This week was Jeff’s turn to propose an issue, which then, of course, gives him the first crack. In lieu of USA Triathlon’s commissioning a Strategic Planning Commission to develop a five-year plan for the sport, Jeff asks: What is the single biggest issue facing triathlon in the next five years? Here goes …

Henderson asks: What would Mao do?

This month, USA Triathlon embarks upon a four-month process to develop a "strategic plan" for the next five years. A body of stakeholders, including race directors and athletes, has been asked to serve on the committee, with a final report to be penned in June. Back in January, an invitation was extended to me to represent the theme "Race Venue Preservation," and I accepted.

Though I was asked to serve in that capacity, and I feel strongly that environmental sustainability needs to be stressed more than ever before, is it the most important issue facing the sport of triathlon in the next five years? I don't believe so. Forced to choose but one, I would argue that maintaining accessibility to all kinds of people, from all kinds of backgrounds, stands as the issue that most needs addressing in the near future. Social sustainability, if you will.

Our sport is gentrifying. You can see it at small races all the way up to large productions, at every distance. Barriers to entry are going up, and though the sport is still growing, its appeal is at risk of tarnishing.

Why does triathlon not enjoy the participant numbers of cycling or running? For one, it's expensive. Entry fees rise each year, and there's nothing to keep them in check because market forces continue to propel them skyward. Race directors argue that their costs are also going up, and to a point it's true - but costs are being outpaced by fees most everywhere. When is the last time you did a sprint race for $25?

Entry fees are but the tip of the iceberg, and if you want to keep up with the joneses, they pale in comparison to what you could spend. Carbon bikes, race wheels, personal coaching, weekly massage therapy, and - oh yes - rehab for stress fractures and cash for the eventual psychologist weigh heavily on the poor (so to speak) triathlete's wallet. Remember all those surveys you filled out? They helped define triathlon's demographic as young, active and wealthy - perfect for airline travel, big bike boxes and extended hotel stays at all the major races.

Our sport is not as friendly as it could be to beginners. There's a steep learning curve already present with the three disciplines - chances are any given beginner will not have a background in at least one. And once the first-timer shows up at a race, he or she needs to figure out what to do and where to go and how to not look silly in the process. In the meantime, $6,000 bikes gleam in the sun and $500 wetsuits lie in wait. In today's world of triathlon, it takes a bit of gumption to show up with a mountain bike or hybrid.

Mike Greer calls them Starbucks races. Greer is the longtime director of Buffalo Springs Lake 70.3 and once the interim executive director of USAT, and he's been in the sport enough years to know what has changed. His term speaks to the homogeneity of today's big events, the predictability that comes with formulaic event production and standardized distances. In the ‘80s, triathlon was a sexy sport and those who participated were sexy people; today, the sport has grown up enough to risk trading sex appeal for appealing to the masses.

Time and time again, the American public has demonstrated its willingness to select national over local, brand over quality of product. It's why big-box stores crowd out the local mom 'n' pops and all of our favorite grocery store items are national brands. Ironically, consumers end up with less choice in this game - and it would be naive to expect the triathlon-going public to change its habits when choosing an event to attend. If USAT is to protect innovation, creativity, diversity and choice, it needs to recognize the notion of a Starbucks race.

What do other sports have that we might mimic? How do running and cycling encourage participation across age, gender, social and economic lines? A few examples might serve us well. Most cycling governing bodies require sanctioned clubs to hold one race per year. Needless to say, all of these races are not Tour de France-level affairs, and that gives local racers the chance to participate for little money in a wide variety of events. OBRA, the Oregon Bike Racing Association, to name one example, requires that junior fields be included, with corresponding minimal entry fees.

Running has given us the concept of the "Fun Run." Jingle Bell Jog, Turkey Trot, St. Patrick's Day Run - when was the last time you did a Fun Triathlon? I'm talking about one that's not timed, where you participate with your family, and no awards are given except those of the gag variety. This might be a stretch in these halcyon days of limited liability, but a few low-key events would go a long way toward welcoming young and old, rich and poor.

Triathlon has yet to fully make it to the mainstream. Our governing body has some important issues to contend with in the coming years, and a tip of the hat to them for beginning the work. If I ran the zoo, the top of my list would be to develop plans for bringing triathlon back to the masses, to bring it within reach of all those who want to take part.

Now T.C.'s two cents ...

Mao’s Five Year Plans ended up starving and killing and exiling millions. Franchising triathlon makes money, keeps the sport safe but builds tri-robots. Let’s take steps to keep triathlon a fun adventure.

I think USA Triathlon has been doing a great job to help the sport grow and stay safe for the average triathlete. It has also done a great job nurturing a great crew of internationally acclaimed athletes who are contenders for the sport’s biggest prizes on the biggest stages. But, as my esteemed colleague Jeff has so eloquently pointed out, the sold-out nature of today’s big triathlons has almost reached capacity and the sport needs new, innovative venues and scales of races for a safety valve before it frustrates potential triathletes and stunts the sport’s growth. Triathlon must be a welcoming sport - not a group of great races that need the obsessive drive of Ivy League college applicants and the Internet skills of a renegade hacker to get in.

There are several elements I think are missing. Like love, triathlon must be an adventure that appeals to impulse. Two, you have to be able to satisfy that impulse without planning a campaign as detailed as the invasion of Normandy. Finally, while it will continue to have a strong attraction to type-A amateurs living out Olympian dreams within their age-group arena, it must be within reach of everybody. Unobtanium metals, stealth-grade framesets, thousand-dollar power meters, James Bond-style wetsuits, $300 sunglasses and $12,000 yearly coaching programs are fine to attract Masters of the Universe execs with a high-tech fetish. They also help raise the sport’s already commercially desirable demographics and lure high-end sponsorship like bees to honey. But if the sport is to escape its elite, high-dollar ghetto and really reach the masses, it’s got to do two very different things simultaneously.

Number one, while it must continue to offer standardized, reliable Starbucks product quality - what sociologist Max Weber called the Routinization of Charisma - don’t throw the charisma out with the bathwater. Triathlon must also continue to offer challenges that can follow in the footsteps of the innovative races like the September 1974 Fiesta Island bike-run-swim-run-swim-run. It must expand on events like The Survival of the Shawangunks bike-run-swim-run-swim-run through the Adirondacks. It must continue to offer certain an imaginative and awe-inspiring Ironman challenge that John and Judy Collins dreamed up in 1978. Or the three-day Ultraman that circles the Big Island. Triathlon must not put a cap on the imagination, it must not lose its attraction to innovators with an unkillable spark of childlike joy.

This task would seem to be irrelevant to the concerns of raising membership rolls from 100,000 to 200,000 and maximizing revenues, minimizing risks and attracting mainstream big-money sponsors. In fact, I think it is properly done mostly outside the realm of USA Triathlon, which could bear the brunt of the sheer liability involved in doing something way out of the box. But I think this goal works in tandem with the big-bucks movements.

The kinds of events I am thinking of were covered in an impassioned conversation I had with Judy Collins a few years ago. After creating Ironman and leaving it in the capable hands of Valerie Silk, the Collinses continued their adventurous spirit, creating a great event in 1999 in their adopted home in Panama - the Portobelo International Triathlon. That race combined a classic swim, moved on to a cyclocross/mountain bike-style ride through the tropical seaside trails, and finished up with an incredibly tough run up a steep, jungle trail used by 16th century pirates and ended up at a joyous Central American-style festival. Judy Collins said she loved to look at awe-inspiring, heartbreakingly beautiful geography and think up racecourses.

Her idea for an even better version of Portobelo was a point-to-point triathlon, which went from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean at Panama’s narrowest isthmus, and trailed through as many elegant ruins and modern landmarks as possible. Laws, permits and the sheer expense of gaining modern permission have scotched that idea so far, but the dream lives on.

So, too, do the dreams of some ambitious, idealistic dreamer of a race director who might love to create a triathlon that crosses the borders between Israel and Egypt. I thought of making an epic version of Ultraman that makes racers run across the lava fields, ride up to the top of Mauna Kea and leap off inland waterfalls. But of course that is ridiculous and would never be approved in today’s litigious society.

So what I am suggesting is that small groups of individuals, not large enough to constitute an organized event, set themselves up to try more adventurous, imaginative challenges. This to keep alive the spirit of men like Tom Warren, whose self-created endurance challenges showed everyone the spirit of triathlon. Such adventurous spirit also lives in famed triathletes like Chuckie V, who turned into an aerobic Henry David Thoreau on his low-tech, high-spirited, months-long completion on the Pacific Crest Trail—or on a more convenient scale, the adventurous, high-mileage, maximum-fun weeklong Epic Camps of Scott Molina and Gordo Byrn.

What I’m saying is triathlon needs an Area 51, an endurance junkie’s skunk works that continues to push the envelope of adventure. Without it, the survival of the triathlon species as an innovative, sexy sport will calcify and turn into something else entirely.

The other part of this two-pronged attack on stagnation falls into an endorsement of Jeff’s line of argument. In short, triathletes need informal, widely available, fun contests with little to no cost. Bricks for kicks, splashes ‘n’ dashes, bikes for tykes, runs for fun ... These are most easily put on by triathlon clubs. The L.A. Tri Club has a host of them. So does the San Diego Tri Club. Attached to bigger triathlons and as small, standalone races, triathlon needs events where people are encouraged to show up to with beach cruisers, floaties and roller skates if they don’t like the run. No timing. No rules except to have fun.

What’s also needed to draw persons outside the top 10 percent of income to triathlon are low-tech kids’ events, for which modest bikes are made available and children from local YMCAs are invited and indeed recruited to join in the fun. Regular race directors should also be encouraged to visit the fastest growing segment of the sport – women-only Danskin and Iron Girl races - to see how joy and camaraderie can and should be an integral part of the triathlon experience.

And after all that, people should thank the folks at USA Triathlon and their board, and especially thank race directors across the land, for doing the hard work that assures all of us that the center of our great sport will hold.

What do you think is the most pressing issue facing triathlon in the next five years? Send your thoughts to mjuntti@insideinc.com.