Talisman Triathletes take on the World

Three Talisman triathletes did us proud at the Ironman 70.3 World Championship held last weekend in Clearwater Florida. Many may be called, but few are chosen – all participants in this world championship have to qualify to enter and get the chance to compete against other qualifiers from across the globe. All three of the Talisman competitors qualified based on their Calgary Ironman 70.3 times last August. Last weekend, each one of them improved on their Calgary 70.3 finish times, between 10 and 20 minutes.

The World 70.3 participants and their results are:
Kaladar, Andrea 5:52:47
Larter, Alan 4:54:28
Sarantis, Ari 4:59:46

Congratulations to our 3 champions.

Is there a draft in here? Some thoughts on Clearwater...

My coach told me about it, a colleague in our club told me about it, and the bike ref told all of the Clearwater athletes about it at the pre-race briefing—yet, despite these admonitions, I kept thinking, "How bad can it be?"



Ummm, bad.

What I’m talking about is drafting.

I qualified for Clearwater by a hair, so I knew going in that my performance relative to my age group would be singularly unremarkable (which it was), and this wasn't, in any event, my "A" race for the season (Ironman Canada was).  Those two factors allowed me to approach the race with some degree of, I guess, calm, or at least an acknowledgment that nothing was "on the line", so to speak.

I include this preface because I had to remind myself of some of these facts early on during the bike portion, when the first couple of packs blew past me like I was standing still. These were groups of three or four riders, basically nose to tail, and the first couple of times it happened my inclination was to yell out, “Hey, that’s not fair!” Common sense got the better of me, I told myself I was there largely to compete against myself, and so I kept my mouth shut (until around mile 33 at least, when I laughed and told the first three or four riders in a large pack to go f@#$ themselves as they passed me). 



At the pre-race briefing, the head bike referee indicated that, in most situations, athletes have a "choice" whether to draft or not. Unless his implied exceptions were some of the narrower, potentially dangerous, sections on the course, I’d go further and say in virtually all situations athletes have a choice. That is, I can’t think of situations where a rider somehow gets swept up into a pack or something and must, for safety reasons perhaps, stay in the pack.

There’s a ton of activity on slowtwitch right now talking about this issue, but most seem to characterize the transgression in terms of fairness to other athletes. Of course this matters, and highly suspect are some of the age group results showing faster bike splits than the pros. But one sentiment that hasn’t been discussed much, and one that kept playing over in my head on the bike course, was fairness to oneself. I was one of the last waves to start, and so when the aforementioned peloton passed me around mile 33, it seemed pretty clear none of them was contending for a podium spot; the legit athletes in their age group had powered past me way earlier.

And this is where everything breaks down for me. I could almost (almost!) understand this drafting thing (at least the ethical quandary one might face) if you were clearly in the running for a podium spot, or there were the promise of 75 virgins or something at the finish. But for those AG’ers sailing past me at mile 33? Does the upside of placing, say, 50th as opposed to 80th in your age group outweigh the downside of having to personally acknowledge that you, yes, cheated? I just can’t get my head around this behavior. Given there’s so very little money to be made in this sport (for the athletes at least)—shouldn’t this be about personal achievement? And the fact you’re competing at a WC (and by implication likely placed high in your qualifying race)—surely this is enough to impress your colleagues and whatever guy or gal you’re propositioning at your local pub, no?

It just strikes me as very odd, and a little disappointing that, at a so-called “World Championship” event—which, again, is free from many of the inducements you’d encounter at, say, the Tour de France—you don’t necessarily get the privilege of racing against other champions, inasmuch as that term, “champion”, implies ethical, as well as physical, ability.

Anyway, I’m not too concerned about how much the drafting throws my own AG result into question. Factoring out that variable wouldn’t have mattered too much on Saturday, as there were many solo cyclists who, by the way they easily swallowed me up on the course, were way further along the athletic trajectory than I.

That was the good part about Clearwater: it was humbling. There were a few times over the last couple of months where I had second thoughts about going, but I thought to myself, “You worked hard to make it to the big boy race, and now it’s time to get your ass handed to you by the big boys so you know what to expect the next time you get there.”

As I say, this wasn’t my “A” race, but being around so many talented folks compels you to throw down: I put out nearly 20% higher watts than my qualifying race and PB’d by over 10 minutes, finally coming in under five hours. (Although my run suffered a little bit, such that I nearly felt, uh, “compelled” to throw down a chorizo-laden mural on Hulk Hogan’s lawn during my second lap on the run.)

Props to both Alan—who, I have to acknowledge, summarily trounced me by 5 minutes and, because we’ve exchanged the crown a couple of times over the last few races, is now officially my "Moriarty"—and Andrea for coming down to Clearwater and representing the club.