this doesnt seem right. i'm never in contention to qualify but 40 slots for 1,044 participants? maybe they should cut it by 10-15 or so and allocate those to races that draw a lot more people. also the allocation seems wrong in that 12% of the women starting will go to Kona, only 3% of the men. maybe with such a small field they need to combine age groups

I believe there is a user on here that can explain how illogical slot allocation is. I think the user is "kny."

Thanks for posting.

Five slots for just 177 starters in M35-39 is pretty nuts. Wish I would have raced, maybe I would have had a chance!

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Dimond Bikes Superfan

no shit!

you should see Cabo the last few years. even Coz I think was <1000. Truth is, even with Cabos having 40 slots for 300-400 racers for the last 3 years it never attracted a significant amount of additional interest because 90% of athletes are finishers not looking for Kona slots so changing the allocation for low participated races won't change interest enough. Texas always has what, 75 slots? and it never sells out while Placid with its 40 always does.

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808 > NYC > PDX > YVR
2024 Races: Taupo

Every AG that has a starter gets 1 slot. So that takes away 20 slots right there for this race.
Only the remaining 20 slots are "equally distributed"... hence why the percentages don't seem right.

It looks like this race used WTC's old way of calculating slots as by my calculation M40-44 should have gotten 6 slots and F45-49 should have only gotten 1.

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blog

Texas is sold out

Mar del Plata is probably going to be next year's South American Championship.

Some friends raced yesterday. Cold swim + a very windy ride.

that's why i'm thinking to take away kona slots from this one and allocate more to the ones that sell out. Cozumel and Cabo would likely get more people looking to make their Ironman race into a vacation... hell, that's what I do... going back to IMMT because my family loves it, as did I. but again, i'm not contending for Kona, just trying to think what would be a more fair allocation. maybe the total number of spots should be based on the overall starting numbers on race day and the rest are saved and they start the lottery process again, or entice with more charity slots.

Congrats on your race and KQ!

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

Fixed it for you. The race was open to everyone and the number of available slots were awarded by Ironman prior to the race being held. No, they should not start changing the rules after-the-fact because of low turnout in some AGs.

IMTX 2018 general entry is SOLD OUT.

Coz had about 1200 finishers, Cabo 388.

The extra F45-49 allocation is typically what happens when an AG has a starter that doesn't finish. Then the slot rolls within gender to largest AG. With the current IM Tracker and online IM results it is tough to find this info after the race, so I'm only guessing...

This year Los Cabos had 5 slots for 48 finishers in M 35-39. 5th spot finished in 9:45 on a hot course with over 6k feet of climbing, Point is, fast people show up so doesnt matter.

Exactly, the very fast guys might travel for a slot, but average joe wont. Therefore even when the field is thing on average Joe, there is always those fast guys.

Thanks Cathy!

The race conditions on Sunday were surprisingly challenging given what I expected for this race. On paper it looks like a super fast course with a wetsuit swim and a flat bike ride and run course.

I raced on Sunday and in the days leading into the race, I'd convinced myself the swim would be cancelled because the surf was so rough, choppy and with some major swells. However, race morning brought a cold front into town with winds from the opposite direction, rain and temperatures falling bay 5-10f. The ocean was much more swimmable but still a challenging surf entry and swim big swells to navigate. Swim times were fairly slow for this race.

The bike course is almost completely flat but the winds made for a more challenging ride with strong headwinds on the return to town on each of the two laps. The wind built through the day so the return trip to town on the second lap was much stronger.

The run was also flat (one very minor rise) but the wind played a role once again with a tailwind on the way out and a super strong headwind on the return which got stronger on each of the three laps. I live in San Francisco and the headwind was stronger than anything I've experienced when running at home!

The race was well organized for a first year event but it was overwhelmingly a Latin American athlete crowd... it's a long way to travel from North America and tough for many to pull off a December Ironman... in my case, I just stretched out my Kona fitness a few extra weeks to pull off a decent race.

9:30 to be sure to get the 5th slot

The thing that surprised me most was that there were only 1050 entries or finishers? Is this really sustainable? How many other races have only 1000 participants? Won;t be surprise if they announce a 70.3 to accompany this race soon