City of Galveston wanted to make it happen last November, so definitely it's happening.

Looks to be that way. I know it's a different county, but the Woodlands marathon is happening tomorrow. It's all setup with an expo and everything. It's county by county, but it doesn't look like anything will stop events from happening in Texas, absent a large increase in hospitalizations, etc.

I really loved that race in 2019. Had a great overall experience in spite of the micro burst that brought very extreme weather ultimately pulling most athletes off the course (I was a lucky one who did finish). Hope the weather cooperates this year! And hope everyone stays safe. I am not brave enough to race until I'm fully vaccinated.

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Death is easy....peaceful. Life is harder.

Same... I'm registered for this based on a deferral last year. I'm not going. I haven't swam in 11 months and figured it was 50/50 to even happen so I've been focused on my next race in June. Was selfishly hoping for another deferral but happy for everyone who can make it, a successful race would be helpful for other races moving forward.

A lot of municipalities, businesses and local government officials are highly critical of the orders that Abbot reversed. If there is a spike in cases following the "mask removal" next Wednesday, then I can still see officials in Galveston pulling the race regardless. I would put the chances at one in three that the race goes ahead.

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the world's still turning? >>>>>>> the world's still turning

There will be a spike in cases. Unavoidable. Part of reopening, which is not optional. Presumably many of those who would have been hospitalized have been vaccinated.

I agree. But if the cases starting increasing like wildfire and there's even a slight strain on the hospitals in galveston, then you run the risk of the city pulling any medical support (justifiably) from Texas 70.3. I hope this race goes on, as I am registered. But I also wish Abbot would have waited another couple of months before opening everything back up

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the world's still turning? >>>>>>> the world's still turning

Its been about a year too long already 😂

Well I disagree with you there. But in any case I hope we can all race safely and successfully in April.

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the world's still turning? >>>>>>> the world's still turning

Without question. Looking forward to getting back to racing and checking out the city of Galveston and what looks to be a very, VERY fast course! Fingers crossed, all things are pointing towards what should be a great race!

I’m excited also. Even though I somehow managed a 3 month Achilles injury in December. Not training for anything. Just a regular 6 mile run. Will probably just swim/bike Galveston and pull the pin. Focus on Memphis in October.

I’m registered for IMTX in late April and really hoping both races go forward but the governor didn’t do us any favors.

https://www.usnews.com/...fluence-virus-spread

It’s beyond me how anyone can be negative about reopening. Really bizarre. Kudos to Abbott.

Since we're on the verge of getting a global pandemic under control by early summer, I'd say there's a lot of room to criticize premature reopening before vaccinations have been administrated.

Right? I've become convinced the biggest fear of some of those criticizing the opening is that it won't result in massive infection and death. Because then their hysterics won't be justified.

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Trent Nix
Owned and operated Tri Shop
F.I.S.T. Advanced Certified Fitter | Retul Master Certified Fitter (back when those were things)

“Before vaccinations have been administered”. Where have you been since December? We’ve been vaccinating lol.

If there’s hospital capacity (which there is), there’s ZERO reason not to reopen. Restrictions were never intended to lower case numbers or hospitalizations. The only reason to have restrictions is so that WHEN you or I get infected, the medical system has the capacity to handle it. It’s clear that not many people understand the rationale behind covid restrictions (if there is any rationale).

Those goalposts got memory holed a long time ago.

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Trent Nix
Owned and operated Tri Shop
F.I.S.T. Advanced Certified Fitter | Retul Master Certified Fitter (back when those were things)

Believe what you want man. But there are others that believe we should be listening to the science and data behind waiting another couple of months. You could at least respect their opinion even if you disagree, if that’s not asking too much these days

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the world's still turning? >>>>>>> the world's still turning

Sure. Everyone doesn’t have to agree. So why shouldn’t they respect the decision to reopen? There’s a mountain of science supporting that. Has been for months and months now.

The "science" has show that even with the strictest lockdowns, the virus still virused. In fact it was worse in those states when you compared it to states that were open or semi-open.

So, there's the thing, Personal Responsibility. If you don't want to race, don't. There is no data to support not having a race given the additional precautions IM has instated for their events.

When it comes to hospitals, most have returned to normal capacity, well not normal since we're still doing reduced capacity. But surge capacity has been collapsed. So yeas, ICUs are at 80% capacity in most places, but that's normal. That's not "bad". ICUs and EDs are very expensive to run and require a lot of staffing. That's why capacity is often so high.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

I am ready to race mentally and potentially physically as I will find out in April.

I think social isolation has a very high cost and one that should be discussed a lot more.

Lets get out and race as I need it and I think you do to.

Oh and please stop saying "science says" or "follow the science" it is just not right.

yes, it’s just not right to listen to people with PHDs in pathology and spend a lifetime researching infectious diseases. let’s trust what some guy on the internet says instead.

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the world's still turning? >>>>>>> the world's still turning

Sorry I was not meaning to make the point you seem to think I was making.

My issue is the use of the word science in the ways people are today. Science in itself does not say anything.

triguy86 wrote:

If there’s hospital capacity (which there is), there’s ZERO reason not to reopen. Restrictions were never intended to lower case numbers or hospitalizations. The only reason to have restrictions is so that WHEN you or I get infected, the medical system has the capacity to handle it. It’s clear that not many people understand the rationale behind covid restrictions (if there is any rationale).

According to worldometer, the cases and deaths across USA are coming down and have since Jan 7th. Cases are around the same as last July and deaths are similar to late Nov.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/


I have no idea what your hospital capacity is, but you are correct that the entire initial idea for restrictions was to have hospital buffer in case people got sick. If there is buffer and "the first derivate of daily deaths, cases and hospitalization has a negative number" (meaning all have downward slopes), then this would suggest that the original reason for putting restrictions in place have achieved their goals and restrictions are no longer needed (or less are warranted).


In Canada, cases, daily deaths, hospitalizations are all down and on a negative slope. We're just waiting around for vaccines while health officials provide projections of explosions from UK and South African variants, (while in UK and South Africa, home of those variants all numbers are down too). In any case, with vaccines rolling out in USA, you guys should be in good shape to do normal society things based on science (vs random people on the internet). In Canada there is still talk of salvaging the summer with vaccines having a hope of rolling out by June or so now.


In any case, hopefully not that far in the future all of this is in the rear view and we won't have to debate who is infringing on the health of others and we can just look back to this time as a blip when people who are more cautious and people who are inherently higher risk takers all turned against each other. In the past the risk taking of some people never really impacted others and the risk aversion of some never impinged on others. Each group got to live with their personal values without judging the others. During this time, it just got turned on its head. It won't be that far in the future where this orthogonal set of values between individuals will be a non issue again. No one will shame people for not wanting to open up or not racing and no one will shame people for wanting to make a living, or party or socialize (racing is form of socialization).


I bet you guys will be racing soon. We will be further behind in Canada. They are racing in Dubai70.3 next weekend with most who want to already vaccinated. They will be racing IMNZ end of March. I believe IM70.3 Taiwan is on next weekend.


Train hard, and get ready to race at some point. Locations will be case by case, but modern medicine and supply chain management will get things on track so no one is held back (those who feel health risk will worry less, those who feel socially and economically limited won't be held back).

A mountain of "science"? Please enlighten us.

Maybe he meant to say a “mountain of political science supporting that.”

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

cases are going down everywhere in the world but that is not enough for the full picture
we had and we currently have "waves" exactly because people think cases are going down, hospital are not full, lets reopen!
this mistake has been acknowledged since some time in Europe but I see that in US everything about pandemic is catching up with few months of delay. We had an early example with China a year ago. We ignored it in Europe and we were hit badly. Then we started with lockdowns. Meantime in US no reactions, taking it not seriously, ignoring the examples of China and Europe and then bang! it hit US and now we are all in the same situation.

now look: in Europe, despite we see cases going down everywhere, despite hospitals are not full anymore, all the races are postponed. do you see any ironman race in europe in calendar between now and May? only Graz remaining, but they are about to move it to fall too.

you think we are dumb and you in US are smart?
why do you see Texas 70.3 race safe to happen?

using hospital level has been showed to be a big mistake. the moment the hospital is full, it is too late. you need to act earlier!
will you have vaccination completed by that date? if not, better to stay conservative and wait few more months. i dont think it would be stupid to play conservative by now.
does it make sense?

Of course he could have also meant "bro-science."

I would just like to say (and if you read it in my comment it was clear) that I am not from USA. I did comment that if the reasons for having a lockdown are gone then a lockdown can be lifted or constraints loosened and I was pointing out with everything going down and vaccines coming in (and furthermore a lot of the population has alrady been infected), the conditions are all going in the right direction that racing should happen at some point. What that point is regionally dependent.

It seems that a year later, USA is slightly higher in cases per million and deaths per million than most of Western Europe (from all the data here: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/)

But if you look at the raw numbers, it is not that different. Countries like Canada kept deaths per million 3x lower than USA and cases 4x per million lower than USA and much of Europe by quite restrictive measures and a lot of borrowing so we are more dependent on vaccine to get rolling. In USA 8 out of 100 people already had this. In Canada it is 2 out of 100.

I was thinking more along the lines of the same kind of "science" that studies the behaviour of satan-worshipping-cannibalistic-democrat-pedophiles.(this description is too long, hopefully they can come up with a scientific term soon)

How....by a usnews article? Are you an infectious disease expert, MD, etc? Abbot has a lot better information to make a decision than a usnews article.

Thanks Dev for a reasonable and educated post.

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Kiwami Racing Team

As I'm sure you noticed, the link I posted is a US News and World Report article summarizing a recently released CDC study. The study shows mask mandates and restrictions on dining slow the spread of the coronavirus. If you'd like to refute the CDC study, have at it.

I do not think Abbott's judgment or command of facts is beyond reproach. This is the same guy who went on TV and blamed renewable energy for the failure of Texas's grid. Also, I don't really agree with your underlying assertion that our political leaders possess so much information that their decisions should not be questioned by the general public.

Abbott's decision is both to re-open all businesses and remove mask mandates. Re-opening is a difficult issue about which reasonable people can disagree. There is no easy answer to the question of what should open and how fast and there are costs to both opening and remaining closed. It would be very hard to be a mayor or governor right now and I'm sympathetic. That being said, the fact that TX has one of the highest positivity rates in the country and ranks near the bottom in its vaccination rate leads me to the conclusion that a 100% opening is a mistake. And, even if you do re-open, I can see no good reason to remove a mask mandate, particularly given that the CDC just released a study that shows they are effective.

Both decisions increase the probability that cases will start to climb, particularly as COVID variants are spreading across the country. I hope people will keep taking precautionary measures and the vaccination rate will pick up, but if cases go up, the odds that local governments will revoke IM permits increases.

Bottom line, let's just put our heads down, train and get fit. Racing will happen when it happens and we will be ready when it does wherever we want to race. What is in our control is staying healthy and fit. I personally had by biggest training year in 2020 with zero races to target and I am on the same pace right now. I am losing my best two years at the bottom of 55-59, but my numbers are back similar to when I was 42-44 (well at least for swim-bike....run is work in progress) which is what matters more than races.

Where do you live and are you familiar with Houston and Galveston area? Houston has a lot of jobs you have to go in person, so they have been working like almost to full capacity. Traffic is as bad as pre-pandemic and it's been that way for a while. If I go to gym, almost no one wears mask there. I would say 1-5% people wear on a good day. Galveston has lots of businesses and they've been hurting badly, so city definitely wants crowd back. Email already went out from Ironman, so people are optimistic.

I live in Houston.

All the shop, bars and restaurants I go to enforce the mask rule. Most people I see around town wear their masks, even driving or walking around.

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the world's still turning? >>>>>>> the world's still turning

there's always gonna be something that poses a risk to society, but you gotta stop living in fear at some point and live your life.

what will you do when everyone is vaccinated and a new covid emerges? go back to lock downs and hide?

mankind has become so narcissistic over the years to think we can control the climate, reverse aging, and somehow stop a virus with face panties.

One volcano, asteroid, or super bug and we're all toast.

Thanks to the doctors who developed the vaccines and recommend the face panties! Hopefully we narcissists can get back to racing in the streets in spandex this summer!

I live in Dallas and visit Houston very often like 2 or 3 times a month, and I feel like Houston is more relaxed than Dallas.
I stay in Spring/Kingwood/Humble/Atascocita area.

I'd be surprised if, at this waning stage of the pandemic, it gets cancelled. As of yesterday 20% of the 18+ population in Montgomery, Harris, Fort Bend, Brazoria, and Galveston counties have received at least one shot, and that number increases every day. The seven day trend of daily vaccinations is increasing as well. I think organizers will need some pretty bad news or a big reversal in case trends to call it off.

Statewide, we are now reaching lows no seen since last June.

I think the biggest risk for cancellation is the local governments wanting to send a big FU to the governor, and triathletes are collateral damage. I wouldn't be counting on anything in Austin right now.

So what’s the deal... this thing happening or not ;)?

Anyone ‘in-the-know’ 11 days out? I’m starting to pack for the race tomorrow since wife and are making our way south this weekend. Fingers crossed.

I am going either way

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2024: Bevoman, Galveston, Alcatraz, Marble Falls, Santa Cruz

Just a few more months of patience. Been saying that for 13 months now 😂

Anyone have any recommendations for places to get a quick ride in on the way down from Hobby to Galveston? Don’t think I’ll get down there early enough and want to avoid the masses plus beach traffic if possible. Just looking for something relatively safe and quiet for a quick shakeout/bike check. Don’t mind going a bit out of the way if that helps. Thanks!

The area near Hobby is not very nice at all. High crime, low income area. You won’t want to spend anytime around there.

Pearland is due south from Hobby and there’s some okay riding south of Pearland. It’s just going to be a pain in the ass finding a starting point as it’s generally rural.

The League City/Webster/Clear Lake/Kemah area is way too busy.

The better cycling in the Houston area is to the west, northwest, and north of Houston in Waller County, northwest Harris County, and Montgomery County. Complete opposite direction of Galveston.

Honestly, just ride the Seawall in Galveston (the 70.3 bike route). There will be plenty of people doing it and will be safe. I certainly wouldn’t make it a habit of riding the Seawall during peak beach season but during that week people are aware of the number of cyclists and you’ll be just fine.

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

If all you’re looking for is a short ride, you can get an easy loop around U of Houston Clear Lake and the country club from Sylvan Rodriguez Park.

https://goo.gl/maps/sbACoyPAdYaaXaBM9

Thank you both, appreciate it!

I agree the seawall is the best place to check your gear. That time almost everyone in Galveston know the Tri is in town.

Side note. The Woodlands had their Marathon but Houston did not. I am thinking Galveston decided with the current Texas State covid measures its a go. Good luck and strong racing to all that make the trip! The extended forecast looks warm/hot.

Anyone have a clue how waves are working?

Are there even waves? Self seeding?


Did they do AWA numbers this year? ..... only care since it puts the bike little closer to transition entry / exit.

(Still have no clue what my bib number is but not. really tired to look for it either)

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2024: Bevoman, Galveston, Alcatraz, Marble Falls, Santa Cruz

Self seeded, tt-style start. Yes, bibs are out and include AWA lower number

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the world's still turning? >>>>>>> the world's still turning

Water on bike course but are they doing hand offs or doing it on a table?

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2024: Bevoman, Galveston, Alcatraz, Marble Falls, Santa Cruz

Hey are you all fixed up from your disc challenges? If so, way to go!

Kinda; I am 100% nope. Did my 4th ride on a TT bike today (with Mr Cartwright); not been in aero more then 20 min still so not really sure how this will go in a week, but have so ok fitness so going to give it a go!

Lots core work, squats, and an altered work schedule the past 6 months to avoid surgery.

Thanks for checking on me :-)

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2024: Bevoman, Galveston, Alcatraz, Marble Falls, Santa Cruz

Best of luck. Galveston's not exactly a herniated disc friendly course as its the closest thing to riding bolted in aero on a trainer for 2:20 or so!!!! I think there is literally one incline on the far end of the course! So I guess get up from time to time and bleed off some speed to preserve yourself. I always found going from winter and trainer in Canada to Galveston much harder than going to St. Croix, or Oceanside or Wildflower with all the steep hills and position changes when I hardly had any outdoor miles. Hilly courses seem easier than flats and crosswinds!

I spent 4 years in rehab waiting to race and barely got one year of racing in and now zero racing due to Covid19 and travel limitations (I can't do my work and be on quarantine). So I have to wait till we have racing again, and losing my best two years as youngest in my age group. So glad some of you are racing. Have a blast.

Bike aid will be handed out by volunteers in PPE. Run is grab and go by the athlete

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the world's still turning? >>>>>>> the world's still turning

quite the departure from the previous couple of iterations of this race!

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80/20 Endurance Ambassador

Athlete briefing is up:

https://www.youtube.com/...nel=IRONMANTriathlon

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the world's still turning? >>>>>>> the world's still turning

Where can you find the age group bib list?

I see a high of 73. Not sure I call that hot

again, look at the temps from the last few years this race went down.

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80/20 Endurance Ambassador

Emails and social media info are starting to circulate that the race has been canceled again. Galveston Co. is going to issue an emergency order. A huge and unexpected uptick in cases and illnesses from the new variants is what I’m hearing. Ironman to release statement at 10am. Sorry guys. So close again.
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Just kidding. Have an awesome race everyone. Weather looks good but likely windy. I probably shouldn’t joke about this shit but it has been a long year.

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

I was thinking not Lubbock all over again!

Oh so wrong....Exactly my kind of humor:), but oh so wrong.

lol. I’m on the way to packet pickup and my heart sank there for a second.

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the world's still turning? >>>>>>> the world's still turning

Picked up our packets and dropped off the bikes well done Ironman. Much better than even a normal year where you have to wait in line for forever and then come back and drop off bikes.

Would have been nice to race this morning with no wind but that is not right for this race anyway.

Anyone know how I can watch the race from the UK or am I left desperately refreshing the athlete tracker like Ironman normally leave me doing?

I’ve raced it before. What’s a good racing temp for you? I think 70-75 is perfect. 65-70 is great too but lower than that is too cold.