adventure racing, the sport for people who find triathlons too easy

tunney

"Still aching from the weekend’s Gaelforce West race, HARRY McGEE looks at the growing popularity of adventure racing, the sport for people who find triathlons too easy"

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2009/0825/1224253191973.html

Triathlons *are* easy if you pi$$ about and go slowly. Do one properly Harry and then see do you find one easy. I'm sure adventure racing is easy too if you just fcuk about.
(Not in a mincing words mood today)

Mickeybags

How about

Adventure Racing !!!
(for those who can't swim)

snack_ie

Interesting to note that 5/6th place are both triathletes (and first adventure race too), also in the CLEC, 1st place were triathletes too.
Maybe it should be reworded.

Peterx

"My sport is harder then your sport" is a pile of toshtalk if we're slicing the steak today....

I'll give the GF6 whingers another few days but I'm pretty sure the Triathletes from eireman are winning the whinging stakes anyway, who'd be an organiser.

Harry's right, adventure racing is better, I know that to be true as I've never done any triathlons cos I can't swim:)

Peterx

1st place hillrunner, 2nd cyclist, 3rd Adventure racer, 4th cyclist, 5th and 6th triathletes, 8th is a kiwi who'll try anything. 1st lady was a soccer player before taking up cycling.
Adventure racing, the game for those who are over the games they used to play, including triathlons..
Much as triathlons appear to be for those who dropped out of team sports in their twenties and want a new challenge.

tunney

Peterx wrote: »

"My sport is harder then your sport" is a pile of toshtalk if we're slicing the steak today....

Exactly - thats why it pi$$ed me off so much.
Any endurance sport, if you are intent on just waddling about, is easy.

aero2k

tunney wrote: »

Exactly - thats why it pi$$ed me off so much.
Any endurance sport, if you are intent on just waddling about, is easy.

+1. It's all about the level of effort. Eddy Merckx, despite all his victories in 3-week national tours and 6-7 hour one day events, over all kinds of terrain in all kinds of weather, said his hardest ride was one hour on a smooth track in Mexico - mind you he did break 3 world records in one effort!

plodder

That was a silly comment from McGee alright.

I found this interesting though.

Gaelforce West is a halfway house. It doesn’t call for navigation skills. It follows a defined path or a road for the entire route. And there are few objective dangers. The best two-wheeler to use is a racer, not a mountain-bike. And the kayaking section is only a kilometre of relatively sheltered water, across Killary fjord.

Some of the complaints on the other threads sound like people not having the right expectations (were they told what to expect? ) And of course the organisers not being able to cope with the numbers.

I've always had issues with events that appear to be "for profit" as well. But it seems there is phenomenal demand for races like this. I hope the problems can be sorted out.

HardyEustace

Peterx wrote: »

1st place hillrunner, 2nd cyclist, 3rd Adventure racer, 4th cyclist, 5th and 6th triathletes, 8th is a kiwi who'll try anything. 1st lady was a soccer player before taking up cycling.
Adventure racing, the game for those who are over the games they used to play, including triathlons..
Much as triathlons appear to be for those who dropped out of team sports in their twenties and want a new challenge.

2nd is also a triathlete

tunney

Was the Peter O'Farrell who won the Rathfarnham AC runner?

yop

Bit of a daft statement that.

In my case I can't swim so a triathlon is out the door. I also played competitive sport for the last 21 years so now I am even worse at that than I was, its time to try some other sport

Peterx

In fairness maybe the quote should have read adventure racing is for for folk who are over the analness of Triathlons.

GoHardOrGoHome

tunney wrote: »

Was the Peter O'Farrell who won the Rathfarnham AC runner?

Yup.

nerraw1111

To be fair to Harry, I think a sub editor was responsible for the introduction.

plodder

nerraw1111 wrote: »

To be fair to Harry, I think a sub editor was responsible for the introduction.

Yes, it does look like that all right.

Enduro

Ah come on now Peter! You're very much an adventure racer, as well as a hill runner, mountain biker, etc.

Mickeybags, there are plenty of ARs out there that involve swimming. I just did one that had up to 8km of it. I learned to swim specifically for my first AR.

mloc123

yop wrote: »

Bit of a daft statement that.

In my case I can't swim so a triathlon is out the door. I also played competitive sport for the last 21 years so now I am even worse at that than I was, its time to try some other sport

Heres a crazy idea... learn how to swim :eek:

I laughed at alot of the Gael Force thread... people complaining they got wet, had to get up a 5.30, didn't have a chance to eat a decent breakfast blah blah... this is what most people do 5/6 days a week just training.

mloc123

Also somebody complained the cycle was too easy and boring for Gaelforce... if its too easy and boring you are not pushinh hard enough.

pgibbo

snack_ie wrote: »

Interesting to note that 5/6th place are both triathletes (and first adventure race too), also in the CLEC, 1st place were triathletes too.
Maybe it should be reworded.

The following from the top 20 are guys that I know that are triathletes too:

2nd, 4th (mainly a cyclist but does triathlon too), 7th and 14th.

To the best of my knowledge, this was a first outing in GFW or any other adventure race for them all except 4th place.

Enduro

PGibbo, GF is pretty close to Triathalon territory. In a lot of ways its closer to being a Triathalon than an Adventure Race (even though there is no precise definition of AR, there is plenty of precedence, and "standard" styles of race). So if Triathletes can't do well in what is somewhat of a compromise rules race, then they really would be all at sea in a real AR.

Just to give you an idea of the problems of racing GF from an AR persepective... No mountain biking, so no opportunity to use technical abilty to open up a gap on less able riders. Kayaking section way way too short, and in crappy SOT boats which limit the speed advantage that a good kayaker could make in faster boats. No navigation element, so a massive mental aspect of AR is gone, and probably the biggest single differentiator in real ARs is removed (It doesn't matter how fast you are if you're going in the wrong direction). Too bloody short! Even a sprint style AR is usually closer to a full day long.

I would genuinly love to see all those Triathletes move give real ARs a go, but so far, bar literally one or two, the track record isn't very good. They don't seem to be able to step up to the levels of self sufficiency required.

snack_ie, the lads who won CLEC are Triathletes, mountain bikers, adventure racers, runners etc etc. To call them triathletes is somewhat random.