“Two guys asked, ‘Are you Kenny?'”

So reported Kenny Krell to me, owner of 3 Disciplines Racing. The question was asked by a pair of guys on the same airplane as Kenny. The longtime RD from Michigan was traveling to visit a race site. Kenny and these two men talked for awhile.

“We used to do six or seven 3D events a year,” Kenny reported them as saying, “but the last few years we focus on our Ironman events. [Now] We are lucky to fit one or two in.”

Kenny asked why. “They both said their Ironman plans call for all training, no racing,” Kenny told me. “The one guy said he just can't afford other events after spending $6,000-plus on two Ironman events a year.”

Now, maybe what these guys told Kenny is true. Maybe not. Maybe they just don't want to race the same local races anymore. I don't know, but I do hear this a lot.

So I asked those in Kenny's cohort, race directors (76 of them), and they firmly hold to what I suspect is Kenny's opinion. Eighty percent of the RDs I polled believe that Ironman racing causes competitors to race fewer local short course races. They often go further – they think it's the coaches who're to blame. So I asked the coaches, and in the chart above is what they (136 of them) said.

As you see, 93 percent of the coaches I surveyed said they exhort those in their care to race short course events. These coaches report that their advice is mostly adhered to, that is, 7 percent of coaches tell their athletes to bypass local races, and 17 percent of coaches report that athletes in their care do race fewer local events.

We have quite a difference between what coaches say they tell their athletes and what race directors perceive coaches tell their athletes.

So I polled the athletes, and here's what they said (in the above chart in blue).

I find this fascinating. In the main, the athletes agreed with the coaches, that yes the coach does advise the athlete to race local events. And then the athletes don't!

So I looked for yet another data set and I asked the clubs – who have no skin in the answer – what they thought. They (119) answered per the below chart.

They mirror the response of their membership: those who race Ironman and 70.3 race significantly fewer local races. The data from my polling is fairly clear. Based on the 400+ industry folk I surveyed, taken together with the athlete response when I poll them directly, Ironman racing depresses their local race participation.

This is not necessarily the beginning and end of the analysis. It's also clear from our polling that all cohorts believe that Ironman brings new people into the sport. While 80 percent of RDs felt Ironman draw people away from short course racing, and that 66 percent of them felt Ironman consumed too many triathlon dollars, 87 percent still said that Ironman draws people into the sport. Among club officers 67 percent said this.

It is therefore possible that Ironman doesn't represent a net decrease in local race participants. It depends on how many new people Ironman brings into the sport. But try telling that to RDs whose numbers in the U.S. have been sliding the last 3 or 4 years.

Even consumers – those who read Slowtwitch – said by almost 2-to-1 that Ironman has impacted their regional race scene negatively. But they are writing largely about themselves. The very respondents, bless their hearts, who note this transparently report by a 5-to-1 margin that full or 70.3 racing depresses their own local short course racing.