The breaststrokers always scare me the most. You can usually sense when you're coming up on someone swimming freestyle (assuming there's little visibility in the water) because you can feel the little wake from their kick. I don't sense the breaststroker until I get frog kicked.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

NOOOOOO. ABSOLUTELY NOT. This is my number one biggest fear about the future of triathlon. WAVE STARTS.

I have taken a frog kick, it is something I am willing to accept and endure just so long as we keep mass starts.

I believe there are rules that for over 5k swim races floating aid stations must be present. I know it applies to just swim races, not sure if it applies to USAT/triathlon races.

I don't think race directors would want to add swim aid stations for an extra 1.5K of distance.

I'm all for anything that will cut back on drafting and force people to ride their own race. I've never participated in a sport where cheating is so prevalent and it's killing my enthusiasm for triathlon. Lately, it's every race I do.

I'm surprised how many people are against wave starts. Sure the spectacle of a mass start is cool, but that's only if you're watching it. If you're in it, it's just annoying because half the field doesn't know how to pace themselves so they go out like they're trying to win a 500 yard swim race and it forces you to go out too hard because you have to get in front of that huge 1:10 pack.

I'd also love to see an amateur elite wave.

Wave starts could be tough to pull off at venues with in-water starts though.

sounds like a wave start to me! pro wave elite wave and then to mob.... why would pro's and " elite's" want a wave but you think most don't?

Drafting is probably a daily topic on ST and wave starts might help this issue. The Challenge race I did this month, the marshalls seemed a lot more strict than the IM branded races. I admit, I was caught in a pack the first 20 miles or so, but it spread out pretty quickly and I was surprised how lonely it was the last 60 miles or so. So much so, that I was surprised I got a 4 min drafting penalty from the Marshall while going up and down a hill. It was a relatively unsafe position to pass or slow down too much. While I served the penalty, there were TONS of numbers listed serving penalties. Couldn't believe they were docking that many people, but I not sure if Ironman branded races are the same. IM Texas was a draft fest. I couldn't believe how blatant I would see groups working together, rotating positions

Why do people think wave starts would change the level of chaos? Once there are more than 3 people in a wave someone is going to get kicked and cry. What I keep noticing in wave starts is that you constantly have the fast swimmers in each wave crashing into the back of the earlier wave, then swimming over top of them, no matter how the waves were organized.

Think about it, if the wave is based on swim skill than you still have x number of people all at the same time crashing into each other, it's just a slightly smaller mass start. If it's done by age than you have faster swimmers slamming into the back of slower swimmers the entire race.

After doing Wisconsin and Canada I think the real issue is more to do with how the course is laid out. The swim at Madison came to a dead stop at every corner since they were only a few hundred meters apart, but IMC had a gradual turn at the first buoy that everyone managed to swim around. It was 1600m into the swim to everyone had spread out.

The three things the mass start needs are: 1. a way to organize people by their expected pace like at a marathon mass start. 2. a wider start line. 3 an out and back course that lets everyone spread out fastest to slowest. I get the sense a lot of the IM races today were designed for 1000 people and now have 3000 in the same cramped space.

If you are not trying to qualify for Kona than make your own wave start by letting everyone go first, what does it matter if your 14:20 becomes a 14:25? Wait the five minutes, have a clear easy swim, then race well the rest of the day.

I think it is because a large number of the people that are so vehemently against waves starts are the ones that are the problem. They are "being a man" and lining up at the front of the swim only to blow their wad in the first 500 yards, then they whip out some breast stroke kicking people around them, then they swim perpendicular to the course wacking people, then they refuse to realize they are the problem and keep swimming off course because they don't want to "back down" and "lose their man card". When there is no one left to kick or hit they realize they are way off course, they just zag back the other repeating the entire process. Then these people get out of the water and ride around in a pack on the bike, chatting it up...making it damn hard to pass on unclosed roads.

I'm 6'5" and 195 lbs...I get by just fine in large waves and a mass starts with lots of contact, but I prefer to just race my race and not get knocked around on the swim. I wonder how many of these people that enjoy all the contact on the swim would feel if I bowled them over on the run because they were in my way, now THAT would be a spectacle!

 
Does it really matter ?

There are only 5 to 8 people around you at any given time whether the start is 300 or 2,500.

I told people to keep this in mind at the IMLP start.

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2013 Battenkill - Rock the Ridge 50 - AmZof Chris Gleason Memorial - Rev3 Half - IM Tremblant - SOS - Stone Mill 50

Perhaps I misspoke (misswrote?). Yes, if we want to get literal, there is currently a "wave" system in place now - albeit a pro wave and a rest of us wave. Adding an "elite" wave would add another, but I wouldn't equate that with a true "wave" start where you have 10 or 20 different waves.

As for the rest of the racers, or the mob, I do believe there are those of us who like the mass starts. It is one of the iconic aspects of an Ironman (WTC) race. And, as easy as it is to avoid the most chaotic aspects of that mass start (staying to the side or the back), I'm not sure why we should consider eliminating it.

By way of analogy (I know I'm going to get in trouble here, but oh well....), I was recently at the running of the bulls in Pamplona. As we were crammed in the street waiting for the bulls to come, the Americans in the crowd were all saying the same thing: "This would never go down in America. Too much liability." Which I think is a sad commentary on our general mindset. There were no releases to be signed, no waivers over there. I guess the city and organizers trust that a reasonably intelligent person would understand that running along a narrow stone street with thousands of others and 14 tons of terrified bulls could result in injury or death. Nobody forces you to run in the street, you choose to. Bad things happen to people almost every day of the run. You run at your own risk.

I'm not sure how a mass start is any different. Put 2,000 people in a body of water and fire off a canon, and there is going to be some collateral damage. Don't want to run the risk? Then don't get in the water. Want to compete but don't want to get in the fray? Fine, start in the back and let the pack clear. But changing the entire nature of an event that in inherently chaotic and sometimes brutal, to me, seems like the wrong answer.

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I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. - D. H. Lawrence

I think wave starts are a problem when there are 2,000 or even more participants. I don't recall how many were at St. Anthony's the year I did it, but I was in wave 23 or so - out of more than 30 waves. The pros were on the run before I was in the water.

At the AG championships in Burlington recently, we over-60's were in the first wave. As I was leaving T2, we runners had to avoid getting in the way of the guys heading to T1 while peeling off their wetsuits. That was close to two hours after the start of the race. Perhaps that would work out differently for the IM distance if the waves were only a minute or two apart., but it would still be quite a while to get everyone started, depending on the number of people in each wave.

I don't find IM starts any rougher than wave starts. I get knocked around for a while and then things spread out a bit. I probably get more open water in an IM than in shorter races with waves of people with varying swimming ability. There is obviously a safety issue, though, when it comes to spotting and getting to distressed swimmers in IM.

I will be doing IMTX once again next year, though the swim is absurd at IMTX. Too small of a lake for 2500 people, and then the 1000 meter canal for the finish.

And. . . If the mass start is SO important for an Ironman event, then start the blasted pros in the mass of 2500 athletes. If they are pros, then they can deal with the masses just like the age groupers.

I don't believe IM races should move to wave starts mainly because of the spectacle it creates and it's one of my favourite moments of racing IM's. I do however believe there can be major improvements made in how the swim is organized. I have participated in half-IM's with 700+ competitors where they will seed athletes based on their estimated finish times: something like <30 mins, 30-34mins, 34-37mins, 37-40mins, 40+ mins and then each category gets a different colour swim cap. Instead of arriving race morning and self-seeding or asking people around for their estimated times, you just position yourselves in the proper order. This also allows people who are freaked out by the mass start to collect a 40+ mins cap and then go whenever they want.

Also, all mass-start IM's are not created equally. I have competed in IMC, IMLP, IMFL and IMMT last week. IMC and IMFL with their wide expanse of beach were clear sailing almost right from the start. IMMT cleared up after the first 4-5 minutes - it was only jammed early on because several boats were positioned directly in front of the swimmers at the left. IMLP, on the other hand, can be a complete clusterfck if you start close to the buoy line - everyone wants to get that underwater sightline. With the coloured swim caps, at least you would know how you compare to others out there and can more easily seed yourself at the start.

@Kid

Dev (or anyone else who knows) - how big are the start waves at Roth and how do they handle the logistics? Presumably they get everyone into a corral (or directly into the water) by funneling over a mat to log the actual collection of chips to be associated with the upcoming start time into the computer, then close the gate, start the wave and reload, so even if someone somehow starts in a wave other than the one to which they were originally assigned, the time remains accurate..?

Someone probably said this already.

Surely there is a limit to how long you can hold on to volunteers.

Hard to start earlier than 7 AM, and there is a need to get people going, so you can shut things down at midnight and let people go home.

Wave or TT would require longer duration, thus surely straining volunteer willingness.