Should we have seperate forums for Marathon and Triathlon?

Funkyzeit

Hi Folks
Just wondering given the popularity of both Triathlons and Marathon running should we not have seperate board fourm for them both?

Whilst I welcome a lot of the running advise I doubt the Marathon runners are arsed about T1 times, bikes set up, sighting etc etc ?

Just a thought.

TheRoadRunner

might be an idea. No disrespect meant but I never read any of the tri threads.

tunney

As long as the BAC threads are banished to somewhere else I don't mind.

Much like TheRoadRunner I rarely read the marathon threads any more.

christeb

I think both groups take similar masochistic approaches to training and I do read some of the tri threads, although I do think we've reached a fork in the road.....

Woddle

I read both myself, maybe somewhere down the line I can see myself attempting a tri.

tunney wrote: »

As long as the BAC threads are banished to somewhere else I don't mind.

Why banished ?

baza1976

Woddle wrote: »

Why banished ?

I think the BAC should have it's own forum. it covers much more than Marathon. I don't think the Boards BAC have raced anything near a marathon? yet.

I agree banished is a bad choice of word!

uglyjohn

if its not broken dont fix it....is it really a problem? i plan on doing a tri eventually so im happy enough to see them in together.

im sure im not the only person who would post in both (if there were 2) and i dont see why people would be bothered by threads they arent interested in, if you dont want to read the thread, dont click on it!

robinph

I don't think there is the need to seperate things out, the Xathlon title is possibly a bit wrong due to the content of what we are discussing here though. The athletics forum is the track and field side of things, and here is any distance longer than what sensible people would be prepared to do as laps around a 400m track without going crazy. So here covers running on roads, beaches, wherever and then some also jump in the river for a dip occasionally as well.

I also don't think that the BAC threads should be moved elsewhere yet. There is only a couple of threads and keeping the BAC threads where the likely participants are going to appear to talk about races etc is best for now, IMHO.

donothoponpop

Definitely feel they need to be split. Tri needs its own forum, no reason why it should be stuck onto a running forum (or a swimming forum, or a cycling forum). The marathon label should be changed to reflect the different aspects of running that get discussed here- XC, 10k and road running, mountain running, etc. T&F should remain on the Athletics forum, where they tend to discuss the more elite side of things (witness their discussion of this years Dublin marathon, compared to the discussions of it here).

MCOS

No. Reason? Running is a part of Triathlon and more specifically the Marathon is part of the IM. Marathoners may not have much to contribute to swimming or biking but they have plenty of experience to offer advice and encouragement for Triathletes wanting to better their 10k, 1/2 Marathon and Marathon times. They also offer a lot of other wisdom relevant to Triathlon training.

Also, I have explored some other Tri forums and apart from the US/UK ones the home Forums are a bit bleak and dry.

I suggest that the Cycling/Marathon/Swimming forums share a Moderator who is a Triathlete such as Hunnymonster who can promote the sharing of knowledge on the 3 Forums. That Moderator can then make the informed decision to open a Triathlon Forum if there is enough Tri chat going on. Ideally this Poll should be posted in the Swimming and Cyling Forums too to get a wider view?

robinph

Just becasue a triathlon is different and more specialised event than a straight road race or marathon, unless there is significant traffic on the forum already it would be a bad idea to split into seperate forums just for the sake of keeping the forum titles neater. You need to keep things where people are actually going to notice them and until here gets severly overwhelmed with topics on the first page only to do with BAC or tri's or something else then there isn't the need for it, or population of people to sustain the seperate forums once created.

tri111

Yes they definitely should be divided into separate forums.

Triathlon is actually a totally unique sport and not just a combination of 3 sports as a lot of outsiders think. There are issues in triathlon that have no relevance to Marathon training whatsoever - transitions, open water swimming, bike setup, bike maintenance, balance of training between the 3 disciplines. Do marathon runners have to consider any of these things? No they don't.

I have done both triathlons and marathons (well one marathon) and the training required is entirely different. So please separate the forums.

robinph

I'm not denying the differences between the types of thread that we currently have appearing here, tri/ marathon/ road races from 5k+ upwards and BAC as well. The problem with seperateing into different forums is that rather than one nicely active but not overly busy forum there would then be 2 or 3 empty ones with very little going on.

Until the thread traffic requires a split it should be avoided I think. Can't we all just get along until then.

hunnymonster

point of information (not said that since college!)
There is an ongoing discussion in the background about the structure of the sports forums. I've been away for most of it and not caught up yet, but my understanding is that there are a lot of sports fourms and there should be an attempt to streamline them; with the appropriate use of sub-fora where appropriate. The views expressed here and by PM will be taken into account.

tunney

donothoponpop wrote: »

Definitely feel they need to be split. Tri needs its own forum, no reason why it should be stuck onto a running forum (or a swimming forum, or a cycling forum). The marathon label should be changed to reflect the different aspects of running that get discussed here- XC, 10k and road running, mountain running, etc. T&F should remain on the Athletics forum, where they tend to discuss the more elite side of things (witness their discussion of this years Dublin marathon, compared to the discussions of it here).

You'r not suggesting the board is renaming "Fun running" are you?

donothoponpop

tunney wrote: »

You'r not suggesting the board is renaming "Fun running" are you?

Don't know what this sentence means?

I'd be happy merging with the Athletics forum, for what that's worth.

plodder

robinph wrote: »

I'm not denying the differences between the types of thread that we currently have appearing here, tri/ marathon/ road races from 5k+ upwards and BAC as well. The problem with seperateing into different forums is that rather than one nicely active but not overly busy forum there would then be 2 or 3 empty ones with very little going on.

Until the thread traffic requires a split it should be avoided I think. Can't we all just get along until then.

+1 Compared to some discussion boards that I look at, this marathon/tri forum has very light traffic. It could be the kiss of death to split it, if the amount of posts on one (or both) of them goes down a lot.

--amadeus--

As HM has mentioned there has been some low level discussion about this already and I think all the relevant Mods are now involved.

I'm being dragged to Dunnes in a minute so I don't have time to give a full answer but I reckon if it ain't broke... One nicely busy forum with cross fertilisation of ideas rather than three or four empty forums is better as fas as I am concerned.

Also not madly keen on the talk of "banishment" of various threads - just because you're not interested in a given thread or topic doesn't make it irrelevant or inappropriate, IMO. If it's not of general interest it'll sink off teh page, if its not sinking it's popular. Where's the issue?

Racing Flat

I think Marathon should be in with Athletics.

But Triathlon would be a very quiet forum on its own, might suffer from the split.

kingQuez

For what it's worth I'm entirely new to boards since starting to train for the DM. The current content in this forum seem heavily marathon oriented, but I assumed that was mostly down to the timing of when I showed up.

Regardless of whether there's more emphasis on one sport or the other here, I'm now very keen on trying a triathlon next year because of my 'exposure' to the tri posts.

From what I've seen the marathoners seem to attract a lot more 'newbies', and a lot of them are then converted to the idea of giving a triathlon a go.
The triathletes seem to be a bit more elitist/expect a higher grade of quality and commitment than the marathoners (Without directing that at anyone---it's just my memory from reading a lot of the triathlon posts).. and I'd fear that splitting the threads would make this a bit more obvious and maybe kill off the encouragement of new members posting in the (would-be) tri forum?

If you're looking to promote both sports I'd keep the boards together (my vote), but if you want to have nice categories then maybe a split is called for.

Just my 2c.

--amadeus--

kingQuez wrote: »

If you're looking to promote both sports I'd keep the boards together (my vote), but if you want to have nice categories then maybe a split is called for.

Excelent post. If we split the sports we get a Running Forum that loses the Marathon identity (is that an issue?) but is full of runners and a Tri forum that will be peopled mainly only by triathletes. It's a neater classification but you lose that mix of experience and outlook. I certainly wouldn't have dreamed of tri's without the tri posts on here (and no I'm not doing one next year but one day) (maybe) (and no, not an Ironman)

Besides which, whatever about the actual sports I think the outlook and training philosophy of triathletes and marathon runners as endurance athletes is the common bond. We may train differently but we think about and approach training in the same way, we share a similar time and emotional commitment to it. I would certainly feel that I have more in common with a triathlete than with somone preping for a 5k or "mini-marathon" and who trains once or twice a week for 15 or 20 minutes.

Not that there is anything wrong with that and I'll be the first to encourage anyone starting out at running (or run / walking). We have a couple of shorter distance runners in the Training Logs and I would expect more if BAC takes off. As I said I'd go out of my way to make everyone feel welcome but it does turn this more into a Road Running forum than a Marathon forum. And participant numbers alone would mean that that would push Tri to the fringes.

So I suppose it's a decesion about teh direction and philosophy you want the forum to take. Do you want it to go down a "Road Running" route, sever the connection with Tri and lose the marathon identity? Or do we leave things as they stand, welcome all comers but try and keep the focus on endurance sports?

And does it really matter what it's called? At the end of teh day a forum is dictated by it's members not it's name - whatever we are all interested in and training for at a given point in time is what will dominate teh board irrespective of it's title

Andrewf20

Keep it current imho.

zenmonk

Change it but rename the Marathon forum something like Road running/ Marathon forum or long distance.

thirtyfoot

zenmonk wrote: »

Change it but rename the Marathon forum something like Road running/ Marathon forum or long distance.

Could be a good option. Maybe call it Endurance Sports or have it as a sub-forum called endurance

I'd say less forums are better so having separate triathlon, marathon & athletics is maybe not the best. I think that marathon/road running is a better fit to athletics as athletics is a pretty all encompassing term - as in Athletics Ireland governs track and field, cross-country, road, mountain running, ultras - but if it means that triathlon doesn't survive on its own due to its small numbers then maybe it wouldn't be the best for it to go solo.

I would be biased though as I would want more people who might be regarded as marathon runners or recreational road runners to get a better insight into the overall athletics world and not just focused on running their own races as this is something that benefits the individual runner and not the larger running/athletics family. Athletics is a small sport but there is a mini recreational running boom and I think getting more people from this boom into the larger athletics family is a priority for anyone involved in running/athletics as it would benefit all - the recreational runners and the clubs and the kids in the clubs. I assume (and would hope) recreational runners would also be naturally interested and movitated by general athletics news and the advice or threads posted there.

I generally jump between both M/T and Athletics and there is a lot of cross-over between the two.

blanchdub

Training for Triathlons are different ( brick work etc...), apparel are different, many runners have little interest in cycling or swimming...many Triathlete (like me ) come from a running background and left it because was boring and cross training reduced injury..

shels4ever

blanchdub wrote: »

Training for Triathlons are different ( brick work etc...), apparel are different, many runners have little interest in cycling or swimming...many Triathlete (like me ) come from a running background and left it because was boring and cross training reduced injury..

I think you mean you were bored with running, rather then running is boring .

I'd like to see the forum stay as it is now, I like some of the input you get from the Tri lads some very good advise.

RacoonQueen

I like having them in together. I do plan on doing a tri somewhere down the line so it's good to have the threads about to look in on and see the advice. I probably wouldn't bother if they had their own section.

jlang

I like having them together. There's not too much traffic on each category and I'd be less likely to follow all of two sports-related fora. Tri-specific threads and marathon threads are generally well marked in the title if you really want to ignore one or other.

If a change was to be made to a running forum it would have to be tied in with the Athletics board which I now look on as more focussed on track running and other athletic endeavours of less interest to me. I would prefer to wait and see how the BAC stuff pans out first, the change possibly being to change the title here to "Endurance Sports". But then that could be confusing and need to be "Endurance Sports (Running/Triathlon)" and be back to square one.