Ranking of Ironman courses by Finish Time (Page 2)

Different courses here in the US attract different types of athletes. The average finishing time can be informative but taken out of context not as helpful as you suggest.

I have compared middle person in my AG finishing times at various IM races and for me I think that is more informative than what the average finishing time as racing as 49 year old women I'm not very average in the IM scheme.

I think the best way to rank them would be averaging out the top 10 in each AG up to 55, and use a sample of 3 years (to eliminate the weather factors)  I would omit the older AG's as the talent is more pronounced.

Of course, that's quite a bit of work and I'm too busy posting about saddle height.

Yes, I am that gullible IRL

I'm glad you put "easy" in quotes there.   I'm pretty sure there's nothing easy about a 16:59 Ironman regardless of the course.  Just jogging in place for nearly 17 hours would be exhausting for most people.
 

In my opinion this list simply tells me that the best triathletes around the world are concentrated over here, Germany, Austria, Switzerland. Unfortunately I am not one of them and if I want to qualify for Kona, one day, I have to get the plane a travel somewhere for about 10hrs or so.
Switzerland the fastest...did you see the bike profile?
and the swim...they claim that it is about 100m longer.
run: yes it is fast but as all the other ones.

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ok let's take IM St George vs. IM Switzerland. I think that the bike profile is very similar. Qualify time are apart by 45-60mins. I am thinking to get a flight and doing St George...but unfortunately to fly from Zurich to St George is a double connections flight
Europeans draft more on the bike: everything depends on the race marshaling and on the setup of the race. If you want to minimize that, you can. IM Frankfurt is the best on marshaling. IM Zurich one of the worst.
I think that in US you have the same problem.
and yes...I heard about IM 70.3 Clearwater where everybody draft

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This is from 2007, but is still probably accurate:

 

http://www.tri-talk.com/KonaIQ.asp

I see a couple times where North American events are classified as International in some AG's. But the rest looks OK.

Edited by brown_dog_us 2010-08-12 8:51 AM

Curious -- i'm evaluating courses for my first IM next year... in between CdA, St G, and full Vineman.

Are you implying here that full vineman > St G in terms of difficulty? 

Heck no.  I'd call Vineman one of the easier 140.6 (bike) courses out there.  My point about mentioning the guy who did St. George was that he did it as his first perhaps w/o fully understanding how challenging an IM it was and if many similar first timers did St. George, then that might skew the average finish time.

Perhaps I am gullible IRL as well, but I would say that an ironman (race) doesn't have to be hard IF you are well trained for the distance and you do the race well within your capabilities.  I'd never go so far as to say one is easy, but it doesn't necessarily have to be hard.  The training to get to that point, though, that's where the real work is.

Ahh gotcha, thanks. I misunderstood what you were saying. Thanks for clarifying. 

I agree.  If you have trained well and keep fueled and hydrated it need not be "hard". 

~Mike

You are jumping to false conclusions based on incomplete data. 

Consider this data. 2010 IM Switzerland only had 1641 finishers - of these only 161 were female (~10%)! 2009 IM Canada had 2378 finishers with 712 of these women (30%).  

I would suggest that: 
1. There is a broader level of IM participation in North America. There is a large base of  'Non-Hardcore' atheletes in North America are racing just to finish an IM.  The 'Hardcore' racers in North America are just as competative as the Euro or ANZAC racers.
2. There is a much healthier participation of women in IM in North America. This skews the average completions times slightly as women are slightly slower then men (statistically speaking - in practice they kick my @$$).
3. Like someone suggested - IM Canada or IM SG or IM LP are 'convinient' to get to so lots of 'recreational' and local racers go there. IM Lazarote or IM Brazil are more remote for (high proportion of foreign racers means only the dedicated and more hardcore are showing up)

There are probably 99 more reasons for differances in the results.

Just my humble opinion...





Edited by mgalanter 2010-08-12 11:20 AM

It is a really interesting graph - of course there are some many variables but one that hasn't really been brought up the composition of the field.  The overall size of the race as well as with male/female participation, the age group representation.  I hate to say it but in races where more women participate there might be slower average time.  but I happen to think more female athletes are a good thing!

Of course, IMSG was a really tough race and that is pretty obvious regardless of the field.

 

European athletes may or may not be faster, you can't tell from this graph.  Among other things, it's been mentioned that the cut off time over there is 15 hours or so, which means you don't have the hundreds of athletes' times of 15+ hours factored into the average in the European IMs as you do with the US IMs.

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

While I don't doubt there are indeed many great athletes toeing the line at those races and in general, for what I heard/seen athletes will most likely to train to attempt racing  vs completing the event, I also have heard many stories of rampant drafting at those 3 races.

I can't tell if that is true or not because I've never been to any race, just stuff I've heard.

I personally think the graph is kinda useless; it doesn't take into consideration the quality of the fields. For instance, IMLP is a challenging course yet the avg finisher time compared to IMFL is only 17 min slower which IMO indicates how stronger the field tend to be at LP even though FL is known for a 'fast' bike course. Maybe FL has more athletes who perceive it as an 'easier' course hence the times are not much faster?

The avg finisher time for Switzerland is 7 min faster than Kona, I personally doubt the field at Switzerland is better. One has to consider the extreme warm weather at Kona, the fact many don't race Kona to the best of their abilities since for many is their 2nd IM in the year, many just completed the 1st one a few months before and instead of making Kona the main focus of the year. It becomes more of a celebration of the accomplishment to getting there in the first place and many don't train as hard.

In the podcast I listen to (IMTalk) and on ST, the one thing I get the Euro Tri community is alot different.  Its more elite, competitive, and exclusive.  The idea here is for everyone to participate, and over there its 'dont show up unless you can do sub 12'.  Having never trained there I'm only getting my sources from 2-3 places, so if I'm off, let me know.

OK, I think everyone agree that you cannot simply equate average finish time with difficulty.

So what observations and/or conclusion can one draw from the data?

Ignoring the numbers, I actually think the ranking seems about right for the US races based on what I've heard, read and various race reports.  I do think more first-timers probably do the "easier" IM and that probably exagerates the delta in finsih times but again, I think the ranking is about right. 

if you don't agree, how would you change the ranking based on gut feel or race experience having done more than one venue.

~Mike

Edited by Rogillio 2010-08-12 1:14 PM

after having read this thread, I am convinced I have to get my Kona qualify trial in IM Wisconsin. Fly to Chicago, without connecting flights, and then rent a car for 3hrs drive. It is only 4 weeks apart Kona but that's something I can manage. I can't manage to qualify in Frankfurt or Switzerland even in my dreams.