Why are elite cyclists and triathletes so bad at running?

Alex Yee (GB) ran a 27:51 on the track last year. He was 2nd in his WTS Debut in 2019...

https://www.athleticsweekly.com/featured/alex-yee-excels-in-10000m-debut-97901/

https://wts.triathlon.org/athletes/profile/96742/alex_yee

Jakajj wrote:

You can't e serious wrote:

Because cycling and swimming are not running specific exercise.

This is the same reason elite runners aren't good cyclists.

Like Mike Woods for example (pretty good cyclist) or Freddy Ovett (pro cyclist) or Jeremy Rae or...

Mike Woods and Freddy Ovett became elite-level cyclists only after after they retired from running and devoted themselves fully to their new sport. Mike Engleman, who was a pro rider in the 80s and 90s, followed a similar path.

Mexican Benjamin Paredes went the other way, from elite level duathlete (2nd at the 1992 ITU world champs) to full-time runner who eventually did a 2:10:40 at the Rotterdam Marathon, 2nd at New York, and was Pan Am games champion.

Matthew Willis from the UK was second European finisher in the junior race last Saturday, he was probably the top European junior triathlete and duathlete last year.

There's also WHAT system you are training. For a long-course triathlon, the pros are working on their muscular endurance and aerobic capacity. A 10k runner is working on optimizing his threshold capacity. Yes, there is overlap but in the end, the specificity required for the 2 events are different. Even in cycling, the guy winning the Grand Tours is not the guy also winning the Spring Classics, and (usually, with a few exceptions) not the best TT guy in the world either.

Swimswam2020 wrote:

Alex Yee (GB) ran a 27:51 on the track last year. He was 2nd in his WTS Debut in 2019...

That's impressive. A 27:xx of just 70 mpw (before 2018 he never even ran more than 40 mpw).

So it seems the cross-training actually does help even on a high level, as he did 12+ hours of cycling and 6+ swimming every week in addition to that.

I think it depends what you are talking elite, the truly elite triathletes are exceptional runners. You don't know why they would choose triathlon if they were elite level runners... maybe the $$$.

Triathlon may take more time but probably has more financial gain, and seems to have much more exciting travel opportunities. There are many triathletes racing now who had the potential to be truly world class runners but chose triathlon. Not everyone enjoys running around in circles twice a day. Kind of like some ppl choose to be doctors, others Lawyers, and some want to fly planes, personalities come into it a lot. Triathletes I believe, on a whole, are more adrenaline junkies than runners are. Many if they are young enough, and chose to change focus for a few years could no doubt smash out some pretty impressive times. They may not be as fast as if they had not chosen to become world class triathletes due to their now changed body composition, but they would still be dam good.

Jakajj wrote:

You can't e serious wrote:

Because cycling and swimming are not running specific exercise.

This is the same reason elite runners aren't good cyclists.

Like Mike Woods for example (pretty good cyclist) or Freddy Ovett (pro cyclist) or Jeremy Rae or...

When they stopped running and became cyclists.....

Nope wrote:

Welcome to LetsRun where a 20 minute 5k person says 28:33 for the 10k time is nothing special.

Yep, we all run sub 28:30. In our dreams that means 10k. Reality says it 5k

akser of questions. wrote:

Why do professional athletes like football players or basketball players when they retire become professional MMA fighters instead of professional boxers?

I don't know if you were attempting to answer the previous poster with a rhetorical question or genuinely asking yourself, but I would say it's largely due to these meatheads wanting to prove they can fight, and MMA has now long superseded boxing as the 'ultimate fighting sport'.

There's also a feeling I think that MMA hasn't so far attracted the caliber of athlete that boxing has, and so that an elite athlete even in a non-related sport such as football could make waves and be competitive simply because of their athleticism, despite only starting training in their thirties.

Guys from the NFL tend to also fight in the heavyweight division, where the skill level isn't so high (nor the athleticism).

And sometimes these athletes making the crossover into MMA have actually wrestled in High School, which is the best base for MMA.

Despite this Greg Hardy was getting outclassed by his c-level opponent in his UFC debut and only avoided defeat by delivering an illegal blow.

What a dbag! Maybe you can generalize about elite swimmers and cyclists based on specificity. However, any of you forum heroes would be destroyed by the elite long course triathletes, men and women. And and the ITU level, it would be uglier, even against the lackluster US crew. Do not confuse the obnoxious local triathlete with the world class elite.

Some cross country skiers on the other hand are doing well. As the distance grows more emphasis is on the development of capillaries. Even sprint triathlons are long in time so if someone should do okay in running they will most likely have to be training for middle distance and also doing triathlons or cycling competitions that only last for a few minutes in length. There are few of those

And eficient muscles overall

I have always thought the opposite. I thought that triathletes over excelled at running given the limited amount of training time they have to dedicate to running. Knocking out a sub 29 min 10k after a hard swim and fast bike ride is pretty incredible. It is understandable that triathletes do not translate well to the track or marathon because pro runners have spent years logging miles and doing lots of speed work. Pro runners' bodies have adapted to distance running by having muscles get lighter and more efficient. Triathletes spend more time working on getting watts out of their legs and having strong shoulders for swimming. So, they are at a huge disadvantage when making the switch.

Running is a skill that has to be practised, just like any other skill. If you want to be a good tennis player, you have to spend many hours on the tennis court - you won´t reach the same success if you spend some of the time playing table tennis.

It´s the same with running. Doing other endurance sports will train your aerobic system, but that is only half the equation. You also have to practise the skill of running.

What´s the difference between Kenny B in his prime and some who is running 13,30? It´s not that KB has a higher Vo2max or LT - he is better at the art of running.

Precious Roy wrote:

I have always thought the opposite. I thought that triathletes over excelled at running given the limited amount of training time they have to dedicate to running. Knocking out a sub 29 min 10k after a hard swim and fast bike ride is pretty incredible. It is understandable that triathletes do not translate well to the track or marathon because pro runners have spent years logging miles and doing lots of speed work.

The top triathletes (ITU) are doing 90-100 mpw, in addition to swimming 30 miles and biking 500 miles. Jan Frodeno made a movie about the average training day:

7 am Swim - 5.7km (3.5 miles)

9 am Run - 10km (6.2 miles)

1 pm Bike - 60km (37.3 miles)

4 pm Run - Run including 2 x 2km on hills

6 pm Run - 20 x 400m + 200m active rest in 69/70, jog in 1:50

He said he has 30-40 % intensity in running.

So he is doing what elite runners are doing, with even more intensity during running and extra 20-30 hours of aerobic conditioning + few hours strength/core training.

It gives him around 29-30 min 10k off a triathlon, and he also did a 1:05 half in a half-ironman (first 10k at 31:30). That guy is 6'4'', so I think he would have never been able to run 27ish times in a 10k, but in triathlon he can be great (only Solinsky and maybe Mottram come to my mind that succeeded in getting great 10k times despite being tall, but they also did way more than 100 mpw).

“Only” has a 10K PR of 28:33 he says.... hahaha

checkmate? wrote:

kartelite wrote:

Not a huge sample size as not many people try to cross over, but there was a guy from my state who ran like a 3:53 our senior year who also could have competed for top D1 swimming programs.

3:53 in the 1500? That's not "elite" as in "pro". If you're talking about Allen Webb, I'm not so sure that he could have made a D1 swim team.

If not Webb, what kind of swim times did he have?

Also Allen Webb is about as one in a million athlete as you're going to find.

3:53 in the mile. And his swimming times at 15 were easily above average for guys who ended up swimming D1 - stop searching for "Allen Webb" because you're probably getting results for the wrong guy.

[quote]LateRunnerPhil wrote:

[quote]Precious Roy wrote:

The top triathletes (ITU) are doing 90-100 mpw, in addition to swimming 30 miles and biking 500 miles. Jan Frodeno made a movie about the average training day:

7 am Swim - 5.7km (3.5 miles)

9 am Run - 10km (6.2 miles)

1 pm Bike - 60km (37.3 miles)

4 pm Run - Run including 2 x 2km on hills

6 pm Run - 20 x 400m + 200m active rest in 69/70, jog in 1:50

He said he has 30-40 % intensity in running.

So he is doing what elite runners are doing, with even more intensity during running and extra 20-30 hours of aerobic conditioning + few hours strength/core training.

First off, Jan Frodeno didn't make a movie about his "average" training day; Specialized made a long-form commercial featuring one of their sponsored athletes. Secondly, you really believe that one of his "average" training days includes three runs, with two of them being interval sessions? Please. This has about as much veracity as the Nike commercial where Lance asked "What am I on?"

5/10

But I will bite:

Triathlon is, just as cycling and xc skiing, still only a white boy-sport. Maybe as popular as track in Europe and US, but not nearly as popular in the rest of the world. If you just picked true Europeans and americans, there wouldn't be many sub 27:30 10k-ers. Or if you got all those eastern africans to live a triathlon related life from the start (swim to school every day, cycle in front of hungry cheetahs, the rest running), I bet there would be quite a few new sheriffs in town.

Bottom line, 28:33 from tri-training translates to, lets say 27:30 from pure running training, which is what it takes to be the best in the sport. Triathlon is still a sport of first world countries.