Do you like swimming, running and biking for insanely long distances? Well, if you said yes, you’re going to be pumped to know that the Leadman Tri Life Epic 250 is coming to Bend in September 22, 2012.
What is this, exactly? Good question. The 250 in the name indicates to total amount of kilometers an athlete drags his or her body during this big race.
It breaks down thusly: a five-kilometer swim, a 223-kilometer bike and a 22-kilometer run. Add those numbers together and you’ve got 250 kilometers.
This is arguably more hardcore than the famed Iron Man Triathlon, given the more arduous amount of biking.
Here’s the route, according to the press release announcing the event.
LeadmanTri Bend features a swim in idyllic Lake Cultus, a bike around dormant volcano, Mount Bachelor, and a breath-taking trail run through Tetherow Country Club along the Deschutes River. The course also features nearly 5,000 feet of climbing and a peak elevation of 6,200 feet ending in the Old Mill District of Bend.
UPDATE: I just corrected the spelling of “triathlon,” which I misspelled here several times because, well, I was busy training for my future as a professional triathlete.
This article appears in Nov 3-9, 2011.
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Arguably more hardcore than the famed Iron Man triathelon – you are either dreaming or you don’t know what you are talking about!/? Why don’t you try riding a road bike for 112 miles in the heat and winds of the Kohala desert on the big island ( and by the wway, the biking part of the Ironman is the easier of the three components ), try swiming a 2.2 open ocean swim with a thousand other people besides you and then to finish it off, try a full marathon on the same asphalt of the Kohala desert where the temperatures are about 110 degrees below your feet!
if you don’t know anything about the Iron Man, then don’t use this imitation “leadman” to the grandaddy of them all…it’s an insult to all of the world class atheletes that have done the Ironman!
Obviously, if you have done the Hawaiian Ironman(even a Ironman) or the Leadman Tri you may or may not be correct…..but if not, there may have been a better choice of words…..so you dont hurt the feelings of those who have done the Hawiian Ironman or Ironman for that fact.
That being said I am sure this will be a very, very, hard event!
Listen up fool! Get your panties out of a wad and give the writer some credit!! He’s not trying to downplay the Hawaiian Tri or “hurt anyone’s feelings”.
He is simply stating that an argument could made of comparable arduousness. The Leadman Tri has a longer biking portion with 6,000 ft of elevation climbing (2x up and over Mt Bachelor), a longer swim portion with a 20 degree colder water temp. Oh…and you’ve got one hour less to complete!
Just posing a thought as a good writer should. Not that anyone would truly consider the Leadman to be the caliper of the World Championship Iron Man
Any chance there will be a Duathlon coupled with the TRI?
I just can’t believe a writer who is payed to write these articles can misspell triathlon and although this is a difficult race I don’t think a race with a run half the distance of an Ironman run can be considered even close to the same difficulty.
Misspelling aside. Perhaps you didn’t comprehend in the article that while the run is shorter, the bike and the swim are longer.
Gadfly, I comprehend just fine. I was a professional triathlete most of my life. The reason Leadman was created was so that athletes could recover easier and race again sooner because the run is what beats you up in a triathlon. If the author had done any research at all he might have found that out along with figuring out how to spell triathlon.
It’s good you were a professional triathlete because if you were a professional reader you might have noticed that you were on a blog, where a writer is not going to spend a lot of time researching the minutiae of why a shorter run as opposed to longer swim and bike leads to greater recovery. Your comment, that this could not even be considered close with a longer swim and a 138 mile bike is still just nonsense. The word “arguably” is the defining word. Even Chad above is stating this will be a very very hard event.
Hey readers,
I just realized that I didn’t know how to spell triathlete. This has been corrected. Sorry!
I will also refrain from questioning the hardcore-edness of any athletic event unless I have personally competed in said event.
Well, if you read my prior comments I did say that this will be a difficult race. I just said that it is not nearly as difficult as an Ironman, especially Hawaii. I don’t claim to be an expert in very many areas but when it comes to triathlon there aren’t a whole lot if people that have as much experience as i do. Calling my comment nonsense is just completely off base. Adding a little extra swimming has very little effect and an extra 26 miles on the bike doesn’t beat you up like an extra 12-13 miles of running. Almost all people will cover 26 miles on a bike in less time than the extra running and once again the time on the bike is a lot easier on your body, Especially if you take into account that in this particular race almost everything after 112 miles is downhill. You can argue all you want, you will just be wrong.
Jordan Rapp said it was the hardest thing he has ever done (the Las Vegas Leadman 250) and he has won a few ironman races including Canada that has a tough bike course. Also, a few pros dropped out due to exhaustion….so as the original blogger said…you could definitely make an argument for the ‘250’ being harder. It took Rapp 9.5 hours last year in winning so it definitely takes longer (Hawaii is around 8’10” for the men….and in terms of winning times Hawaii is far from being the longest/hardest of the ironman races…I believe races like Ironman UK and Lanzarote are considered the hardest….and I guess the original China one was brutal). You then have crazy hard triathlons (that are still based loosely around an ironman distance I.e. not including double, triple IMs) such as the Inferno (run leg alone is literally straight up a mountain to the Piz Gloria (the one of James Bond fame), over 7000ft elevation gain in just 25km run). All that needs to be taken away is that the 250 is hard and up there with others in terms of difficulty.