Marathon/Triathlon article in Wall Street Journal

Pros do it all the time. Do you ever wonder why pro fields are always small? It's because they scout out races to figure which races they have the best chance to win prize money in.

I have no problem with someone doing their homework to find races that have weak fields if they want to win.

When I played mid and high stakes poker, half the game was making sure you sat yourself at the table with the most donks and fishes and avoided the sharks.

Some do sports for the experience and the fun of jogging around in lycra and some do it to crush the competition. To each his own.  

Big money = really competitive field

Little money = hit or miss

No money = usually pretty slow field

Example is at the 10k/5k that I did at the beginning of the month.  They were paying out really well (3 deep) in overall, masters overall, and age group in the 10k and that brought out all the fast people in the Baltimore area.  But the same day the 5k field was weak as hell with the winner not even cracking 21 minutes.  I would have won that race by almost 3 minutes if I had done it ...... but what's the point??  There was no pay out and it would not have been a challenge.

For pros that are in the sport to make a paycheck and get sponsors, it makes sense.  For amateurs I just don't get it.  What does having a higher USAT ranking get you?  Maybe a few small sponsors, but that's about it.

I think the way the USAT point system works is that you should get the same rating regardless of the competition in the field.  

I posted this after reading the article but hadn't seen this thread first.

The thing is we can only control what we do, how we train & how we race. We don't know who else is showing up and how they trained.

I have come in 1st a couple times in Athena, once I was the only one in my division...not very satisfying. I know many folks think Clydes/Athena is sort of a bogus division. When I started tri'ing I was in the 190's, and it made me feel I could do it as there may be others like me. I think it gave me the courage to try. Now I can't wait to get under 150 so I don't have the option any more.

As an Athena even though I'm old sometimes I place, sometimes I don't. On a few occasions I would have placed higher in my AG then Athena.

I don't do this to win or get medals but it is nice on the occasion it happens. It is about the challenge and working on getting better/faster.

I don't see how doing a small race is going to get your more USAT points. Last year they switched to a new point system based on I'm blanking on the what they call certain people who are like the standard and how they did at the race, and it is sort of equalization system. So if no one that placed high does the race, the points you get are lower. It is complicated system (see the USAT site for more information as I'm explaining it poorly) but coming in 1st OA or in your AG at a small race you most likely will get fewer points than coming in 5th in a huge race.

Bragging rights. For those with big egos, bragging rights can be more important than the big (or even small) payout. I know a few people like that.

amiine - 2007-06-23 7:03 PM Hey Kathy, I like the new avatar a lot better!

Me too...tired of thinking of me being injured...rather think of me riding 

This article just pisses me off.  Here you have a couple of sports where people push themselves to the limit....some for awards, some for money, some for bragging rights and some just to see if they can.  Those who want to compete with others can, and those who want to compete with themselves can also do so on the same field at the same time.  A positive article in the paper wouldn't gather much attention, but if they spin it so that these triathletes and marathoners are doing something of questionable ethics....well then it is a more compelling article.

Come on Wall Street Journal, get back to reporting the financial news and if you are going to report on our sports, report on them for the great things they do for people, not some manufactured negative slight. 

My take is that I don't care.  I'm out there racing for my own personal reasons.  I enter a lot of small local races that have 150 entrants or less.  I've occasionally won an AG award because there were three or less.  I think it's funny more than anything.  That Athlinks site is cool, but doesn't come close to tracking local small races.  It has me listed for one race, but I looked on my BT RR log and I've done something like 14 races in the past 2 years.

So if someone from out of the area shows up at one of our small local races just so they can win, so be it.  I don't care.  Just don't be running past me with your mp3 player on.  Now that would make me mad. 

It's great that you're a stud and are above racing in smaller races, but around here they're the backbone of the sport. If I limited myself to races of >300 participants, I would do two races per year or do a LOT of travelling. Similarly, a lot of people would never do their first race if they had your attitude toward smaller races.

Ironically, or maybe not, the two races that counted toward my USAT rankings last year were the two with over 300 participants

FWIW, the WSJ has a history of printing these kinds of articles about triathlon. A couple years ago it printed an article about how the existence of races shorter than IM distance proved that triathlon is going "soft".

 I'll get my financial news from the WSJ, but when it comes to lifestyle stuff like triathlon, it's not much better than the NY Post.