Agree, within the US at least - for first-timer iron-distance racers, Ironman branded events are like those mosquito lights to mosquitos - people will flock to them (and there's nothing wrong about that, despite what folks here might argue).

The challenge (no pun intended) is that it's easy for us here to argue the difference between the different race brands - but outside of this very very very small circle - nobody knows about Challenge, Rev3 or Lifetime. Not ma and pa kettle that watch by the sidelines each year from in front of thier farm. All they know is the 'Ironman' name, they likely don't even know what the distance are. They know a bunch of cyclists or runners go bumbling by each year, they cheer and write 'Go Ironman!' on the sidewalk in chalk, potentially throw a few tacs out, and that's it. All the local/legacy stuff/politics honestly only matters to locals, and a extremely small sliver of folks here on ST. If you polled 100 follks crossing the finish line tonight at IMC, I'm guessing 90-95% of them would say they were overall happy with how the event went today.

From a accomadations standpoint - Penticton simply can't hold 5,000 athletes + family. Anybody who says that hasn't been there. It doesn't matter what brand we're talking about. They can barely hold the athletes today for IMC, at half those numbers - and that only because the concentration of local athletes driving in the area helps tremdendously. You're likely pretty close to maximizing the 'available local athletes' bucket out, so the difference between 2.5K and 5.0K will have to be out of towners. Try finding a hotel within an hour or two for that race week today - no luck except for a small handful of T-60 day cancellations (mostly through word of mouth).

I'm looking forward to both races succeding - but there has to be a dose of realism in there.

---

-
My tiny little slice of the internets: dcrainmaker.com