Oddly quiet today. Normally after a race we have a thread still ongoing from the day before regarding the play by play, another thread by those elsewhere asking for feedback on the event to decide whether or not they want to do the race and another one or two about it positively or negatively... and sometimes some fast typers getting their race report out.

Steve (darkhorse on here) and I drove the bike course and hopped around the run course. Some things we noticed from the perspective of an RD/spectator. Any thoughts from those that raced as to how the event unfolded for you? Hope your day went well!

1) lack of top end
- at one point we got out of the car (~mile 40) and were sitting around watching one athlete go by maybe every 20 seconds or so. I asked to see when these folks had crawled out of the water.... first one or two we spot are between 62 and 74 minute swimmers. This after maybe only 100 athletes tops had gone by our position.

2) spread out bike course at the front end (i.e. very clean racing)
- this is related to point 1. We were on the course from mile 25 to 100. In that time frame we saw _just_ three instances of drafting. One lady with a mirror (we caught her being suspicious 2-3 times... waiting to hear about legality of mirror and if we have any photo evidence on go pro), two mexicans (seriously, you race side by side in the same jersey and you think we are dumb?), and a northern colorado tri club fella. The latter two drafters backed off quite sheepishly when we rolled by slowly with the camera square on them. Back to the original point... this course was SPREAD out. There were times it would be a minute or two between athletes and this was maybe 200 athletes deep into the field. Was so very surprising but very encouraging from a fair racing perspective.

3) absence of refs at the front end
- while we saw little reason to have any refs at the front end we were shocked to not have seen a single zebra all day long. Any thoughts as to why this is?

4) safety of the course out east
- I am RD for a few events out here. At one point we got off course to jump ahead. When we came back into the course we weren't sure we were on the course or not. <--- that should _never_ happen. We entered the course (yes it was an open course) from an unmanned and unmarked intersection. We found about 9-12 others like this. Yes they were seemingly benign intersections but please have a cone with a sign saying what's going on. Or a NHS high school kid or 2 manning the intersection. My concern here is what happens when someone comes along on the cross road and wants to get to the other side when the mass of the field is there?

5) 79th street hill
- 14-ish% grade at mile 100. Highly entertaining. Some folks being good little angels with watts and getting up it as easily as they could... others providing sheer entertainment value by charging up it as if the fastest up it would win a million dollars.

6) Larimer/Weld/Boulder County sheriffs deparments
- super awesome job on traffic flow and athlete control (aside from one very skittish deputy in Larimer). Can anyone comment on traffic hold ups later in the day? Particularly 287 and Hwy 52?

7) run course
- it was busy but not as busy as foreseen. Still saw several instances of faster athletes having to do the sideways run to get thru the throngs of people and speed up and slow down to get around crowds. Occasionally you'd get big ROTC like groups jogging in a pack together taking up the path. 4.5 feet per direction is too skinny for a two lap 2000+ person run course IMO. A one loop course? http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=6395067 (yeah yeah, it's .65m short and goes thru CU and OSMP property... just an idea).

8) run course affecting vehicular traffic
- ZERO. The whole run was done "below grade" by use of the creek path system. If you were on a road a block away from the event you had no idea the event was going on. This was astonishing. In other words the town swallowed up the event and hid the extra pounds well!

9) bike course
- flat, not challenging (weather alone _could_ make it challenging - in last 10 days we've had high temps range from 100 to 58 & rain). Taking it so far east that on a hazy day you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between Boulder and Iowa is a bit of a slap in the face to calling this IM Boulder. When we were hanging out up in Loveland it was gorgeous. Green vegetation, foothills, some views of the high peaks, horse farms.... then the course turned east and it was dry, brown, dusty and there were oil and gas wells every where you looked. We can do better.

10) swim
- rolling swim start continues to work well. It's tough for those racing and knowing where you are, but for full events i think it's good (no way for sprint, oly or half)

11) swim course
- no part of the swim going directly at the sun = WINNING

Not sure if anyone else had this on their Garmin, but mine said the swim was 2.6mi???

Yup, mine too was exactly 2.6 miles. I swam far to the right of the buoys, but still had a good line.

IMLT 2013 and IM Boulder 2014 is an interesting comparison... in a lot of ways they are similar and a lot they're opposite. I ended up with similar times for both races, and here is the direct comparison. The swim at Boulder was beautiful and uneventful. The swim at LT was brutally cold, offered poor visibility, and the infamous changing tent. The bike at Boulder was challenging but fast. I biked similar wattages and was 50 minutes faster at Boulder. The run at LT was cool, pleasant, and relatively fast. The run at Boulder was a freeking death march. Looking at the weather reports doesn't even come close to telling the whole story. Carnage from mile 0 with people caked with salt, yacking all over the place, and being carted off the course with med staff. I've done 12 and it was by far the hardest marathon. I talked to someone that has done 40 including winning his age group at Kona several times and he also said it was the hardest marathon he'd ever done. Tahoe will always be a very hard race but Boulder could be smokin' fast with mild weather.

IM website says a bit over 4000 ft of elevation. So, are you all saying that 4000 is totally flat to you or is the 4000 not accurate?

My wife, who I think quotes this from a friend in LA, says, "it's called Ironman, not Pussyman."
-

.... I don't believe the descents in the canyons are too steep. You might be able to say that about Lee Hill or Flagstaff or Mags or Sugar Loaf but not South St Vrain or James/Lefthand.... .

3) absence of refs at the front end
- while we saw little reason to have any refs at the front end we were shocked to not have seen a single zebra all day long. Any thoughts as to why this is?

I heard a rumor that the course will change next year, cutting out much of the eastern portion of the course and instead going up to Fort Collins and going around Horsetooth Reservoir which is probably more challenging than Carter Lake. That is unsubstantiated, but it wouldn't surprise me because they always intended on having a high grade climb but Carter Lake refused the permit.

Just heading back home now. Some comments from this peanut gallery:

- Overall, I think the race is a winner (this was IM no. 49, so there is some perspective) - I would say about 75% to 80% of the race is good, but there are changes required.

- Nice to have a one loop swim course. Would like to have a practice swim that doesn't cost $20 (or at least put it in the entry fee, so I don't feel like there's constantly a hand reaching in my pocket. Swim entry/exit good, good to not have any leg directly into the sun.

- Bike course was more challenging than I gave it credit for; a couple of slightly more epic climbs thrown in would work well. Saw several motos the first 30 miles, none afterwards, though everything was spreadout by then (did a 1:03 swim/5:03 bike).

- The T2 bike hand off needs serious help (you had to see it to believe it) . At the very least, there should be bike catchers near the dismount line. Running in bare feet for a quarter mile on hot concrete and running track needs to go away.

- Railroad crossings need serious help. If I hadn't slowed down a bunch, I most likely would have flatted.

- Run course was good. I expected it to be more crowded, given the width of the path, but only had to dance around a few people on the second lap.

- Having dry clothes bags closer to finish line would be a plus. Add colder/wetter weather and this turns into a medical tent nightmare.

Again, overall a positive experience, and would do it again.

Thanks for your points on the race, but we want to know where IM number 50 will be. Are you stuffing Tahoe in before Kona, or are you saving it for Kona?

After doing Whistler, Tahoe crossed my mind....but Steffan there or not changes nothing. Usually there are 10 guys in between Steffan and I in line for that KQ slot. Perhaps at a race like Tahoe that number changes to 6-8 but still there are too many fast guys in between. Doing Tahoe would be about the challenge. I am in SFO area in that general time frame for work, so it would be a matter of coordinating logistics and getting the body lined up which might be hard since I am supposed to do Tremblant 140.6 in 11 days.

Thanks for your points on the race, but we want to know where IM number 50 will be. Are you stuffing Tahoe in before Kona, or are you saving it for Kona?

My notes;

- 75 degrees is just stupid warm for allowing wetsuits. Would do lava pants if it was that warm again.
- Setup at the rez was really bad for spectators to watch/see the swim.
- Swim was most certainly long.
- $20 to pre-swim a 750m course is crazy.
- Local restaurant only partially honored the food voucher. Said something about WTC only paying them $10 back for the $25 voucher. Lame.
- The swim warm up was not very practical from a logistics standpoint.
- Buses on race morning worked really well.
- Split location transitions are a major hassle. Especially since parking in and around the high school was a major pain in the ass.
- Rolling swim start was awesome. Very sane and low pressure swim and this led to a very spread out start of the bike. This might have also been partly because of the weird pace signs used. There was a sub hour sign with a bunch of people in front of it, a bunch of people behind it, then a big gap, then another sign that read 1-1:15 with a bunch of people behind it. So not sure, what the no man's land was supposed to be but that seemed to work out.
- Rolling swim start, long swim, lack of wind, early false flats, and the bike course in general led to a very fair bike leg. Saw very little drafting. Saw refs only early mostly, but they were not needed when I didn't see them.
- The out and back off of 36 was dumb, but maybe a necessary evil to break up the bike ride. Plenty of heros trying to win the bike on the descent in close proximity.
- The bike course was great except for everything on the east side of I25. That section was long, hot, and boring.
- The entire field seemed to really slow down as the heat cranked up late in the bike.
- The back half of the bike could have used more aid stations. I like a one loop course, but would trade that in any day for more aid stations. Spectators might get a chance to check things out on the bike then too. By the time they got back on the bus and in to town they were like f'it we are going to lunch.
- The hills on the way back in to town were way over hyped. The climb on the out and back on 36 seemed steeper.
- Traffic control on the bike course was really good for a first year race.
- The T2 transition was poorly setup with the really long run with your bike and a portion on a black track surface. Nothing like running a quarter mile with your bike and a boiling hot rubber transition surface.
- The run course was chaotic with locals wandering all over the place. People riding bikes, schlepping inner tubes, staggering, and smoking reefer on the path.
- I much prefer roads than bike paths. If you can't really take over an area it probably isn't a good idea to have 2500 people running there.
- Ironman in the first week of August in Boulder... yeah I'll pass on that next time. If the race was on the preceding Wednesday or the following Monday completely different days.
- Most people blew out of transition too fast with the gradual downhill, only to explode in a couple of miles.

- The run course was chaotic with locals wandering all over the place. People riding bikes, schlepping inner tubes, staggering, and smoking reefer on the path.