It really depends on the specific day but I say no. Frankly, the later you start, the later you start the run, and that is really where you core temp can go thru the roof. Although you might be running in the hottest part of the day in some races, that really doesn't tell the whole picture. The dew point + radiant energy really mean more than just temperature. As the day goes on the dew point usually falls as the humidity falls. The radiant energy goes way down to. These make it easier to run not harder. We saw this in Cozumel this weekend. Nearly every pro ran faster later on in the half marathon, likely because the dew point fell.

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I much prefer mass starts to rolling starts. I KQ'd at IMWI this year. Came off the bike 1st in my age group. I had done my research and knew the guys that would be competitive for slots. IMWI has 5 turnarounds where you can see guys within a mile or so of you. At the first turnaround (about 6 miles), I got a good look at 4 guys in my AG within 5 minutes of me. (I knew who they were and didn't need to see bib numbers or calves) Every turnaround, the gaps were getting smaller. One of the guys passed me at mile 17. The next at mile 22. Passed that guy back a few hundred yards before the finish.

My point is not to brag about my race, but to say that it was incredibly motivating to know where I was in the standings and where my competition was. I'm not so sure that I would have pushed as hard without knowing. I knew these guys could run me down and I couldn't be dawdling at aid stations or walking up hills. Either way, it's much more fun to actually race your competition, as opposed to time trialing and finding out at the end how everything sorted out.

But I'm not agreeing with OP. Seeded swim starts are not BS. They're a very practical way to safely get 2500 athletes in and out of the water without dying in the first 400 yards. You might argue that AG wave starts would be better, but who cares. If you don't like it, find a different race. There are still plenty of mass start IMs out there.

Agreed, Scott. When it comes down to it, you can race others or race yourself. For myself, I always found the toughest competitor in the field is myself. Some days I'll conquer myself and some days not. Even if I win a race, I may not conquer myself that day & be bummed I didn't let it all hang out there. That means it doesn't matter who you start next to--besides who is typically your main competition--the person in the mirror.

+1

Pro Start/s : Mass start
AG elite/KQ wave : Mass start
AG finisher wave : Rolling Start
Easy to fix but Ironman does´t care about AG competition.

I raced seriously and at a high level in that first generation and era of the sport of triathlon - all mass starts for all races all the time. So, I do understand the frustration here. It's a race and a competition. You want to see your competitors, and compete against them.

In mass start races - you know exactly where you are relative to your competition at all times. You also often get feed-back from the side-lines - "You are in 3rd place. 2nd is just 15 seconds ahead" . . and so on.

At the tail end of when I stepped away from the sport, Wave Starts were starting to be introduced, and quite frankly, I really did not like them. Now, you really did not know where your competition was. After the first 10 - 20 athletes on the course passed by, spectators no longer knew who was were.

Believe, me, I know WHY there is a need for wave and rolling starts now, but they do take something away from the head-to-head racing, and competition that for me, was at the roots of why I loved the sport in the first place!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

While I agree it would be impossible at some races. At IM Chatt you only have a small dock. You put people in the water and they'll start floating down river.

Pro Start/s : Mass start
AG elite/KQ wave : Mass start
AG finisher wave : Rolling Start
Easy to fix but Ironman does´t care about AG competition.


This makes perfect and logical sense ( I agree with this) - but now we are starting to get into that categorization of people based on fitness/skill, like they do in Cycling, and there has always been a moderately sized group in the sport of triathlon that has resisted this.

There were howls of protest when they started to separate the Pros from the AG'ers in Ironman races!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

...and then everybody got over it.

Agreed--I have thought for a while that if you do not start with the lead group (or at least the lead of your Age Group, depending on the format) that you should be disregarded for purposes of awards and KQ. 1m over a Full, Half, Olympic, or even a longer Sprint course can easily result from the fact that you navigated a different swim course with fewer or more slow swimmers in the way to navigate, or less of a battle at the start and through the first turn buoy. Also, chances are that even though you might not be able to see another racer 1 minute ahead, that racer might have had to pass you, or you may have seen them on turns, transitions or other parts of the race and knew you needed to pick it up.

The entire rolling start is really just an attempt to make Tri more friendly for newcomers and for those who aren't really racing anyone but themselves. I now actively avoid races with these types of starts as they are not really races at all--just time trials.

Fully agree. I think this set up would be best for all races from ironman down to local sprints. We had this set up in one of our local races this year and it was total great. Obviously, for any given race you know the rules going in and if it's a TT start you just try to see yourself right behind the guys you think you need to beat, but I have definitely found that I consistently run noticeably better when I am racing folks in my age group at the end of a race where we all started together. Much more importantly, it's a lot more fun for me because I am actually racing other person (s) instead of just racing the clock. Going forward I will always choose a race with this set up first, wave start race is solid second choice and will do only TT start races if I like the race for other reasons or it's my only option (ie I want to do a fall IM and IMFL is the only one that fits my family schedule)

As a strong swimmer you are actually faster with the the rolling start vs the mass AG start. As a 46 year old i start behind ~700 -1000 people and spend a lot of time and energy swimming around people.

I did win the IM Louisville swim this year.
46:58
(I was Dirtymangos in previous posts).

I started near the BACK of the rolling start.
I did NOT swim especially hard.
I did NOT find the experience difficult, or stressful

I DID:
1) Swim through the center of large groups of slow swimmers- pushing my way through
2) Swim immediately over the top of slow swimmers- if there was no way fast way around them, or I did not see them in time
3) Slingshot along the side of people.

Nice work on crushing that swim! IMLOU was my first full and I also started way in the back. I just didn't want to wait in line so friggin' long so I casually went about my business, visited the porta-potty etc. The only really crowded part was the beginning where we swam "against" the current for the first third of it. Once we turned around I swam wide of the packs to try and take advantage of the current more towards the center of the river. Agree 100% with your account of the swim, no stress, not particularly difficult.

For a race called in IRONman I sort of feel the rolling starts are "wussing" out the event, the swim part anyway. It's a fricken IRONman so deal with the mass start, suck it up all that crap. But I do like the idea of Pro's and KQ potential AG'ers doing mass starts and everyone else doing the rolling start.

 there's also the issue of pacing. The guys that started behind essentially knew what they were chasing.

Personally, I push harder when I know I'm being chased. But that may not be the norm

I think everyone's perspective is unique and different approaches have pros and cons. I've done one rolling start IM and really enjoyed it - more so than wave start. So for me, I was really hoping to see more rolling starts - or corrals.

And that's because for me, I don't particularly care about my AG result. I like racing - full stop. Don't care if you're younger or older than me. So I like to start a race with the chance to line up against the fastest guys and have a go at breaking the tape. I don't get the chance to do that when I'm in an AG wave. At IM 70.3 Muskoka last year, it was an AG wave start (M40-44). Went as hard as I could and finished 2nd overall, but I had no clue how I was doing overall or in my AG. I think I was one of the first 10 people across the line, but no sense of how many minutes ahead the people in front of me had started or if someone in my AG was ahead of me. I'm not sure I understand how you know where you are in your AG even with a wave start though (unless you have someone on the sidelines doing a great job of tracking everyone for you). For me anyway, by the time I'm running, figuring out who's where is a mess and I don't even bother looking at people's markings.

When I did do the rolling start IM, I crossed the line in 6th and I knew I finished 6th overall and I really liked that.

I also think anyone who runs is used to wave starts. When you run a marathon or 10k or whatever, it's always corrals and not age groups. Just makes it a lot cleaner when you're dealing with lots of people. Let's you run your own race.

Nice.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

 
While I could only imagine missing Kona by such a short time would be awful.

Left thinking this..

As a consumer of the WTC brand he selected a race that was known to have a rolling start. In selecting this he was aware it was a Time Trial Race. Perhaps the he should select races that do not feature the rolling start, or adjust their strategy to the race rules?