What is 'too hard' and 'unfair'? (Page 2)

Was there course maps and/or elevations listed?  You'll learn never to take RD descriptions at face value.  Usually, they want to attract people that are into suffering (savageman, wildflower), or they'll call it "challenging" so as not to scare away entrants.

Sorry you sort of stepped in it with the unfair comment.  Too hard, yeah I've heard people say an HIM race course is too hard, then again a few folks will run a 1:30 HIM split on it, so whether something is too hard is appropriately personal.  

Nowhere in that sentence did it say the course would be flat or easy.  Did you run around Salem for 5K on a mix of roads and sidewalks?  If so, the descriptor is accurate.  It is a race after all, not a stroll through the park, so some difficulty should be expected?

I did Bath last year.  Bath was very tough.  It was not too hard.  It was not unfair. 

Bath has a severe hill on the bike course.  I was doing 38 MPH on the way down on the brakes and bordering on incontinent.  And of course you have to come back up it.  The run course is a couple of long hills.  For comparison, at Bath you can actually stride down the hills.  As Salem, if I had tried to open up my stride on at least three hills I'd have gone head over heels.

To easy, to hard... those all seem relative to your preparation and effort... Maybe it is asking if your effort was to easy or to hard.

And to beat the dead horse...

I'm going to come up with a kids fun run that goes across the grand canyon. This PR friendly, scenic course is flat and fast and over before you know it so there will be no water stops. All finishers get a T-shirt and icecream.

I think you have some liberty with the race report inquiries. If i finished I would probably not choose any of the answers provided.

As a side note, if your logs are correct, any run course will be challenging. 

Haven't read all the replies.  I have no idea what I can say to you that isn't going to be offensive yet still get my point across.  Too hard and unfair sounds like something a 12 year old would say, (my apologies to the 12 year olds out there) not an adult.  Its triathlon not some f**ing Wii game.  Figure out what you need to do differently next time.  Training, prep, equipment, etc.  Unless you were on a single speed bike you really shouldn't complain about hills. It is part of the course and part of life.  Deal with it.

I just re-read your post. You are complaining about a mini sprint?

You are in marketing, aren't you shadow?

Humerous irony, I am from Salem.  Grew up there.  I have been gone for 25 years or so.  I either never knew or totally forgot the neighborhood until I drove the course Saturday night.

I immediately thought of that when reading the OP's post. 

True fact. True, true fact.

I'm in finance/sales, but my background is marketing, so good guess.  Most races try to up attendance by billing it as easier than it really is.  Unless you have a reputation for being tough which will fill the slots just the same.  I recently did a 5K advertised as a "scenic run through charming neighborhoods"  It was so hilly I still don't remember any of the neighborhoods we ran through.  But it wasn't unfair or too hard, because everyone ran the same course and it was the exact course they advertised online (funny how an elevation map never quite captures the actual terrain).

Wow!

Well, since I did the race as well, might as well throw my $.02 in.

I will say that the run was tough especially relative to the swim and bike.  It was also billed as a family type event with family relays and what not and, looking at the site, it seemed to be what might be considered a good 1st tri (and it did draw a bunch of first timers from what I could tell).  I was trying to talk a friend into trying a triathlon for the first time there.  I'd also add that there were a few safety-ish issues on the run (holes in the grassy run as an example).  But lots of volunteers to warn you about things.  For a first time event, I thought they did a good job with the event.  Since I wasn't local and drove down the morning of the event and made a few wrong turns and didn't have time to check things out, the relative difficulty of the run caught me by surprise. 

OP, you have to admit running by the graveyard at the top of that one hill was a nice touch :-)  I did enjoy making cracks about the course to the volunteers along the way and they seemed to be enjoying that kind of thing.  Anyway, I do bet that for Sprints in Virginia, that run course gets a bit of a reputation.  But I think it is also a nice differentiator.

Anyway, since it turned out to be my first AG podium, I thought it was very fair... in a difficult kind of way... lol.

Stu

OK, so maybe I was a little harsh earlier -- sorry.  The 'unfair' comment is what got to me.  I see so many people (not saying this is you OP!) who seem to think that they are 'owed' an easy race, or a finisher's medal, or some other accomplishment or mark of accomplishment.  I was reacting to that idea.

Anyway, glad you got through it.  You are stronger for doing so.

I've sure done some races where the course creator seemed to have a very sick sense of humor! But one person's torture-fest is another's thrilling challenge.? I believe I described the bike course for my last race as "a bit too much for me". Mainly that it was hilly, and I have no chance to train on hills where I live. For other people, though, with better bike fitness and training situations, it might have been perfect.  Not "unfair"-everyone comes to a race with different strengths and weaknesses. That particular race had temps in the high 90's, and clearly anyone who trains in the tropics had an "unfair" advantage over people who flew in from somewhere cooler. The swim was long with an offshore current, so strong swimmers had an "unfair" advantage, too. Perhaps I have an "unfair" advantage as a marathoner, since I'm used to running when I feel like crap! Where I would mention it is if you felt the course was unsafe, esp. if the organizers did not take precautions like briefing people about hazards prior to the event, clearly describing course difficulty in race literature, or providing adequate medical and logistical support on the course.

What do you expect when you come on a forum asking if "unfair" is something reasonable?  You think BT is being harsh?  Go ahead and post the same question over at Slowtwitch.   I think they are being relatively nice so far. 

I really am surprised at the hornets’ nest I kicked over with my original post.    I’ll publicly thank Stu immensely for his post and congratulate him for the hardware.  It was well earned.  And I absolutely enjoyed the ghoulish humor of having the last tough bike hill go right beside a cemetery and the middle of the hellish run course go by the parking lot of a funeral home.

Stu really hit the nail on the head better than I did in what I was trying to capture.  The run difficulty was not proportionate to the swim and bike difficulty. This was a minisprint.  It was not marketed as Savageman.  It was a 300 yard pool snake swim and a bike of 8.5 miles with only one really challenging hill.  The run was 3.5 miles.  The two miles between mile one and three were a series of up hills and down hills that never really allowed you to achieve a normal stride but for no more than a quarter mile flat.  I asked a guy from SetUp Events if he knew of any 5K in the events they put on that was more challenging.  He paused and said ‘nope.’

Fair or reasonable, as in a test of your abilities.  Proportionate for the rest of the race.  Too hard.  There’s a concept somewhere I am trying to capture and give feedback on through my race report.  I know it was ‘too hard’ for my abilities and condition.  I was simply trying to see if anyone else had thoughts on what objectively leads you to describe a course as ‘too hard’--an option given to us in the race report section.

If you don’t think it is ever possible for a course to be too hard or if you are insulted by my use of the term ‘unfair’, please accept my apology.  You will not hurt my feelings if you refrain from posting on this thread.

The course and race info seemed pretty heavy in objective info and course information and not much on hyperbole.

Course Maps

http://www.setupevents.com/files/Salem_YMCA_Maps.pdf

Event website

http://www.setupevents.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=event_detail&eventID=1742

For those who don't know about setup events, they have little icons for each portion that indicate the conditions (look up at the top right where it says course details)... You can see they say it is a rolling bike and rolling run (not hilly run) and the overall difficulty is rated as easy. They also don't have elevation profiles for this race. I've done two setup races and both had elevation profiles available. Also, even though the bike was rolling for both, and the runs were flat and rolling respectively (as indicated in the course details), the difficulty of both courses was rated as moderate. So I get the OP's point to some extent. A lot of people traveling to events don't get a chance to see the course and are relying on the course descriptions to know how to pace themselves. A little more communication could have gone a long way.

Unfair may be pushing it, but certainly misleading. On the contrary, imagine going to a course rated as hilly and difficult only to find out that there weren't many hills causing you to race too conservatively. 

Lesson learned, never trust course descriptions...

If it were easy then everyone would want to do it.

I thought that was the whole reason for these races was to challenge ourselves. Each course has it's own challenges and we need to try to train for these challenges so it sounds like you had a new experience know now what you need to train for.

You don't know me.  You don't know the life challenges I overcome to train.  You don't know the external pressures I have faced to stay on track this year.  You don't know the injuries that have kept me from training.  You don't know the reasons I decided not to drop out and at least try.  You do appear to have obviously missed the point of the thread.  You do appear to have totally ignored my admission that I was not in my best condition.

I am comfortable with myself.  A couple of hundred yards from the finish I cam upon a competitor obviously stuggling.  I asked her if she was OK, offered to jog in with her.  She assured me she was OK and that she would walk in.  I told her I'd wait for her.  She crossed the finish line shortly after me and hugged me in appreciation.  I am comfortable with myself and why I positively participate in BT.  Look at what you just posted and what inspired you to do so.  Why you are here?

Would someone please lock or take down this thread?  It serves no purpose.