Do runners have the advantage? (Page 3)

So based on most the responses, the follow-up would be that triathlon being a single sport and the most balanced athlete overall has the advantage, then the common wisdom of training your weakness is sound?

Unless you're like me and need to work on all 3.

gsmacleod - 2011-07-12 10:52 AM

Fred Doucette - 2011-07-12 11:03 AM My analogy would be like a marathon.... lots of people start off fast (too fast) and end up finishing the last 10 miles much slower than the first 16.2 miles. The runners who are running the fastest last 10 miles of a marathon are likley the fittest and fastest athletes out there. The people running the faster first 5K parts may or may not be the fittest or pacing the best etc.

I just ran some numbers from the Ottawa Marathon this year; it had mats at 10k, 21.1k and 30k and plotting finishing position versus position at each of the mats gives the following r-squared values: 10k - 0.8341 21.1k - 0.9039 30k - 0.9615 Great analogy Shane

Actually, you wouldn't want to plot the position at the mats, you'd want the relative time between the mats.

I would say that swimmers have the biggest advantage by far. 

A swimmer can become a good cyclist and runner much easier than the other two can learn to swim.  In a sport that requries proficiency at 3 sports, coming into it with good swim technique goes a long way to help an athlete become competitive. 

Sorry, i totally disagree with the swim is useless quote. In my race this past weekend the swim is what cost me a podium in AG. If i had maintained my swim fitness and swam the same time as last year my race would have had a much different outcome. Also, if your swim fitness is bad, it will effect your bike split, instead of going into the red in my swim i backed off and slowed down to not effect my bike, the 1m30s slower swim than last year cost me 3 places as i missed the podium by 1 minute.

As Fred said earlier, it is 1 sport, not 3, unfortunately i am only good at 1 of the 3 disciplines.

gsmacleod - 2011-07-12 10:52 AM

Fred Doucette - 2011-07-12 11:03 AM My analogy would be like a marathon.... lots of people start off fast (too fast) and end up finishing the last 10 miles much slower than the first 16.2 miles. The runners who are running the fastest last 10 miles of a marathon are likley the fittest and fastest athletes out there. The people running the faster first 5K parts may or may not be the fittest or pacing the best etc.

I just ran some numbers from the Ottawa Marathon this year; it had mats at 10k, 21.1k and 30k and plotting finishing position versus position at each of the mats gives the following r-squared values: 10k - 0.8341 21.1k - 0.9039 30k - 0.9615 Great analogy Shane

But surely you wouldn't want to correlate the raw times at each mat with finishing position? The closer analogy would be to correlate the split times between each mat with finishing position.

I think this is a slightly different point than is being argued in most of this thread, but I generally agree with it.  Take 3 pools of athletes--strong stand-alone swimmers, bikers and runners--and have them all convert to triathlon.  While you will find some good triathletes in all 3 buckets, my money is on the swimmers to churn out the most.

Not directly, but it does tie into the point that this is one sport with three different disciplines.  To be competitive it takes proficiency in all three.  Even the elite folks who stand out in one area are incredibly strong in the other two.  IMO, reaching that high level of proficiency in all three sports definitely favors swimmers. 

I'm enjoying the discussion in this thread (mostly because I'm a stats geek), but I answered it in a different direction because at the end of the day the advantage goes to the strongest triathlete.

The same type of answer I gave on the saving the legs thread is relevant here as well.

Yes, in most cases, runners have the advantage. 

Cycling, due to greatly increasing wind resistance with increasing speeds, tends to minimize the differentials between athletes of different abilities. Runners do not contend with such high wind resistance, so small differences in aerobic ability can result in large differences in pace/time/placing.

Cycling equalizes differences.

Running differentials separate.

For most typical flat to rolling courses, the fastest athlete will usually be in the 145-165lb range.  A weight at which their can still be high ABSOLUTE power numbers on the bike as well as good POWER TO WEIGHT on the run. IOW, the best triathlete.

Someone used an example of a 15% stronger cyclist racing a 15% stronger runner and stated that the cyclist would win. Well sure if by 15% stronger he meant 15% FASTER on the bike. Big difference there. To be roughly 15% faster on the run would require being roughly 15% stronger. To be 15% faster on the bike would require a lot more than that much additional power. For me to add 15% to my bike speed would require me to add 30-40% more power. So a more accurate way to state this premise would be that for a strong cyclist to beat the strong runner he would need over twice the additional aerobic capacity on the bike compared to the advantage the runner had on the run.  

Yes, you have Josh Becks and Matty Reeds and other outliers including the fast swimmers, but their results don't alter reality.

I'm obviously doing something wrong.