Can't speak as to why there were no Marines for a visual presence, but trust me they are there. We have a number of Marines competing against the best out there today, keep your eyes open and you'll see a few different Marine kits.

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The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

So how did it turn out?

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It's a dry heat!

Good points. I shared some of this feedback with some folks at WTC today right after the race. They have some good reasons about why T1 and T2 are separated, but you'd think that those could potentially be overcome. The main issue seemed to be around run and bike and emergency and vehicles in/out of the resort and limited area in the resort for expo etc. I'll try to find out more and pass whatever I learn along. Agreed about that post swim lap into T2...that's insanely long!

how much of the run into t1 was included in the swim time? Seemed like a lot slow swim times for people.

Although I appreciate you criticism, I think the course wad terrific and the organization spot on. They need to have the finish in the town to promote tourism dollars.

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-Of course it's 'effing hard, it's IRONMAN!
Team ZOOT
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Bryancd wrote:

Although I appreciate you criticism, I think the course wad terrific and the organization spot on. They need to have the finish in the town to promote tourism dollars.

I slept in and had a leisurely drive over to the run course to watch the pros and age groupers finish their day.... I thought the run course was great for spectators because you could see all your favorite athletes so many times....


Very spectator friendly..... Maybe I'll race next year and have a different opinion

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I agree that the point to point situation is a real pain. I can't imagine how complicated it must feel for anyone racing that doesn't speak much English and has all sorts of cultural issues to deal with as well. I'm sure if the organizers could find a way to host this race out of one location they would. Not doubt it would be easier for them too.

The layout of T1 didn't bother me. I think they may have done it this way as I'm not sure there was enough space for staging before the start on the other side where we exited. For some reason the run seemed shorter than I expected and the hill out of T1 wasn't as bad as I was expecting.

They seemed to be collecting the dry clothes bags really early. I was rushing to hand mine in as I just assumed I'd drop it off just before I lined up with my wave. I missed the first 10 minutes of the pre-race meeting so maybe they mentioned that there.

I agree that the swim was good. The bike course had hills, but I wouldn't call it hard either (for me hard involves steep climbs). The ride thru the park was stunning and I'm really glad I drove it beforehand. I thought the hills on the run would be worse than they actually were. I'm not surprised that there were some fast run times.

The run was incredibly spectator friendly. The entire course was lined with people. I was worried that with 3 laps it would be a complete gong show at the aid stations, but it seemed to work pretty well. As always the volunteers were amazing. Lots of kids helping out and doing a great job.

I didn't find the run ugly, although it wasn't beautiful either. At least there were some shady bits.

I don't know what the temperature was today, but I wasn't all that aware of the heat or the sun until I finished. Of course I didn't have a very good day out there so wasn't exactly ripping up the run. Maybe I would have noticed the heat more if I had been going faster.

Transition maps in the Athlete Guide would have been nice. I ended up driving to T2 again on Saturday because I really wanted to know exactly where the finish line was and it wasn't up on Friday when I registered. I was also hoping to figure out what row my gear bag would be in, but the signs were down because of the wind. In the end I had a hard time finding my bag when I got there as I had a severe case of the stupids.

Overall I think it was a good race with the biggest downside being the point to point factor.

- move the course to a european country. It is very difficult to find a local half ironman race in europe with less spectators then the Vegas course had yesterday. A hilly course in the south of France, or a course with more then 100.000 german spectators would be awesome. Austria or Switzerland would be good options as well.
- make sure you get live tv coverage. That will happen for sure if the world championship is in a european country.
- get rid of Greg Welch
- get rid of Greg Welch
- promote your race with 100.000 spectators and live tv coverage to potential sponsors and get a real world championship prize purse. $5000 minimum for 10 th place. You need to be able to earn a trans atlantic flight and 10 day hotel stay with finishing in the top ten.
- let the French foreign legion, the german kriegsmarin or the swiss guard have a BIG parade. I think it would be awesome to see the french foreign legion march with a flag that was used on their base in ivory coast last spring. I would fly around the world to see that!

Hey, he was product-placement-tastic yesterday!

Move the world championships to outside the United States??? Wash your mouth out! ;o)

Overall, how did it compare to Clearwater?

I dont buy it. There is a ton of room for the expo at Lake LV in the town square near the casino. They hold similiar expo type events there every weekend.Also Xterra holds a race there every year and they seem to have no issue with emergancy vehicle access. The problem with Lake LV is that its hard to find a run course since its so small. It would have to be a heck of a lot of loops. The Xterra race is run on dirt and its just through a big dirt lot and not very interesting at all.

There is really no good reason to need to use Henderson pavilion for anything race realated.

It's tough to beat the beach and ocean at Clearwater, but overall I say it is greatly improved being here, especially the course.

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-Of course it's 'effing hard, it's IRONMAN!
Team ZOOT
ZOOT, QR, Garmin, HED Wheels, Zealios, FormSwim, Precision Hydration, Rudy Project

I liked the race as it was...the bike course is quite challenging but not crazy hard (if you make it crazy hard the course is uncompletable for some of the older age groups)...the whole course would've been much more difficult if not for the "cool" weather. The run course was not through parking lots, that 's just silly...I thought the run went by very quickly - 3 climbs of 2 miles and 3 descents...and at mile 12 the race felt over, just had to cruise downhill to finish.

The bike course is beautiful, very little drafting....no crowds but not that big a deal to me

My only complaint was out of pizza at finish ;(

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Coach at KonaCoach Multisport

I suppose there are very few triathlons that are absolutely flawless, perfect in every detail. I have never been a fan of courses that go point to point. For the athletes, additional logistic stress.

However, I can understand the neccessity. If a tree fell in the forest, did it make a sound if no one was there? That's the point.

For an event of this magnitude, having the support and sponsorship of a city is important. The City of Henderson wanted that tree to be heard. Anything to help the economic situation around here can't hurt.

Biggest winner... Whole Foods :-) They must have had their best week ever.

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https://twitter.com/FrostyJunction

Andrew Messick did say that it was important to include Henderson, but there is no lake in Henderson and he was pointing the logistics issues with trying to do T1 and T2 and the finish at Lake Las Vegas. Frank Lowry is a pretty smart guy. The situation is not perfect, but I'd imagine that things will be further streamlined.

To those asking, I can't say what the course was like for athletes, as I did not race, but it had to be 1000% better than Clearwater....there was not a single complaint I heard of about drafting. The only one who complained that the course was too easy was Michael Weiss (could not drop anyone trying to pull away uphill at 50W).

It was awesome for spectating on the run. For spectators, if you did not plan in advance, you'd have been trapped at T1 for several hours....and you need a car to get to T2. If the same layout is kept, I'd urge WTC to provide a free shuttle for specators to get to the finish since many foreign athletes have no rental car and their families are stuck at Lake Las Vegas....or you do like my 69 year old mom who started walking and stuck her thumb out and got a ride over to the finish (I was already at the finish by then) :-)

You must have missed this.

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...ng=drafting;#3524135

Sorry, was not online most of the day. Overall from what I heard and spectated, this is way better than Clearwater. In the end, when you have a field this tough you also need more motos on the age group field. Same deal in Kona.

The best point to point race that I've ever done is the Sooke half iron on Vancouver Island.

Saturday you drop off your bike in T1. Sunday morning everyone parks at T2 and is shuttle bused over to T1. So you get to see the final layout of T2, where your rack is and where the dismount line and the finish line are. In fact, you set up your T2 stuff. If you have a pre-mixed bottle you aren't leaving in out in the sun for 24 hours, you bring it race morning like you would at any other race.

The logistics of getting out of Lake Las Vegas race morning seemed to be such a pain. I ended up telling my boyfriend to skip the start and I would take a taxi there. I don't know where people parked race morning. It seemed a bit crazy and I was really happy that I was just being dropped off.

I'm glad that in the end they added shuttle buses to take people back to T1 after the race. I was wondering how people without cars or family would get home. Not like a taxi is really going to want to deal with a bike and smelly athlete. Regular shuttles back and forth between transitions for spectators would have been great. 69 year old women shouldn't have to resort to hitch-hiking!

I would say that to all the people who avoided Clearwater because of the drafting you should do this race. The bike course was pretty busy and there was a bit of bunching up from time to time, but the only blatant drafting I saw was one guy in orange compression socks just glued to the wheel in front of him. I'm not sure how long he stayed there, but when they passed me it was obvious drafting (not just one guy passing me as another goes to pass us both).

The best place to park is in the Casino parking garage. We arrived about 15 minutes before the pros took off and it was only about half full. It's about a 5 minute walk from the parking garage to T1.

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#WeAreTheForge #BlackGunsMatter

"Look, will you guys at leats accept that you are a bunch of dumb asses and just trust me on this one? Please?" BarryP 7/30/2012

I brought my family (wife and 4 young kids) to watch the race. Race was very spectator unfriendly. Very limited parking at T1...ultimately wife and kids gave up on watching the swim start to go to T2 to get some parking and watch me on the run...T2 had less parking and they had to park more than a mile away. After the race, when you get your bike and gear, you're forced to leave on the opposide side of the block away from the expo. I had to carry my transition/morning bags and bike all the way around the whole block and back through the finish area to find wife in kids who were waiting for me to "get my bike/transition stuff" nearly a half-hour prior. Then had to walk back through finish area and more than a mile back to where car was parked. The kids had a miserable time. The T1 and finish area were really tight and crowded. I wouldn't bring a family to this event again, which, for me, is a let down.

Other observations: a three loop half-marathon run course doesn't work. You have over 1500 athletes spread over a 4.4 mile run area; it's chaos!....especially at the aid stations. You can get away with this in a longer marathon distance course (i.e. IMAz) but not a half. The aid station workers (bless their hearts) couldn't keep up with the flow of athlete demand. They were rushing to get cups filled with cool water, but the cool water would run out and they'd end up handing out warm water. There was very little ice. Fortunately, yesterday wasn't too hot...On a really hot Las Vegas day...that's a tragedy waiting to happen. Furthermore, aid station workers couldn't keep up with cleaning the aid stations' cup/sponge toss mess, so you'd have to run through/step on wax cups, which is a slip-and-fall injury waiting to happen.

Finally, there was a lot of drafting on the bike course. I know part of the intent of moving away from Florida was to eliminate the drafting, and cheating is human nature and can't always be eliminated. But, drafting was very much alive and well at Las Vegas! How can one draft on a climbing course? On the way back from the turn around at Lake Mead park, the course is net down hill. Groups would "work" together on the descents pulling through. I saw about 5 different groups of about 10 riders clustered together on the descents forming a team time-trial rotation. Once they'd get to a longer sustained climb, they'd sit up together and climb single file until the descent and group up again. I watched group and group blow past me on the way back to T2. I think the officials assumed because it was a climbing course, they didn't need to be so vigilant in patroling (purely my assumption because I didn't see a lot of motorcycle officials on the course and hardly anyone in the penalty tent).

I think running shuttle buses between T1 and T2 all day long would help with a lot of this. I can't imagine how boring the day must have been for your family sitting around in T2 for a couple hours before you even arrive.

Maybe having a temporary kiddie park would help too. At some of my local races they get those blow-up slides and set up a play area.

I'm guessing a lot of changes will be made to make things better for next year.

I saw two guys in the penalty tent outside T2 and noticed a number of motorcycles out there with media written across their windscreen. I assumed they were officials as the pro race had long gone thru the turnaround.