Friday, October 29, 2010

Ironman Access: Now it's here, now it's not

On Wednesday, the World Triathlon Corp unveiled the $1000 a year Ironman Access membership program. The key benefit was having early access to register for Ironman races.

On Thursday, the president of the WTC, Ben Fertic, rescinded the program after an onslaught of negative comments.

For the record, I had no fundamental issue with the program though I appreciate how others saw it as a tax or a way for a few people to cut to the front of the line. I thought the program was, in principle, a good idea.

The intent, as Fertic said, was to make it easier to enter a race. I’m all for that. Who wouldn’t be?

I wouldn't have spent the $1000 but I see how it would have made sense for some to do so. Time is money. (Here's how I could spend $1000.)

It had never occurred to me that 2500-3000 slots at Ironman events in North America were 'default' race entries. Fertic said some athletes were entering multiple events until they got the one slot they really wanted.

That's part of the reason why I wasn't able to find a spot at Ironman Arizona next month after a tough day at Ironman Canada. Arizona was the next best fit for me.

I haven't lost any sleep over not getting an entry. Neither though am I going to start registering for races that I don't really intend to race. I can find other ways to spend $600.

One reason for the 'unused' slots I think is the lack of a 'real' refund policy. Athletes should be able to get most of their money back - which would encourage those who register for multiple events to 'give' them back.

It's an easy fix. So why hasn't the WTC done so? Some would say it's all about the money that the WTC gets to keep. I think that's too simplistic.

Of course it's hard not to dismiss the fact that 3000 times $600 is $1.8 million. Yet there's so much demand for slots that I think the WTC would be further ahead financially from taking a small administration fee and then reselling the slots.

While some people see the WTC as evil, I don't.

I think that there is an honest effort among the people who work at the WTC to strengthen the sport. For me that is a given. And I have no issue with the WTC and its private equity owners making money.

That said, the WTC has, in a short period of time, angered first the pro field and now age groupers.

This week it got punched and kicked like most of us have during a swim.

In my opinion, the aggressiveness of the punching and kicking was over the top.

The sport is a niche one but it has gone corporate. I don't see that as inherently negative as others do, even some friends who have more invested in the sport.

If you don't want to race WTC sponsored events, then you don't have to.

There are hundreds - perhaps thousands - of independent events around the world. These races need our support. Most of these races also have cheaper entry fees too.

There is the Team Challenge series of half and full iron events, which will expand to 11 in 2011. Hopefully, it will have an event or two in North America soon.

There's also the newer Rev3 Series which will have four events in the US and one in Costa Rica in 2011.

Here on the West Coast of Canada are the five half irons of the Subaru Western Triathlon Series, including Victoria, Vancouver and Banff.

Triathlon is booming and I am one motivated triathlete.

To be fair, I think that the WTC has invested a lot of effort, time and money in the sport. I have the potential to race all over the world almost every week of year in a WTC event. I think that's impressive. Perhaps it simply has grown too fast?

One key issue with the WTC from my point of view is a lack of transparency.

Beyond Fertic, it’s unclear who the WTC is. And even Fertic has a low profile, which I assume is a conscious decision. He wants the focus to be on the sport, not him. But it needs a rethink. Who is he? What is he doing? Where does he see the sport in a year from now, five years, 10 years?

It's easy to point at the WTC as corporate, authoritative and dictatorial. Here are the rules. No discussion. That may not be the reality but it's the impression many triathletes have.

The WTC has work to do to earn our trust. I work hard for my money and I do think hard about where to spend it.

I’ll stop there or else I’ll never finish this post.

All is not lost. And that's the approach I take to the sport and life.

The swift rethink on the access program was a good starting point for the WTC. Let's see what happens next.

What to do with $1000?

This post isn’t about the Ironman Access program. At least not directly. (See my other post for those thoughts.)

This post IS about the $1000 fee that came with the program and what other options I have for spending that amount of money to make myself a better triathlete - if I had $1000 lying beneath my mattress.

To be honest, $1000 is a tight budget.

(Apparently triathletes earn $175,000 and spend $22,000 of that on endurance ‘stuff’ each year, according to a K-Swiss marketing guy recently quoted by The New York Times. He wasn’t talking about me.)

So what could I do with $1000?

I could buy new cycling shoes, a new helmet and perhaps Rotor rings. I need the shoes and the helmet – the rings would be bling. I’ve looked at the rings for two years but the $400 or so for them is hard for me to justify.

Still, it’s hard to resist some bling as a triathlete.

I could buy some new cycling jerseys and some fall/winter running clothes. A ‘cheap’ jersey costs $50 and a ‘normal’ one about $100. I haven’t priced any long sleeve jerseys or any clothing from Assos (Swiss cycling gear for the rich).

What else could I do with $1000?

My tri club, provincial tri card, masters swim pass and pool pass take $400.

I could hire a coach for a few months, but certainly not a year. So do I hire one now or wait til six months leading to my key race? It’s the work that I do now and in the next few months that will determine how I perform next summer.

I could sign up for one 70.3 and one Ironman race. That’s about $900. Or I could just about buy a charity spot at an Ironman event. Ah right, Ironman races are completely sold out a year in advance. So 2012?

It’s hard for me to think about the 2012 season when I’m recovering from 2010 and trying to plan 2011.

I decided not to sign up for Ironman Canada 2011 after two tough races there. I did get an online spot in 2009 and qualified for this year’s event.

If I chose to try to qualify for next year, then I’d need to race one or two events in either June or July. A weekend away to race one of those events would cost about $500 – very conservatively.

It would appear that $1000 doesn’t go so far in this sport and that's my point - though it's not like I, or you, didn't already know that.

Here are some basic prices from the SBR Multisport website.

A Cervelo P1 is listed at $1699, the basic P3 goes for $3599 and the top P4 goes for $12,499.

A SRM ‘standard’ power metre would set you back $2894.95. The highest price one here is $3994.95.

How about some race wheels? A Zipp Sub 9 Tubular Disc is a cool $2074.95.

The Assos Fugu Cycling Jacket: $639.95.

Or I could put a downpayment on a CompuTrainer Pro Model: $437.25 plus $108.25 a month for the next year. A smart idea given that fall has arrived and the forecast is for a lot of snow this winter.

My point here is that it’s easy – very easy – to spend a lot of money fast in this sport.

For me, everything I do in the sport involves competing within my means.

Still that hasn’t slowed me down. It hasn't stopped others from becoming pros.

Money doesn't translate into consistent hard work and you can't buy determination.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Mindset Triathlon

Margreet has begun distributing her books through a new online site called

Mindset Triathlon

H2H

Haney to Harrision

We did a drive of the course yesterday .. It's a long way to run but it's also a stunningly beautiful run as well.

The first half is a tough marathon - there are no solid stretches of any flat or even ground.

However, from the 45km mark til the end, there are two sections of flats (though there is one very sold climb and solid descent that separates them).

Two weeks to go .. hopefully we'll have similar weather then as we did yesterday.

$US22,000 a year ...

In 2000, there were 50 USA Triathlon clubs. Now there are 831 throughout the country. In 2000, there were 229 USA Triathlon-certified coaches; now there are 1,800, according to USA Triathlon.

“Triathletes are a discerning group of alpha consumers, with $175,000 average salaries,” said Erik Vervloet, vice president for sports marketing at K-Swiss, which jumped into the tri-market three years ago. “The average Ironman spends $22,000 a year on the sport.”

From a New York Times story that can be found here

***

From Triathlete Magazine:

The average reader of the magazine earns $US167,784 and spends more than $US3,300 on endurance-sports 'stuff' each year. The average age of the reader is 40.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Volker - Go Big or Go Home

There's a deciding moment in every Ironman's journey and Volker Schneider has arrived there.

http://squishrunner.blogspot.com/

Accepting the hurt

Dr. Jeroen Swart, a sports medicine physician, exercise physiologist and champion cross-country mountain biker who works at the Sports Science Institute of South Africa.

“Some think elite athletes have an easy time of it,” Dr. Swart said in a telephone interview. Nothing could be further from the truth.

And as athletes improve — getting faster and beating their own records — “it never gets any easier,” Dr. Swart said. “You hurt just as much.”

But, he added, “Knowing how to accept that allows people to improve their performance.”

How to Push Past the Pain, as the Champions Do

Monday, October 11, 2010

Joan Samuelson

Great profile/story on Joan Samuelson on the New York Times' website.

She's 53. Her PB for the marathon is 2:21:21.

A few excerpts and the link to the story at the end.

****

Two decades ago, Nike did an advertising campaign with Samuelson that carried the tagline “There is no finish line.”

“I don’t know if it haunted me or motivated me,” she said.

****

Click here

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Kona

There's nothing much more inspirational than watching Kona - all day - from start to finish.

I must say that ironmanlive coverage, combined with twitter and facebook, made this year far more interesting than any previous race.

Teresa Rider

You are so consistent .. year in and year out .. and you put in such high quality performances. Your determination seems infinite.

Lisa Marangon

While I know it wasn't the performance you had visualized, you know that there's more potential within and as long as you work as hard as you have you'll reach it. Keep moving forward.

Scott Jones

He smashed the course in Canada at the end of August and then regrouped, recouped and ran even faster today in Kona.

Very impressive.

Peter McLean

Solid, solid, solid day in Kona. Couldn't be happier for you mate!

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Mind-set

For years, it's bothered me. Sometimes it has infuriated me. Other times I've let it slide.

The longer that I train and race as a triathlete, I find that I'm becoming more open and aware of what drives other athletes, and how they see themselves. And it's forcing me to rethink how I see them and myself too.

It's so easy to compare myself to others, especially those with whom I have trained. I have often used my previous training and race performances to provide me a measure of my competitiveness. Perhaps that's a misuse of my energy.

I have a number of friends who are elite age-group triathletes. Two of them will be racing this weekend in Kona. At Ironman Canada, both of them were fast to say that they weren't ready to race. Yet both smashed the course and won their age groups with ease (my interpretation).

I was reading a post by one of them as he prepares for Kona. He mentioned that he did a training swim of the course in Kona this past week and among his comments was: "It is not only because I am slow ..."

I almost fell over.

Time, of course, is relative for all of us. This athlete swims 100m repetitions in 1:11 and swam 54:56 at Ironman Canada. He swam 1:01 in Kona in 2009. He's not as fast as a pro but he's damn fast.

What confounds me is whether this athlete is being modest or whether he's simply downplaying his ability, consciously or not, in order to drive himself on race day. Race day execution is something that I've been thinking more and more about the past few months.

Relative to me this guy is super fast. I have swum as fast as 1:24 for 100m in a pool. I swam 1:04 at Ironman Canada in August and in my Kona debut in 2007 I swam 1:13.

But I'm intrigued.

Is it better to be conservative with one's expectations heading into a race or to have confidence in what one has accomplished in training and racing? What's the best approach to put oneself in the driver's seat on race morning?

Confidence on race day is a huge factor, I think, in how an athlete will perform. It's something that I want to focus on ahead of my 2011 season. It's something that I want to learn more about.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Kona

We're on Kona watch ahead of Saturday's most important race of the season.