Why aren't top IM times getting faster? (Page 2)

I would be curious to see the results graphed as an average of perhaps the top 10-20 times for each year.  Its very dangerous and potentially misleading to draw conclusions from just the 1st place finisher each year.  As others said, there were some legendary competitors during the period of the study.

Have you seen the volume of training Allen put in?  It is sick! He is the man.

I was thinking this same thing a few months ago, but didn't post it.

If equipment is better, why aren't the times?

I would be willing to bet that overall, say if you take the top 100 times would be generally much better, how much, I don't know. Maybe average for top 100 would be 15 min faster, maybe more, maybe less.

But then you could ask, well maybe there are just more people than back then that are highly trained. That could be true too, maybe it was possible back then, but just not that many into it.

Lot's of variables, but I wonder too in the day of all the equipment, why not faster. Or when will we see the sub 8 at Kona.

The reason I quoted this part though is this may hold some truth, if I'm really good at one, I'm probably going to do that. But if I'm not, well say I'm only good enough to barely make the Olmpic swim team, or on of the pawns on the tour that is good, but not good enough to win, well I could do triathlon and do well there.

Here you have to be good at everything.

Anywho, back again to this quote, I wonder what the time would be if we had a relay event at Ironman's do like a world relay event, see the fastest open water swimmer/ time trialist/marathoner from each country team up and go head to head, what would the time be?

Swim 40.00?? not sure what a pure open water swim time would be

Bike 4.00 guessed on this too, but 28 mph, is that doable for a cyclist if there not worried about the swim and run, I think so.

Run 2.10

So relay of 7 hrs or so, I think it'd be cool to see.

Added to the graph the tenth place men's finisher and top female finisher:

Two things I think this clarifies: 1. local conditions play a huge role in finishing times (from the parallel movements of the three lines). No surprise there. 2. Times for top athletes at Kona are not improving over the last 20 years.

So either the technological improvements of the last 20 years don't reduce times or do so so marginally that the effect is easily lost within year-to-year variation, or there's some counter-acting trend.... athletes are coming into Kona less fresh, the best athletes are less in IM racing than they used to be, conditions are worsening over time, some changing zeitgeist in IM training/racing is disadvantageous, or ???.

Just from eyeballing the graph...

It looks to me like the avg. time for top ten men's finisher has been considrably faster the past five years compared to the previous 10.

Not that I'm asking anyone to do this, but a much better/more interesting study would be looking at the top 25 men's finishers at multiple ironman races over the past ten years.  This would be closer to the sample size you need to draw any significant conclusions.

My .02.

1. The course was changed from Oahu to Kona in '82. Since then only minor changes which dont affect results.

2. Who cares about 10th place, 25th place, etc. Of course the field has more depth today. THere are probably 20 to 100x more people competing in tri's today so the athlete pool is much larger.

3. Sorry tekkies but technology is way overrated.

4. The conditions for 3 of the last  years have been some of the best ever at Kona so even that skews against the times for the athletes lately.

5. Nutrition is vital for Ironman on the day of the race but is way overrated on a daily basis.

6. I dont buy this tactical BS. Look at the last two years. Were they tactical? They laid it all out.

7. Finally, the main difference I see is the TRAINING. Those guys had much larger bases than the Pros of today which allowed them to race more at ALL distances. Pros today race MUCH LESS. Then the Pros used their races more for their interval and hard sessions and went easier during the week to recover. Like I said, just my .02.

I would tend to agree with some of this.

Kona has been tactical since at least '86, so to me that's pretty much a constant. = push

The main technology improvements happened in the late 80's and early '90's with aero bars, aero wheels, aero helmets and aero frames. There are a few things that have showed up since, but they are minor in comparison. Most of it is just refinement of old technology. I also agree that a good bit of the stuff we hear about now is painted up with a healthy dose of hype. = push

There's more pro's, more money and more specializing in distances than back then, which usually means that times begin to drop and crossing over is harder to do. = points to the current pros

Nutrition is supposed to be superior with all the companies out there, so jelly sandwiches and cold pizza are a thing of the past. = points to the current pros

The only thing left that I can think of is training. Everybody has an opinion on the 'best' way to train and since all of it and none of it can be proven by science, I'm not going to stir that pot. But I will stay that the volume reported back then versus the volume of training that the athletes are reporting now seem to be quite a bit different. If guys like Allen, Scott, Van Lierde, Hellrigel, Welch etc. could do those times with less money/nutrition/technology, it would lead me to believe that their training worked better.

You mean like if an ITU world champion and world cup points leader converted to race the Ironman distance and made it his focus? You'd get Macca

As in every sport, some records will hold for decades.

Where is also the freak factor, every now and again someone special comes along. Even more than one at a time (which usually sucks for one)

I remember Dave Scott shaving over thirty minutes off his previous time simply by going on Nathan Pertikins 28 day diet.

I also think the phsychology of the race plays a part. For most of the competitors it's all about finishing or bettering a personal time. The amount of athletes that actually think they can win are very few.

Again however I believe it's just a matter of time before it all changes again. I know my attitude toward the race, even at 53 years, is all about putting in a time. I will have a time I plan on beating and I will either beat it or colapse trying. Finishing the race without a great time is a waste of my time, and my Ego's.