From The Editor
SO MUCH MORE THAN WIN OR LOSE
By Jayme McGuire
 


It’s that time again, our annual Rankings Issue. We’ve featured the best in the sport and if you’re among those gracing the pages of this issue, congratulations! Flip to page 40 to read about the top age-group and elite athletes of 2016.
While triathlon often boils down to who won and who lost, our sport is so much more than that. Sometimes those who don’t cross the finish line at all have the best stories to tell. Take Allie Burdick, an age-grouper who wrote about traveling with family to her father’s native Cuba. Allie was so disappointed to inform me that she hadn’t been able to do the race due to severe vertigo and wasn’t sure if we still wanted to run her story. Spoiler alert — we did and you can read it on page 24. While many of the athletes we feature strive to be ambassadors for the sport and encourage others to get involved, there are some triathletes who perhaps unknowingly are pushing others away from the sport.


Case in point: I recently asked a friend from my running group whether she was still planning to do her first triathlon. Her response took me by surprise. Long-time triathletes had told her the bike she was looking to buy wasn’t good enough. That she wasn’t going to be fast enough to join a local swim group. That she couldn’t do a long-distance race; she should start with a sprint. The negativity turned her off to the sport (hopefully only temporarily).


Usually when newbies talk about barriers to entry we hear about the fear of open water, too big of a time commitment or that the sport is too expensive. But this interaction brought a different barrier to light — negativity.


Let’s embrace newbies and encourage them to give the sport a try. After all, many of us started on a borrowed or beater bike before we got hooked. Tell us your stories of how you’ve helped others get involved. Email communications@usatriathlon.org with “mailbag” in the subject line.


 


Jayme McGuire is USA Triathlon’s Senior Manager of Magazine & Digital Media. Contact her at jayme@usatriathlon.org.
 


 


 


 


MAILBAG
Something to say about USA Triathlon Magazine? Email letters to the editor to communications@usatriathlon.org with “mailbag” in the subject line. Be sure to include your name. Letters may be edited for length and grammar.
 


THE WORKOUT ISSUE
I have been a USA Triathlon member off and on for several years. I very much enjoy the email and magazine articles that I receive and usually find articles that are helpful and even entertaining. I do have a suggestion for when you publish articles on training workouts. That is, if you could define the nomenclature, particularly with the swimming leg, it would be very beneficial to those of us who do not swim with a team or have coaches to explain these. I have read that you are trying to reach out to those of us who do shorter courses, and feel you could accomplish that goal if you could direct these articles less at only hard-core athletes and more toward those of us who are endeavoring to stay fit and strong through the sport of triathlon. Many thanks for all that you do to inspire and acknowledge athletes.



— Suzanne Stratford, Loveland, Colo.



Editor’s note: Thank you Suzanne for the feedback. We agree that we can do more to simplify some pretty complicated training and racing language and tri jargon.


 


 


LESSON LEARNED
I’d like to comment on the “Lesson Learned” article appearing in the Winter 2017 issue. When I first read the blurb on the cover, and then the actual article on page 42, I felt very irritated. So I put it down, and re-read it a month later to see if I felt the same way. I still do. First, this guy is clearly not a rookie. He has competed in several triathlons for at least a couple of years, as is evident from his essay. Even someone signing up for their very first triathlon is made fully aware that their registration is non-transferable. It’s usually in bold print, or at least in all caps, on the registration form, with a box next to it to indicate that the triathlete acknowledges this statement. So this is no innocent mistake. This is a guy who deliberately, intentionally tried to game the system by “gifting” his registration to someone else, attempting to justify it.


And now, he’s offering this mea culpa only because he got caught. Had the other person not won the division, Mr. Wimer would be congratulating himself for “giving back to the community.”



— Hina Ayub, Arlington, Va.


Editor’s note: Wimer received the harshest punishment under USA Triathlon rules — a ban. He said his hope in writing the essay was that someone else might learn from his mistake.


12 | USA TRIATHLON | SPRING 2017

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