Olympic (10k/40k/5k), and long course distances (6.2m/56m/13.1m).

thin on the ground wrote:

thin on the ground wrote:

Here's a question:

If the sport is actively recruiting so-so college runners (like 14:00s and any guy who can stiff a 4-minute mile?? and those women's times?!) who simply have any history of competitive swimming, is it really at a stage of depth that it has any right to be in the Olympics?

A-standard for the mile is 4:05, even slower than I thought.

Most people would give you 4:03/4:04 as a "sub-3:46" standard conversion.

Oh my, you are wondering if triathlon has the right to be in the Olympics? Have you watched an ITU (International Triathlon Union, our Olympic governing body) elite race? 18-19 min of a swim, where you SPRINT (READ: alactate) at the start of a 1:45-2hr race in order to get positioning and clean(er) water, all the while being touched (that is a gentle word) by your competitors because you don't have your own lane. In Transition 1 (T1), while the HR is out the roof and blood is in your arms from being horizontal in the swim, you have to run to your bike, performing minute skills like buckling a helmet and mounting a bike on the fly, knowing in the back of your mind that if you mess up on any of these skills then all the hours of training were for naught because you could miss a bike pack. Then the first 3-5' of the bike you are hammering to get into your best pack or to get away from stragglers. Within the 40k bike (55-60') you are cornering within a pack, covering or making breaks, with watt profiles that look like the Alps with all the spikes, all while trying to conserve as much energy for the run. When you get off the bike, it's not like a 10k on the track where everyone stays together until someone decides to get feisty. They run hard and smooth and still have enough in the tank to throw in surges to drop competitors within the last few k's AND have enough for a sprint finish sprawling across the line (we have had Olympic medals decided in a sprint finish!). My heart is beating harder right now just thinking about the level of athleticism, endurance, power, strategic understanding, and skill that needs to be in an Olympic triathlete to compete at the highest level.

All that said, these are entry standards for the Collegiate Recruitment Program. All of our collegiate runners who have brought their swim/bike up to world class standards are now running faster than they did in college. Gwen did, too. We set the standards where they are because we believe and have the history to prove that the runner will run faster.

There aren't as many runners at that 14'/16:20 speed with the swim standards we need as you might think! It's a unique combo to have.

Thanks for letting me relive the excitement of a draft-legal Olympic triathlon. Better than any cup of coffee!

Here's a question:

If the sport is actively recruiting so-so college runners (like 14:00s and any guy who can stiff a 4-minute mile?? and those women's times?!) who simply have any history of competitive swimming, is it really at a stage of depth that it has any right to be in the Olympics?

Says someone who probably has never run either of those times and would sink like a stone in the pool. It is a rare individual that can do both. Try commenting after you have tried your first triathlon. As a reminder, Gwen Jorgensen won the Stanford invitational 10K nine years after running competitively in college defeating a multiple time NCAA champion in the process. Triathletes are elite athletes in multiple disciplines.

"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Behan

I asked this question earlier in a response to the question posed to me of how would I convince a "sub-elite runner" within a running squad to give triathlon a go (AKA to come over to the dark side) ... what sort of money can a sub-elite runner make in the sport, both from a shoe contract and from prize money? And based on our A Run Standards of 14' and 16:18, let's call sub-elite around that or 15-20" faster for a 5k. Thanks!

Barb Lindquist wrote:

thin on the ground wrote:

A-standard for the mile is 4:05, even slower than I thought.

Most people would give you 4:03/4:04 as a "sub-3:46" standard conversion.

Oh my, you are wondering if triathlon has the right to be in the Olympics? Have you watched an ITU (International Triathlon Union, our Olympic governing body) elite race?

Now you really pissed off Barb... she just went italic on you!