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PSOF Championships 2014 - Ironman France
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Cake, last year at Outlaw you were my saviour, those donuts were just what I needed and I really appreciated that.
Im looking forward to seeing you at Outlaw as will be intent on paying back your generosity and support.
Cake - l'll be in Nottingham next Friday mate!
By the way, who has entered Nice already??
Me
for those doing this in 2014, you might want to look at this video of this year's event - it has probably the best view of what a mass IM swim start looks like......stunning overhead drone camera shots of it and as the camera pans back you will see the whole field in heading into the sea.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xHfHu9ji_R8
Awesome
good eh? but bar the swim, the rest of it is a bit pants really....
You can see the restaurant we had lunch in 2 years ago when we were in the area.....
Would've have been good to have got some shots of the climbs and decents of the bike course, that'll scare yeah!
I drove the bike course the week after the race 2 years back.... I kept wishing I want driving a hired Vauxhall Corsa, made me convinced it would be silly to cycle it...
and then I thought if I stick the aero wheels from the TT on the road bike, maybe it might be ppossible
at least the run is flat
Except that it might not be a mass start next year, depending on what they decide with regard to rolling starts.
I only have 2 sets of wheels ! One set for the roadie and the aero set in the TT
I think WTC will roll that out in the US first where they have "issues" with people dying in mass start swims before bringing it to Europe it won't be suitable for a lot of venues. personally I think WTC are reacting to the media, not the reality, to keep their financial value high.
Totally agree about their reaction, and dont personally think its necessary, but I think if they do adopt it, it will become mandatory for all official IM races, regardless of location. I dont personally think they'll have one rule for the US and another for the rest of the (more sensible!) world.
I think you're right - if they adopt it then it will be for all events, not just US. great shame if they do as the mass starts add something to IM races and is part of the challenge.
hey ho - namby pamby society - not even allowed to die doing something you enjoy eh??
From memory - the time limit starts from when the last man enters the water ?
So for IMDE with its 10pm curfew - you'd get less than the 15 hours limit if you were the last guy in ? (and potentially you'd be the one who would need the full limit ?)
Do you think if they make a change they are likely to do so before next year?
Cougs - when I did Copenhagen it was really confusing with the wave starts and the finish time. We never did work out of it was a 15 hour cut off from the start of the last wave, or the first. I was so confused I took the time off just in case.
I hope they dont change the mass start, seeing a few thousand people hit the water at once is one of the best spectacles of Ironman.
Ive only done one wave start and detracted from the race, if there are 40 of us doing one event we'd effectively be in different races by AG.
cougie - they're trialling a couple of options. I think at CdA the other week there was a window for starting, and athletes self-seeded. So if you need longer, you choose to start earlier. It could still work with a 17 (or whatever) hour cut off, but if you choose to hold back (a strategy I can see having advantages) for 10mins, you'll only have 16:50 to complete the course. I think you'd find that the people who started last were often the fastest.
Mouse - yes, I think they are quite likely to have made some sort of change by next year. They are trialling various options now, one of which is the rolling start and I think from a legal point of view they believe they have to do something. I think their lawyers would be massively twitchy about them having decided on a course of action which they then hold off on for a year, just in case someone else dies in the meantime. But that might not be rolling starts, if they decide, for example, that the floating platforms are sufficient.
Barley - I agree.
Will there be cocktails available on the floating platforms do we know ? And pretzels ?
The reason I wouldnt get your hopes up about keeping the mass start, is that the problems with deaths in the swim are related to the start. They could be largely avoided by people warming up sensibly and not trying to go off like the clappers when they are neither fit enough, nor good enough swimmers to maintain this, but that puts the onus for safety back on the athlete and unfortunatley, that's not something that a bereaved, litiginous family wants to hear. I dont think the platforms would actually make a difference, because it assumes the swimmer in trouble can a) recognise this fact and b) swim to them.
I THINK they believe that a rolling start will prevent the mad rush and panic of the first few minutes of the start, and they're hoping that this will reduce the "risk", but the side effect of that, as Barley says, is that you lose a lot of the spectacle and excitment.
I would prefer them not to change it either, but I dont think they're going to ask for my opinion.
WTC have been using a rolling start at IM Louisville for some time as the swim entry doesn't fit a mass start so it's not as if they don't have some experience of managing one. they operate a 1st come/1st served version and swim cut off is 2:20 after the last athlete entres the water - so for slower swimmers, best get in early!
has that been proven?? sure, most deaths in tri happen in the swim but I don't think it's been proven that the start method is the main contributing factor. most deaths seem to be cardiac events related to other factors although the start may contribute due to stress, panic etc.
when a bunch of us did IM Florida, a lady died in the swim but she was on her 2nd lap when it happened so I can't see the start having been contributory to that death - and she was an experienced IM finisher
I didnt mean the start method was the key factor - its the cold*, the stress/excitment**, the mass of other bodies and the fact that its hard to signal for help that have been identified as causes of people getting into trouble. The fact that people die is simply because if you get into difficulties, you can drown, as opposed to just sit at the side of the road for a while to get your breath back.
*in those athletes who have not warmed up properly/acclimatised to the water
** including the stress placed on a heart that goes from trying to supply a body thats been standing around to one swimming flat out in the aforementioned people who dont warm up and/or overestimate their ability
I don't think that cold water is an issue in IM events - more stress is caused when it's too warm and people have to ditch the wetsuits!
or they've never swum in the sea before IM France....
Hmmmm!