DieselPete wrote:
As an athlete who is preparing to enter my first 70.3 and for whom the greatest psychological barrier to participation is concern about the swim, I want to add that I find the idea of a rolling start as described to be far more inviting than a mass start or waves by age group. I've done a some open water races with a few hundred people and in waves of about fifty so I'm not completely inexperienced regarding open water and getting bumped around a bit. But I don't really look forward to charging into the water with 300 people. I understand why the top AG competitors would want to know where they are relative to their competition but it seems the vast majority would want a smooth event, less bumping in the water and a better chance to set a best time or personal course record.
I probably would have done a first triathlon long ago if the swim start was something like seven competitors every seven seconds based on your projection of your finish time. That is far more inviting to me than any other options I have seen or read about.
Thanks for this input. I feel this format is getting better and better. I would like to see a release rate of around 2 athlete every 3 seconds which gives a race organizer one hour to send off 2400 athlete. Also I would suggest for the back half that they are not asked to line up 1 hour in advance. 2400 athletes over 1 hour would also reduce bike density vs 2400 over 40 minutes. This mainly only works on single loop swim courses.