Today's race was a true race against the clock. I hear what you're saying, but I do think it is rare that you actually go faster based on those in your immediate vicinity.

Bottom line: red line it the entire race and leave nothing on the course.

#282 won OVERALL by almost 2 minutes but he had to pass pretty much everyone in the race to do it.

"I am glad you posted, I think the example you gave makes my point more than anything else could."

My suggestion that #282 had to pass everyone while dealing with athlete traffic, yelling "on your left," fighting for aide station support on the run, etc... coupled with your suggestion that #282 was legally drafting and that #1 had nobody to compete against on the run BOTH fall into the realm of nebulous speculation. It is called a "time trial" start for a reason. As stated above, TT starts are purely a race against the clock. Yes, it sucks that the one-on-one, competitive part of the sport (spotting a calf numbered with the same age grouping as you on the bike/run) is leveled off (or even negated -- open for debate) with a TT start, I still personally believe that the performance of ANYONE racing from behind such as the OA winner today did needs to be respected.

It spreads out athletes on the swim and makes for less of a "contact sport" during the swim and a safer swim. This is a benefit to all racers, but especially newbies.

Finally, it requires a bit of math during the race, but to figure out "where you are" during the race and to determine the start time difference between you and another athlete just find the difference between you race number and their race number and multiple it by the time difference between starters. (Example--#200 minus #100 = 100 x 5 seconds between starters = 500 seconds divided by 60 = 8 minutes and 20 seconds.)

Heatwave Classic in Ridgeland Mississippi is a great mid summer race, usually hot as hell. This year for some reason, they switched from the traditional age group wave starts (used to be three or four waves) to a time trial start. Here is the kicker, the start was based on your bib number which was based on order of registration(exception was that first ten people were seeded from last year's finishing place).

Maybe I am a bad example, but I am a decent swimmer and pretty average otherwise. I started according to my bib number and passed at least 40 people in the swim (that is not an exaggeration) so there were 10 - 15 in front of me. I got onto the bike (where I usually get caught by the good folks) and I rode the whole course getting passed by 3 and passing 2.

I get onto the run and there are a few passing me and I am passing a few. Of course, I can't tell who I should be racing, if a guy passes me with my age group on his calf, that guy could be 1 minute in front of me or 3 minutes behind me.

Given that I was "out front" from the swim, and passed by a net 1 person on the bike, one would think that I performed pretty good, until you look at the results and see that I wasn't in the top 30 for men. I guess some people with a 300 bib number must have been pretty fast, too bad I never saw them on the course when they were kicking my ass.

It sucks to get beat by a few seconds and never even see the guy that beat you. A guy creeped past me at mile 5 and I worked my ass off to keep him close and try to pass at end (he was in my AG). When I look at results now, I don't know if he beat me by 2 minutes or I beat him by 2 minutes (though he did beat me to the line by about 5 seconds).

If organizers are reading this, I love your race, I do it every year. If we are going to have time trial starts, can we at least line up in age groups, or seeded based on estimated finish time? It sucks to get beat by a few seconds and never even see the guy that beat you or even figure out who the hell it was (bib numbers aren't shown in results, another small complaint).

Other than the above, the race was awesome, great facility, well organized, well stocked, well volunteered. The weather was even good this time (not nearly as hot as usual).