The Bigger the Better

The word Clydesdale conjures visions of huge prancing horses pulling sleighs full of Budweiser. In triathlon a Clydesdale is a man racing over the weight of 200 pounds. Clydesdale has also been applied to women racing over the weight of 150 lbs, although the term ?Athena? meaning the Greek goddess of Wisdom is preferred.
Why the special category? Bigger racers have to use more power to offset their drag, and therefore expend more energy to create the same speed as a smaller athlete. A 5?10? athlete pushing 275 watts can finish the bike leg of an Ironman in 4.5 hours while someone that is 6?6? would take a minimum of 5 hours with the same 275 watts (J. Cobb: Triathlete magazine, 2004). The Clydesdale category allows larger athletes to be competitive.
So if a competitive athlete can be +200 pounds, where does the notion of the runner?s body come from? While our high profile athletes tend to be short, light, lean and all legs, a triathlete?s body should be defined by oneself, and the fact that you can get it to swim, bike and/or run.
There are definitely different body types, which are defined by different types of muscle tissue; slow twitch (ST) muscles and fast twitch (FT) muscles. If we follow our genetics, ST fibers fire slowly, work best under endurance conditions, and are less likely to become big and bulky when weight training. If you are predominately full of ST fibers you perform better at longer distance events (5k to the marathon or Olympic to Ironman), and tend to have a long lean look with training. FT fibers do exactly that, fire quickly and work best in events lasting a short period of time. They are built for power and speed, and tend to get big and bulky with weight training. These muscles will adapt well to short distance running (100m to 5K and sprint tri?s). World class marathoners and Ironmen have a combination of ST and FT fibers allowing them to cover the long distances quickly.
Standing at the finish line of any race it becomes quickly apparent that there is no one body type that could be classified as a ?runner?s body?. So the next time you are contemplating this question, look in the mirror and you?ll have your answer.
____________________

At the Thousand Island Olympic triathlon (1500/40/10) Tony Nelson finished third in his age group with a time of 2:24:37 followed by Diane Harper crossing the line in 3:07:36. In the Sprint Tri (750/20/5) Wendy McCoy placed second in her age division racing to a 1:34:11 finish joining fellow tri-ers Elizabeth MacDonald (1:42:54) and Celine Griffin (1:30:36), as well as husband Lloyd McCoy finishing the Sprint Duathlon in 1:40:33.
Corey Kellar raced the HSBC Bracebridge Sprint Duathlon (5/20/2.5) in 1:13:52 as Stacey Berdan (1:25:43), David Conroy (1:27:25) and Greg Kerr (1:28:43) ran the Sprint Tri (750/20/5). Bryan Dunham completed the Niagara Tri (750/25/7) finishing in 1:52:35 and David Gregory (1:49:23) and Corey Kellar (1:35:46) raced the Toronto Island Duathlon (4.5/30/4.5).