At first I thought "How did they get Julia Roberts and George Clooney to do the athlete video?". Then I realized it was you & Gina. Have a great, safe race.

/

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Gary Mc
Did I mention I did Kona

Mark
Thanks for posting.

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Train safe & smart
Bob

Thanks for posting this.

Athletes racing oceanside: of particular interest is the note on the downhill speed limit (at about the 9min mark of the video). In the past, this has been done with radar and volunteers and officials on motorbikes. This was an imperfect system. This year, it will be done via timing mats. (Distance between mats)/(time between mats). If that number is OVER the limit, you are DQ'ed.

Keep in mind, it's your AVERAGE speed in the zone. So if you find yourself going a bit fast (it's way steeper than you think and 25mph is way slower than you think), you can always slow WAY down to bring your average speed back down.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

i think the timing mats thing is brilliant, but only IF they also have a sensor alerting you to your speed or, in some way, helping you to determine the correct speed. i don't think it's incumbent on every rider to have a velocity measuring device on his bike, showing during the descent, and i don't know that i want athletes fixated on this readout while on these descents.

FYI, we, at QR, opened up this otherwise, previously, closed venue in 1997. we were, from the beginning, concerned about downhills speeds in certain areas of the course. we had a downhill speed limit as i recall.

some of us oldsters remember those who died during triathlons. i try to remember all of them that i can, all of their names. and perry rendina was one of those names, and he died while on a descent in camp pendleton. perry was a very experienced triathlete. there is a legitimate safety issue here, and there's a fairness issue that the RD needs to bear in mind while enforcing the safety issue.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

If they enforce that to the letter of the law, half the field is going to be DQ'ed. It's been a few years since I've done this race but I remember struggling to keep it under 25 and having a stream of people flying by me.

Could be a good race to qualify for worlds in that case :P

Dan, there will be mobile radars signs at the beginning and 500 feet into the 1500 foot timed section. The first sign is just prior to the beginning of the timed section to allow you to adjust your speed, the second is 500 feet in to allow you to insure you are still at the proper speed. This is also a no passing zone, so if the readout says 25 and you aren't passing the person in front of you, you will be OK.
This is also checking 100% of the athletes, and all athletes exceeding the 25 MPH limit will see a DQ next to their name on the results.
I hope everyone on Slowtwitch reads and follows this and avoids the DQ. Pass the word to everyone else you see, and Reilly will be reminding you at swim start.

Mark

good. thx. based on what you're writing, if anybody gets DQd it's really the athlete's fault. and i hope and trust the race enforces this equally across all categories.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I do hope this no passing and strict speed limit zone is enforced. I have done this race many times and have always been passed on this section, making it very dangerous. I only hope that the RD is going to finally do what they say and hand out the DQ's. Safety is the top priority.

why not for next year eliminate the portion that requires limiting speed to an out and back at mile 35 ish for a double looped course? many route adjustments can be made. for instance, doing a double lap of the lifetime oceanside olympic race. Otherwise just limit the whole bike to 25mph, that would make an interesting race.

I agree that safety is important but the new system is likely to be seriously debated after many people get a DQ. That section of road is very fast and it's one of these places where you want to focus on the road and not have to look at your Garmin. I hope there is a margin to account for errors in the measurement system because guaranteed there will be at least one who can show a garmin that says he did 24.9 mph and he'll be DQd because the road system said 25.1mph.

And the other problem is going to be the people that will slow down too much too sudden, start braking with one hand and grabbing their water bottle with the other, swerving all over the road, requiring your focus again on them and the road rather than staring at your garmin.

Oceanside also has at least two no passing zones with are always a pain in the butt. People confuse 'no passing' with 'no speed' and start going WAY too slow. I think the final no passing zone starts almost a mile from T2, and two years ago a guy ahead of me thought that was also the time to take his feet out of his shoes.

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_____________________
Don't forget to attack!

Mobile radar. What a brilliant idea. I have got to get that on steepest uphill section Killer Miller at SavageMan.

3
4
3
5 GO GO GO
3
3
4

God that would be funny. I'm gonna make it happen.

So with about 2,200 starters, how many DQs do you think there were?

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

First place Women's 40-44 (Jen Foley) was DQ'd. Timed at 26.8.

I would love to know this too. I will say that the race directors did a great job of warning everyone about the rule, and the no passing zone. The no passing zone actually began well before the speed limit zone, so it seemed to be a good buffer to prevent people from abruptly gripping the brakes. Even with all that warning, I was still passed in that zone by two people who apparently missed the many announcements, or simply didn't care.

A woman passed me in the timed section of the no passing zone. Pretty blatant. Wonder if it was her. I started 15 mins behind her.


But yeah, I was so paranoid riding thru that section. And 25 mph in the downhill seemed agonizingly slow.

I know the 1st place and 3rd place M45-49 were DQed..... My training partner was one of them. Although his average between the timing mats was less than 25mph he still exceeded the 25MPH as measured by the radar. So the average does not apply in his case.

Except they can't figure out mileage. It was mile 38/40ish. Not 43. Its disappointing when race directors do not know their own courses

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http://www.TriScottsdale.org

If the W40-44 70.3 WC slots rolled down to the late-20's my guess is there were a lot of DQ's.

It was a NO pass zone too. I slowed down to 23/24 and everyone in front just sat up and did the same. Then some guy passed me in the first 100yrs...not flying but passed me, he did the same to the people in front of me too. It's wasn't obvious but he did pass four people.

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Train safe & smart
Bob