『[PREVIEW] Why Aren't You Doing a 70.3?』のカバーアート

[PREVIEW] Why Aren't You Doing a 70.3?

[PREVIEW] Why Aren't You Doing a 70.3?

無料で聴く

ポッドキャストの詳細を見る

【Amazonプライム会員限定】今ならプレミアムプランが4か月 月額99円。

10月19日まで。※適用条件あり
Lately I've observed a tremendous number of people entering a 70.3 as their first triathlon. Back in the day, people hardly ever started at that distance. It usually went something like sprint --> standard --> half --> ironman. So, what changed? I've got some ideas.TRANSCRIPTThere’s something I’ve been noticing lately.I spend a fair amount of time looking at the triathlon subreddit, r/triathlon, and over the past few years I’ve noticed something that I find kind of fascinating.There are so many people doing a 70.3.And not just doing a 70.3.Doing a 70.3 as their first triathlon.And every time I see one of these posts, I find myself thinking…Why?I mean, seriously.A 70.3 is a long-distance endurance event.For a reasonably good age-group triathlete, maybe you’re looking at five hours.For a lot of people, six hours.Six and a half hours.Seven hours.Maybe more.And I started thinking about that in relation to running.Because six or seven hours is a really long time to be doing anything athletic.For most recreational athletes, that's considerably longer than they would take to run a marathon.And yet somebody who has never done a triathlon will sometimes say:“I've signed up for a 70.3.”And everybody says, “Congratulations!”And then they start talking about wetsuits and nutrition and training plans.And I think…How did this become normal?Because I don't remember it being this way.I got into triathlon in the 1990s.And back then, at least as I remember it, the progression was pretty straightforward.There was sprint distance.There was what we called standard distance, which became Olympic distance.And then there was the Ironman.And somewhere in between there was the Half Ironman.And I did one of those myself when I was working my way toward doing a full Ironman.But it wasn't really a thing in the way 70.3 is a thing today.And this is where I had to go back and check my memory, because I wasn't completely sure.And it turns out my memory is basically right.There absolutely were half-Ironman-distance races in the 1990s.There were some very well-known ones.Wildflower had a Half Ironman.Vineman had one.There were others.And I even remembered something called the Tin Man.And this is where I thought, “Wait a minute. Did they actually try to call the half distance the Tin Man?”Well…Sort of.There were races called Tin Man, and some of them were at roughly the half-Ironman distance.But Tin Man wasn't actually the universal name for the distance.It was just a name used by particular races.So, yes, I remembered something real.But no, there wasn't this giant global thing called the Tin Man series.And that's the important distinction.Because the half-Ironman distance existed.What didn't really exist was the product that we now know as the 70.3.And that changed in 2005.That's when Ironman launched the Ironman 70.3 brand.And I think that was a pretty important moment in the history of triathlon.Because they didn't invent the distance.They branded it.They standardized it.They created a global series around it.And then, in 2006, there was a 70.3 World Championship.And suddenly the half-Ironman wasn't just…“Well, this is a good race to do on the way to a full Ironman.”It became a destination.You could be a 70.3 athlete.You could qualify for a 70.3 World Championship.There were 70.3 races all over the world.And Ironman got very, very good at marketing them.And I think that's where this gets really interesting.Because I wonder if the success of 70.3 has actually changed what people think triathlon is.If you came into the sport in the 1990s, like I did, you might have thought about triathlon as something like:Sprint.Then Olympic.Maybe a Half Ironman.Maybe eventually an Ironman.There was a progression.Today, I think a lot of people enter the sport with the Ironman brand already in their heads.They see Ironman.They see 70.3.They see the World Championship.They see people racing in these spectacular locations.They see the professional athletes.They see the finish-line videos.They see the “You Are an Ironman” stuff.And if you're a new athlete, you can very quickly come to the conclusion that this is what triathlon is.You don't necessarily think:“I'll start with a sprint.”You think:“I'm going to do a 70.3.”And I think social media has probably accelerated that enormously.Because what's more impressive on Instagram?“I completed my first sprint triathlon.”Or:“I COMPLETED MY FIRST 70.3!”You know exactly which one gets the reaction.And I don't mean that critically.I understand it.There's something incredibly appealing about setting a huge goal.And I'm certainly not going to criticize somebody for doing it.But I do think it's interesting that we've arrived at a point where doing a six- or seven-hour endurance event can be somebody's introduction to triathlon.And there's another thing I've been thinking about.Television.Because I wonder how much the growth of 70.3 has been helped by the fact that ...
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
まだレビューはありません