Lake Placid Ironman

Hi,

It would be very rare to see a male run sub 2:45 for the marathon, or female sub 3:00 in an Ironman. It happes, though! The Lake Placid course is REALLY challenging, the bike with lots of hills which knock you out and then a challenging run as well.

Some guys have gone sub 2:45 on flat courses: I recall Peter Reid running a 2:35 (?) a few years ago, and I believe Mark Allen has done sub 2:40 in his heydey. The difficulty of the bike course (say, mountains in Lake Placid or heat in Hawaii) ususally sap enough strength to preclude any sort of really fast (by elite runner standards) marathon time.

Ironman Wisconsin in September might see some fast times - having grown up in Madison, I can say that the run course is not as challenging as other Ironmans, and conditions should be reasonable at that time of the year. The fact that is it only a month before the Hawaii race probably means that only second-tier pros will be there, or pros who do not plan to go to Hawaii.

Tex

Ironman Lake Placid is truly a beastly course, both on the bike and for the marathon. Not that I've done the course or the race, but I know the area decently and I've reviewed the course maps. Anybody who runs sub 3 hours on that course has all my respect and then some.

Keep in mind that while IM Lake Placid gets some great triathletes, they don't tend to get the best in the world. These days there are plenty of Ironmans worldwide and the best in the world tend to do Hawaii and 1 other in the course of a year. The podium winners in the sport tend to come from Australia and central Europe, so they'll frequently race once near their homes for their 2nd IM of the year. To get a better representation of the running abilities of triathletes check out the results of IM Hawaii, IM Canada or IM Australia.

There have been a bunch of sub 2:50 marathons run at the IM distance, not very many sub 2:40s. Mark Allen and Dave Scott had an epic duel in Kona back in '89(?), where they came off the bike together and ran side by side for 25 miles before Allen broke Scott on an uphill. I think Allen's run split that day was 2:40 and Scott finished about 90 seconds back. Peter Reid of Canada has since gone sub 2:40 I believe, and I think Allen might have gone sub 2:40. It's become more the rule than the exception the past 7-8 years that to win an Ironman anywhere you're going to need to run sub 2:50, unless you're Steve Larson and you can bury the field on the bike. And keep in mind that's after swimming 2.4 miles in under 55 minutes and riding 112 miles in around 4:30 (~27 mph).

It would be very interesting to see a world class marathoner give the Ironman a serious shot. My personal thoughts are that if a sub 2:15 marathoner were to seriously take up triathlon and devote 18 months to getting efficient in the water and on the bike, they could probably maintain sub 2:22 conditioning for an open marathon. I doubt they'd be able to ride under 4:50, and I'd be shocked if they could complete the swim under an hour (maybe with a wetsuit). That means they'd have probably a 30 minute deficit starting the run. Would they be able to run sub 2:30, well no one has done it yet.

My gut tells me that it's more feasible for a great cyclist to convert to being a world class triathlete at the Ironman distance than a great runner, primarily due to the time that can be gained/lost on the bike leg.

You've got to be proficient, even if you're not fast, as a swimmer and on the bike.

Otherwise a fast run is out.

Ryan Grote might be the guy. He's been winning local events and has the running pedigree.

It's awfully easy to try and predict how dominant a "good" runner would be in triathlons, but usually they just end up being good triathletes as well. Ryan Bolton (with 2:49 run at IM USA) was a good runner (12th at '95 NCAA XC while at Wyoming, I believe). Greg Whiteley (sub 13:30 5000m) never became more than a decent pro triathlete. If one were to speculate on what they thought either of these guys should do for the run in a tri, I suspect they would estimate much better times than they actually achieve.

My own experience is that a good runner loses a lot of time on the tri run compared to an open race of the same distance. I regularly slog through triathlon/duathlon runs at less than tempo pace and still have one of the fastest splits. For me it seems that I lose economy and smoothness when I try and run off the bike. It's more like the feeling of trying to hit race pace 15 miles into a good long run. It doesn't matter how easy 6:30 pace is for a long run, it is a whole different world when you have just come off of 4.5-5 HARD hours on the bike.

Guys like Mark Allen and Peter Reid were never really fast open races, but unlike the best runners-turned-triathletes they could come pretty near their open race bests in a triathlon run. Allen ran 2:40 in IM Hawaii (the course record), but he never was much faster(I don't believe he broke 2:35) in an open marathon, even when taking time to focus just on the marathon for a year or so. (Reid's ~2:35 at IM Switzerland a few years ago was on a short course - I don't believe he's run under 2:40 for 26.2 mi in an IM).

It's interesting to see how top-level single sport athletes do when they take up multisport. You can get pretty competitive fairly quickly, but a lot of that is lack of depth in many races. To get to the top, though, you have to maximize your performance in all three disciplines. If you are putting enough effort into running to approach your potential there, cycling and swimming will suffer to the point you won't be competitive in triathlons.

On a different but related note, discussions here of running depth, Gallowalking, etc. often lament the loss of the 2:30-3:00 marathon segment of the running population. I would suggest that maybe a lot of the people who would have been the "serious recreational" runners of the 70's and 80's have turned to tri's in the 90's and 00's. The dedication to training, racing, and the sport of tris in general from the age-groupers is much like the dedication to running that gave us lots of sub-3:00 times from average runners in the past. I think the slow conversion of races from competitions to social gatherings has directed a lot of people with competitive ambitions to multisport, which has much of the feel of the 80's road race scene (from a competitiveness point of view).

Mark Allen

5k 14:25

10k 29:59

10 miles 49:50

Marathon during Ironman 2:39 and change

Christian Bustos of Chile was a top Ironman triathlete of about 10 years ago and a sub 2:20 marathoner.

The IronmanUSA run course is pretty brutal and that's after a brutal bike course. I did Lake Placid in '01 for my first and only I-Man. Down hill for 6 and half miles and then back up for 6 and half miles and then do it again. A friend who ran this ran a 2:29 marathon a few months ago was only able to muster a 3:17 on that course.

the run course at I-man Lake Placid is not that challenging (aside from the fact that it comes after a 2.4/112 swim/bike). I've run it twice and most of it is quite flat. There's really only two hills one of which is no big deal. this course is only challenging in the context of an Ironman.