Signed up and excited for this. Not sure I need another day of hard efforts, between zrl on Tuesdays, and wtrl ttt’s on Thursdays but I like the format, and that they are putting this together.

Signing up, waiting for my WTRL confirmation email!

---

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

I haven't signed up for the wtrl account yet, so can't see details of registration.

What if anything does it cost to sign up for these races?

Kyle

Any guesses on what happens on inclines in the run course?

because zwift doesn't control your treadmill, i'd be shocked if your duty was to do anything but run on level ground. i think setting your treadmill to decline would be a no-no (if your treadmill does that), but i just think level for the whole run regardless of the course profile is the way to do. i did a tdz run yesterday, stage 6 or thereabouts i think, i'm pretty sure everybody kept their treadmill level. well, i usually start at a 1% or 1.5% grade, and then when i get halfway through, and speed is important to me, i'll gradually move it to level. but i don't think you have a duty in the run to do anything but run.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

i don't know that there's any cost. i guess we'll see, but i don't think there's a cost. i registered yesterday to race. that's a whole separate thing you go through, signing up with zwiftpower. no big deal, just, you have to do it, so, the sooner the better. and, you have to race with a HRM, so best to get that sorted, and to ride and run with your HRM a few times before the racing starts so you make sure that you get any of the kinks out of that in advance.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

WTRL are highly unlikely to charge. If they were going to charge it'd be for the ZRL I'd imagine as that's there biggest series

So the usual issues apply here.
If you think Zwift doping on the bike is bad, how do we even vaguely look at running seriously?

Genuine question - I don't understand the doping issue with zwift running.

When it comes to cycling the issue is that heavier riders will likely have more muscle, more power and be able to put out consistently more Watts, so if they avatar is a lower weight then this power will be converted to more speed based on the zwift algorithm.

In the case of running, I assumed zwift took the actual speed reading of the treadmill, so 15km/h is 15km/h in real life and on the game, regardless if the runner weighs 50kg or 150kg?

May have deeply misunderstood.

some footpods are horribly calibrated and can give ridiculous readings, but i wouldn't say its super common. you could set the treadmill to 12mph with the Runn sensor and just go sit on the couch, and the speed would stay steady...but there would be no cadence reading. maybe they should make cadence mandatory? or that may preclude people using a smart treadmilll, do they transmit cadence?

That's funny. Your post made me rethink what I was thinking in that either a smart TM or Runn should be manditory. But yeah, I don't think either of them would transmit cadence. I literally just ordered the Runn this morning and I really don't want to get a footpod, nor do I really like the need to calibrate and move it from one pair of shoes to the other. It's annoying that my Garmin 235 measures cadence and HR but doesn't sync with Zwift for some reason. Either way...I guess in the end, it's a (most likely) free race series...if someone's going to cheat on that, that's on them.

The vast majority of treadmills don’t transmit anything.

So you have to use a foot pod or add on like Runn

You calibrate these in Zwift to a set known speed you will run at.

Super easy to cheat. You calibrate your foot pod at 9mph when I. Real life you set your treadmill at 6mph. Now you can trot along at 6mph and seeming run at 6:15 pace all day long.


Also, treadmills are often quite inaccurate with indicated speed often not reality.

You can even game things like the Runn sensor by altering calibration or changing tape markers in the belt, etc.

Running on Zwift is pretty much assumed to be cheating presently until some new standard comes along.

We would need some sort of digitial versus real life biological performance passport. You’re online result heart rate has to match within 5 beats of your known outside heart rate for a rolling or lifetime performance speed graph.

There. That’s my first shot at standardizing performance.

i'm not against additional standards. but i don't see evidence that what you're saying here is actually the case. taking me for example, i'm right now probably a B+/C- cyclist. but i'm a B runner. i can way outrun a B pace partner, but i can't yet run with the A pace partner. this is way different than cycling with the A or B pace partners. i'm not that much better as a runner than i am a cyclist. this is just the nature of runners and running on zwift right now.

i think we'd see something different if there was a lot of cheating in zwift run. is there cheating? will there be cheating? you bet. however, after a long history in running, cycling and triathlon i am - ahem - cautiously optimisitic that the culture of cheating in triathlon is not nearly as prolific as it is in cycling. so, because you can cheat on a treadmill doesn't mean you will cheat on a treadmill.

the very last thing i'm worried about in zwift duathlon is treadmill cheating. the one thing i wish they'd do is - fudgeit - call it a biathlon, in homage to the old days! when that sport was big. you can almost chart the demise of "du"athlon with the changing of the name from biathlon.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I think this is a great idea. Very much looking forward to a reason to do some fast speed work in the middle of a dark, slush filled Ohio winter. Who cares if someone cheats, per se. I'm racing against myself. Doubting they will provide "All American" status to anyone. And, why do people care so much anyways. You're still alone, by yourself, in your basement. Just enjoy the format and see how much faster you can get by the end of the six weeks.

Like the idea of the 10 minute gap to exit and then re-enter in Run mode. However, if the app can pair to both my Wahoo Kickr and Runn devices at the same time.....we could have a true T2 and start the run clock immediately. My Runn does track/transmit cadence. This would be a fair way to insure someone is actually running on the treadmill. Then. maybe don't allow for a calibration unit differing from 1.0 so everyone is based to their own treadmill's accuracy. Not great, but a bit more fair.

Again, I'm looking at this as a training device, don't talk smack and don't plan on starting. Not why I'm here, not why I try to stay in shape at 53 with a very busy job. So, this is cool as shit. I've been doing a variant of this already on my own that started last winter. Great motivator.

My $.02,

Brian

---

"We don't inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." --Chief Seattle

taking myself as an example, i have a separate appletv set up for my treadmill. i could, conceivably, be online ready to go for both events. however, i only have 1 zwift account, and this is the hickup. i have to close out of zwift, and then reopen the app and log into my run account. this actually means as far as i can tell that there is no real speed advantage to having separate computers for the bike trainer and treadmill. the best i can do is to join each event in advance.

having a runn installed serves a couple of functions. it's more accurate than the treadmill itself, and it tracks cadence. theoretically. a number of people have commented that runn's cadence sensor is dodgy. however, i think having the HR monitor going is a pretty good check, unless you want to set your powered treadmill to a 6min mile and then just hop back on your bike ;-)

but as you say, if somebody's going to go to elaborate lengths to cheat the zwift duathlon, he has a bigger problem than you and i living with the knowledge that there's a cheater in our midst.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Yeaaa. A new reason to like Wednesdays. Sounds like fun
I can see some fun training opportunities here.

---

http://www.fitspeek.com the Fraser Valley's fitness, wellness, and endurance sports podcast

Have you tried broadcasting your HR in your 235. I believe they added this feature fairly recently so you may need an update. I do that with my Fenix and my AppleTV picks up the signal in Zwift.

I have. According to the Zwift website, the 235 isn't compatible. The 245 is. Go figure.

I think my Wahoo Tickr actually transmits cadence, so that may work too.

Since Zwift at it's fundamental core is a video game, of course there are ways to cheat and a few unscrupulous people will cheat. But when I race on Zwift it's me against myself. And if I end up on the Podium it's a bonus! I've also seen when people do cheat and they end up atop the leaderboard it's pretty obvious. For me this series (like Zwift cycle racing) will be about having fun and getting stronger. The real races for me are real-life Triathlon events, and Zwift racing absolutely gets me strong and fit for those.

Yes, you can theoretically cheat with a Runn sensor and just set the treadmill and not run (it does transmit cadence, but can be a bit a flakey at times, I find especially on cold days in my garage, I get cadence drop outs from my Runn). That being said, I assume this is part of the reasoning for mandatory HR, so that if there's massive speed/HR disconnects, there will be DSQs...

As some who is a C rider with D fitness, and who's current run fitness is mediocre, I fully expect to get slaughtered racing these, but seems like good motivation to bury yourself with a weekly Brick... although technically these are Bike-Runs, not Duathlons, but I'm not complaining...

Any idea how the series scoring will work? I am definitely interested in racing but I know I won't be able to make every week work.

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https://www.strava.com/athletes/23685202

Hey Dan,
I know you have a Woodway, curious to get your take on the RUNN sensor. I've tried to get an NPE GEM to work for the past year, albeit massively on and off again, but never got it to work. Currently if I am running 6.0 mph, it reads as .6mph on Zwift, pretty cool to see my avatar barely move. I then moved to Stryd and it under-reports my treadmill by a few percent, not a big deal. I trust my pretty much new Woodway 4 front over Stryd, but the Stryd is very repeatable for power and that's why I have it. I now just use Stryd for power based run workouts and no longer use Zwift as it doesn't connect to multiple bluetooth sources, which by the way would be great for Stryd. Should be on their roadmap since we have HR BT sensors connecting to sometimes 3 different apps/programs in the case of Wahoo. I'd spring for the RUNN just for this Duathlon series if it is close to 100% accurate.

If you trust your Woodway speed accuracy you can calibrate a Runn device to match the treadmill. So, all good.

---

tinman

Have not yet signed up. But it seems like fun, and not crazy long

the RUNN is the most accurate. i have 3 outputs for the woodway: built in woodway; a device plugged into the CSAFE port of the woodway, and the RUNN. the RUNN is the most accurate, per my measuring wheel, as are used by surveyors or for road run course accuracy.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

First one coming up tomorrow - hundreds of folks signed up already for the several start times - looks like generally a few more bike than run for each pair of events, so some are probably just doing the rides but apparently plenty doing both.

I've been checking Zwift Events w/ filtering and have yet to see the bike and run races for Feb. 17. I'm also registered on the WTRL webpage and only see a read-only schedule - no apparent sign-up links.

Am I missing something?

---

tinman

The specific events just appeared this afternoon on zwift.com/events and in the companion app, as well as on zwifthacks. The times match what is in the readonly schedule on wtrl.com. First one is 3am (bike; 3:45 run) pacific time, then 7am etc.


This is a screen grab from zwift.com/events just now (filtering wise, apparently both are tagged as Cycling):

we have an article on this, up yesterday, and we put the links in there for the ride and run events for all 6 time slots. hit the INDOOR tab above and you'll see the article. you can enter just from those links provide.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I also got an email from WTRL with links to the 6 start time options.

---

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

Perfect - thank you sir!

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tinman

I've gotten 3 emails with the sign-up links for the slots. I'll take my arse kicking after work and see just how out of shape I am...

Anyone else do the bike but then miss the run because of tech issues? I guess I should've had things set up before everything started, but I tried to pair my TM with my Mac and that didn't work and by the time I grabbed my iPad it was about 45 seconds after the run started. It wouldn't let me join late, which I think is a bit lame considering it's based on time. Instead of 15 minutes, I don't see why I wouldn't just get to run for the remaining 14 or so. Whatever...live and learn.

i'll be doing mine in about 2.5hr from now. i practiced yesterday, which meant logging out after the bike and logging in for the run, and it didn't take me long. maybe 3 minutes and i was up and ready. however, i have a problem with my HRM just not delivering a signal to zwift, until it "kicks in." so i have a concern about that happening. otherwise, i'm okay. maybe famous last words.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

That really sucks that you couldn't join late and just eat that 45 seconds, but this all of course will be a huge beta test for future races. I think dan told me yesterday that there were nearly 1500 already signed up, so pretty good being that it was not well publicized. I think this thing could be huge, especially if they do the gender and AG pull outs in the results.

Dan is set to go off at 11am here, will be going over to see how things are going. He unfortunately has a colonoscopy tomorrow, so he is going to have to race on last nights fumes. I told him I have been doing this for over 3 years now(intermittent fasting) with no issues, so just go for it.

I have been training for a swim/run(future of course), but this little fun race might just get me back to riding a bike again. IT really looks fun, and Dan has the pain cave from hell set up now, 3 fully connected bikes, two treadmills, with a back up one sitting outside. I really have no excuses anymore, and have been enjoying a couple zwift runs lately..

Good to know, I am thinking about using different devices to speed things up, my appleTV works great for the run, but doesn't tend to like to connect my HRM while cycling. So I will likely bike on my laptop and then run with the appleTV...

I almost missed the run but due to not paying attention to the time. Got myself logged back in with minute to go.

I did the 4 AM MT event. Next week I'm going to shoot for later in the day.

---

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

First race was fun.

Kind of a bummer you can't tell places very well since it's a fixed time not fixed distance. I get that they have to do that for the transition time to be the same for everyone though. Just wish Zwiftpower could tell run speed in the initial results.

As always, lots of watts and fast runners on Zwift.

Agree that mandating a cadence AND HR file would be a good verification source.

I use a RUNN sensor for accuracy as well as a Zwift foot pod for cadence.

My TM doesn't go faster than 10.8 MPH so I may have to find a gym or friend with a faster one for future races!

---

Mark Saroni
____________________________________________________________
COACHING | TRAINING PLANS
MS Kinesiology | USAT LII | USAC L3

well, that was fun! and hard! i wouldn't have wanted it to be any longer. one circle i can't square is the difference between what i saw in-game versus what my activity feed says in the companion app. in-game it said i was X place out of 420 on the bike, and 398 in the run, but in my activity feed it says there were and 488 people in our bike our wave and 428 in the run. anyway...

i'm a much better zwift runner than i am a zwift biker. i was 325th or so in the bike and 155th or so in the run. which means i semi-suck at everything. but it was still great! my only connectivity/equipment issue is the HRM. i've got a tickr, and that darned thing needs to be kicked around a bit before it starts actually sending a signal. it'll pair, but it takes 6 or 7 or so minutes until it starts to reliably send a metric to zwift. any hints on that would be helpful.

LATE ADD: and i don't see results. but i suspect results may not be up until all heats are completed. unless i'm just missing where the results are hiding.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Agree on the results. I think we have to wait until WTRL compiles them and sorts the points. For future, it would be best if Zwift could add a component that ranks everyone by their distance right away since there is no finish line to rank us by time.

I noticed there were a lot less people signed up for the run and logged in a the start as well but same. Much better Zwift runner than Zwift cyclist.

---

Mark Saroni
____________________________________________________________
COACHING | TRAINING PLANS
MS Kinesiology | USAT LII | USAC L3

our man herbert was in the heat, and was i think maybe around 100th or a little over in the bike and 15th or 16th in the run.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

No hints, just confirming that my TICKR takes a while to get sorted when riding too, though once it settles it seems to stay solid (zwift on ATV). Doesn't seem to be simply a matter of getting it wet, though once heavily sweating is when it seems OK. Firmware is up to date, and oddly it seemed much more reliable a few months ago, it seems to be deteriorating. And, it's far worse on the treadmill, seems to get really thrown by the motion, even though it's measuring electrically...? , to where I'm going to just use my garmin watch bluetooth broadcasting to zwift instead (shoved up to fleshier part of forearm where the optical pickup seems to work better than at wrist)
.

here's a weird treadmill thing. i'm still sorting this out, but, here's the situation. this is on the woodway. i have 2 BLE signals my woodway sends: the internal factory signal, and a GEM Retro from north pole engineering (same company that makes the RUNN). the GEM Retro was developed by wahoo, but sold to NPE because, i guess, it was just sort of this thing that didn't really fit into wahoo's long term plans. anyway, the GEM Retro plugs into the treadmill's CSAFE port, and you might wonder what the point of it is, since it's not doing anything different than the factory BLE emitter. the hope/notion/wish/idea is that, maybe, someday, that treadmill will be rigged not just to send, but to accept, a BLE signal, with an external game or program controlling the treadmill. anyway...

when i pair with the woodway, it seems as if the woodway hijacks the tickr signal, force-pairing with it, and i don't know that the tickr likes 2 BLE signals at the same time. it's buggy when i try to pair zwift with the tickr if i'm also paired with the woodway. however, if i pair to the GEM Retro, then i can pair with the tickr fine.

i might have to repent of what i just wrote, upon further testing, but that's kind of where i think i am right now. yes, technically, the woodway uptakes the HR signal and makes it part of the payload of data it sends to zwift. but it's very buggy when it does that. the woodway is not a reliable HR data delivery vehicle. i'm much better pairing with the GEM Retro and then separately pairing zwift with the tickr.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I'm not sure what the issue was, but when I logged in to do the run, I wasn't given an option to join an event. So didn't do the run. I suspect it might be because I logged in at 3:45 on the dot (my ride ended at 3:37 so I figured the run would start at 3:47). Maybe I had to do it before the 45min mark. Oh well, I'll just run later today at some point.

It was fun to do the ride, I think my best 20min and 35min power ever. I was contemplating getting out of aero bars to push more watts, especially at the end, but decided to stay aero. Might try upright next time. I very rarely go without ERG mode in Zwift, so this is definitely very useful training!

I think it did start actually at 3:47, not sure why you didn't get a join prompt but yeah it could be that it wasn't able to account for the difference between the A and B starts and froze you out.

While riding I was wondering if I'd end up doing any better with the smoothing assist of ERG mode (not sure if you can induce it from, say, the wahoo app even when in an event?) I have trainer difficulty pretty low so the slight gradient changes weren't throwing me that much but I still felt pretty choppy, haven't had aerobars installed in a while so I was out of the saddle a lot to stay on top of the gear.

I did the 5pm CST bike/5:45 CST run option today. After the bike I didn't mess around much - close Zwift app, put run shoes on, log back in, choose run, get treadmill/sensors all connected, get on treadmill in the pen. I think I had 3 mins to spare. All said and done, I don't think I had the full 10 mins transition and not much of a margin for error if sensor connections are giving you grief.

But, it worked, was hard/fun, and I look forward to next week.

Once results are posted, time to marvel at the bike power and run speed in the age groups.

Cheers,

---

tinman

I did the 1600 CET event yesterday. Had a great bike leg, which I won by 0.5km, 3rd place was over 1km behind, I covered 27.5km. I noticed another ST member pretty high up on the bike as well, not sure who it was though.

I use a Technogym MyRun, that transmits speed and cadence directly to Zwift, so no messing with footpods. All worked flawlessly. I am a good runner, but not in the same league as some of the guys out there. My pace was 3:40/km (5:53/mi) and covered 4.1km (2.54mi). I think I was a bit conservative on the run, and could have gone 10s/km faster

Really keen to see the results. Hoping for a top 50 overall and maybe top 10 AG (45-49)

Mattsurf: Great bike!!! That's awesome.

Dan: seems stupid to mention, but I always lick the sensor portion of the band on my Polar and Tickr HR monitors prior to wearing them, and they pick up immediately and accurately.

Loved the race yesterday. Was so pumped all day at work. Haven't raced since 2015 d/t a back issue. Had a lumbar fusion last June and am back at it and feeling great.

Very happy with my splits. Only issue was the RUNN sensor had me "standing on the side" 4 times during the 15 minute window. Was fine at 9.0, but once I went to 9.5 and 10.0 mph, it had trouble. Think the sensor needed to me moved over the belt a little better. Fixed it after the race and seems to be okay. But, probably "stood around" for around 2 minutes of the race. (True pace was 6:20ish, and I think it said 7:18??) Whatever. Something to baseline for next week.

E-racing is awesome. Never really connected with the bike races. Pretty much just did a few TTs only. The sprint at 500w thing right at the start just seemed stupid and wasn't motivated to train for it. However, for actual bike racers, I bet they get the same kind of motivation to train as I did yesterday.

Way cool. Hope it just keeps going year round.

Brian

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"We don't inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." --Chief Seattle

i was licking that thing like crazy. there are 2 connectivity hurdles. the first is no problem. when you snap the chest strap onto the transmitter, there's a blue LED that blinks, and that means it's sending a BLE signal. zwift picks that up okay. there's a second LED, it's red, and that means the unit is picking up a HR signal. that's the sticky wicket. i guess i wonder what helps the device pick up a signal from my heart quicker. after it's warmed up, or i'm warmed up, okay. but that's 5 to 10 minutes. if you get to the start of a race late, and you don't have a proper warmup, you may have your race not count. if there is a specific something. some kind of gel. or some trick. i'd like to know.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I've decided that the strap that comes with the Tickr is the problem. I use the Tickr snapped into my old Garmin chest strap and it works perfectly. No lag or anything.

24 hours later - are there any race 1 results posted anywhere? None appear on the WTRL website.

---

tinman

i do not see any. i made an inquiry. it's my guess that it'll take one race to work the kinks out. i'll report back what i hear.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

this works really well

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sonogel-GELE100-Electrode-Gel/dp/B00BZ4SMOQ/ref=sr_1_4_sspa?dchild=1&keywords=tens+gel&qid=1613718389&sr=8-4-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExOVIyRlA0RUhYRUtBJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwMTA0OTM5NFlIUTU5TTQ3OTZWJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTAwOTA1ODMzSVNZWTg4TkZCOTZEJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==

To be fair to WTRL, they did say that they aimed to publiush 24 hours after the last race. The last race finished at 0800 on Thursday, so still an hour to go. I think that it may take a bit longer though as they iron out any issues

According to the e-mail that I just received they are indeed working hard on ironing out issues as the new target date to post the results is "before Race 2".

Just saw the email too. It appears that that the results compilation is tougher than expected. It would be much better if ZP would also add the distance, then competitors could see roughly where they stand very easily

WTRL in general have had a nightmare across all their leagues, ZRL, TTT and this in results, not through fault of their own but by getting incomplete or with 'issues and holes' in their own words. They then sort through them all verifying them. In general the first weeks results of a series are always delayed while its sorted out, but by week 3 or so its much smoother even with the rubbish data zwift seems to give them to work with.

I thoroughly enjoyed race 1! Also had a moment of excitement as I passed our very own Slowman on the run so obviously gave him a (St)Ride On!

I also saw a handful of slowtwitch kits on the bike leg.

As others have noted it would be great if we could sort on distance in zwift power while we wait for the official WTRL results to be posted.

---

Practise doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent. Only perfect practice makes perfect!

I hope they do a Zwift Duathlon Team League...

Interested to see the results, got slaughtered on the bike, but ran in the front half of my heat., we had about 220 on the bike, and just under 200 on the run (I raced in slot D). That said, it was a lot of fun, it was the most "real" feeling virtual race that I have done since fall 2019, because it really felt like the back 2/3 of a sprint duathlon... Definitely have some work to do fitness wise, but it felt good to get that multisport race feeling again.

Dang. How does one obtain a "Slowtwitch" kit? Would be really cool. I saw a really cool jersey that said "Aero AF". Loved that as well.

Brian

---

"We don't inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." --Chief Seattle

Well, I don't know if anyone else has a LifeFitness T5 treadmill and had the same issue as me, but I figured out the problem today. Apparently you can only connect to one device or even one app within a device at a time. Since the LF app was connecting to my treadmill automatically, Zwift couldn't even see it. Once I quit the LF app, it showed up in Zwift.

Of course I'm sure this will not be the case Wednesday morning at 6:45am when I try to run. It can go no other way, right?

On a Mac/Windows computer hit “P” while you’re in game then type in SLOWTWITCH.

Yes, that, or how about this - we all go in and crop our Strava activities at exactly the 35min/15min mark and create/join two Strava groups (one bike, one run - because a triathlon group sorts leaderboards by time not distance) and mark everything else from last week except the duathlon events as private, leaving only the bike and run from the duathlon showing on the club pages, then the two club Weekly leaderboards taken together will contain the results, which can be pasted into a google sheet, where the point multiplication can be applied and shared out. Crowdsourced, auditable results could have been done by Wednesday night :-) Oh, and everyone has to change their Strava username to be prefaced with their age group to facilitate sorting and filtering the google sheet. Simple. And anyone who doesn't want to do all that work is left out, resulting in higher placings for the truly...umm...dedicated, as it should be.

Kidding...sort of...I mean, it _would_ work. I will if you will.

People snipping their .gpx files, what could possibly go wrong... I don't really care too much about the results, it's more about getting that feeling of really smashing yourself like you would in a real race. Hoping to see some week on week improvement, but really it is more about getting the body used to racing again...

Agreed...see you in the matrix on Wednesday!

This is frankly a joke at this point. 5 days after a race and no results. Clearly little to no thought was put into this on the front end. WTRL is quick to blame Zwift for crap data, but I've been quite unimpressed with them even prior to the Du series.

A monkey with an excel license could've figured this out by now. At this point, I'm wondering if Zwift even recorded everyone's distance for the Bike & Run. Doing this as time based is great...unless they fail to actually store completed distance, which would break the entire points based ranking system

Somehow I can't imagine anyone setting up a race like this without first running some form of a test race which includes processing the data to compile the results. WTRL should have been prepared to process the 'crap' data from Zwift, which clearly they were not.

Tend to agree, something has gone horribly wrong.

Right? Any sort of communication would be appreciated. Even if it’s simply a “We messed up. Congrats on the solid workout. Here’s how we are fixing it...” type message

I’m skeptical that this is fixable at this point

Zwift does record distance, it's in the .fit file that zwift creates, if you go into analysis on Zwift Power, you can see your own file.

Now I'm speculating, however, the specific time racing is not recorded in the fit file, therefore the organisers may need to go through each fit file and Crop the the file from the exact start time to the exact finish time. If each file needs to be manually loaded into a database, this would be a significant workload, assuming 1 minute per file, 1600 competitors, 2 files each, 3200 files, 3200 minutes, 53hour 20minutes, around 4 days work for 2 people.

Interesting. It is true, for example, that I warmed up on the bike before yesterday's Du and cooled down for a few minutes after the run. Since I auto upload to Strava from Z, I had a look there. Bike = 35:22. Run = 20:07. Of course my Garmin recording was nearly exact at a 35 min bike and 15 min run with a 10 min transition (I used a custom 'indoor cyclorun activity profile on my Garmin and marked the transitions manually). So what's going on here? I warmed up on the bike for about 10 min, but it seems as if Z recorded from the start of the bike and ended at the end, more-or-less - confirmed by the speed v time reported on Strava. The run recording, however, seems to start at the start, but include the cool down, also confirmed by the Strava speed v time. So, much depends on exactly what Z is doing to trigger the start and end. If they have the start of each leg in the .fit identified (and it seems as if they do from this n = 1), then they could robotically clip the .fit files at the appropriate elapsed times, even if the end time of the recording continues beyond the end time of the event. Now, if there is also ambiguity about the start time in the .fit for each event...*shakes head*...

EDIT: missing period

that second race hurt way more than the first one... never felt like I could get a rhythm on the bike. My numbers were almost identical to last week (Avg Power and NP were both 1 watt lower, but avg. HR was 6bpm higher according to Zwift Power), although what that misses was the 20second power-drop out I had like 15sec in, where I was smashing mega watts but not moving, and was right at the arse end of the field. Made for some good hunting the rest of the way, but that likely accounted for the higher HR, trying to claw my way up the field. Started the run faster and stronger than last week, but had to ease up in a middle when the legs started to get a bit wobbly, before finding my legs again and dropping the hammer for the last 6min. Regardless of results/no results, it still feels good to get out there and smash a multisport race, even if all of the rust makes it feel horra-awful... If we actually get to race this year, this is great training for Sprint Du Worlds...

For the bike event, it starts with the gun, and presumably you did End Ride promptly to go get ready for the run. For a run event, same thing, you can be warming up on the treadmill but that won't go to Strava, but when you are cooling down after the event, if you stay in the same world you're still in the same "activity" in Zwift so that extra time/distance goes to Strava, but Zwift should still be sending only the "event" (which ends with confetti and a time) to Zwiftpower, or rather that's what should get pulled by Zwiftpower. So Strava happening to have your continuation of running (or in my case standing there for a minute, then walking) shouldn't inherently be a problem for the race results.

I agree that what you describe is what *should* be happening, but there was speculation that, perhaps, the start/end times of the bike and/or run were not crisply opened and closed causing confusion and delay in reporting results. But even if that were the case in Du event 1, you might think that changes could be made to ensure the fidelity of the .fit file wrt the activity in time for Du week 2 (yesterday). I can imagine that they don't want to release results for week 2 before results from week 1...

Totally agree, great motivation to put in a race pace effort. At this point I am totally not fussed about zero race results, although tbh that does have something to do with my treadmill tripping the surge protector with 5 minutes to go in the run. Took me 2 minutes to figure out it wasn't the circuit and to get back up and running, losing well over 40 spots in the meanwhile while my avatar just stood there like a dummy.

I hadn't realized it before but I had the treadmill, power hungry laptop, 2 fans, a light and an external monitor all plugged in and going at the same time. Not sure why that couldn't have happened another time...

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Kiwami NA Racing Team

Just an FYI for those awaiting results - this was on WTRL FB:


UPDATE ON RESULTS: At the current time we are STILL not in a position to provide results for Race 1 nor Race 2 results for the Zwift Duathlon League. Despite many weeks of very successful event testing jointly with Zwift, discussions, web and software development - the current state of Zwift game/race data available is (in all honesty) very poor to non-existent making results almost impossible at this time. There were hopes that this would have been resolved last week with a new data source for us to use (since ZwiftPower is fundamentally broken) but the latest update received by WTRL (yesterday) from Zwift engineers is that another issue has taken priority. This is incredibly disappointing news to us here at WTRL and to the Zwift team that have been working very hard collaboratively to bring this brand new event format to Zwifters. We are still hopeful that we may be able to rescue the situation but this remains very firmly in the hands of Zwift's engineering team to fix. We will bring you a further update by Friday of this week. Yours very sincerely, A very disappointed WTRL and Zwift crew.

Also this from WTRL:

...... when we tested this weeks ago, wrote the software etc, everything was perfect. In November last year Zwift took ZwiftPower in house clearly without the resources required to maintain it. In moving it in house things began to fail and break and have not been fixed. Now almost 5 months down the line, pretty much everything to do with ZwiftPower is broken or faulty. We all know the saying garbage in garbage out. Zwift were in the process of providing us with a more reliable data feed but have since announced this is delayed now too.

I will categorically state here this is not how WTRL works and at this point in time, Zwift is making us look very incompetent.

I am really struggling to produce timely and accurate ZRL results, the TTT is equally as complicated and now we have the Duathlon which for the first time in our 2 year history has taken longer than 3 days to get results for. Zwift can fix this but we are yet to get a fix after a month of ‘dedicated focus’ and nearly 5 months of WTRL complaining to best part of 50 Zwift employees (from CEO to tea maker - 12-15% of everyone at Zwift) who in turn have been working internally to get things moving.

WTRL is equally as disappointed and frustrated with the situation as you the Duathletes

The link below is your best bet to start adding to the concerns right now. Zwift are reading these forum posts.

https://forums.zwift.com/...ata-update/533570/76

Thanks for posting the update from WTRL. They must be incredibly frustrated to openly throw Zwift directly under the bus. As a "typical" Slowtwitch adult tri/du-athlete, was quite happy to be e-racing and very much still am. HOWEVER, Zwift may lose my e platform funds if they continue to mess up delivery. 8 days out and not a single result posted. Now getting frustrated as per some other previous posters.

--Brian

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"We don't inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." --Chief Seattle

WTRL still trying to save face by throwing Zwift under the bus even more, yet still they are not taking any actions - not even informing participants by e-mail. I would say they have two options:
1. Post the results with the data they have, acknowledge that there are technical issues but something is better than nothing
2. If the results data is in such a bad shape that this is not possible, postpone the coming races until this is fixed.

While they are smashing Zwift in their own forums, WTRL are still showing a worrying amount of inaction.

the wtrl results page now has categories listed, but not showing results, and zwiftpower.com appears to be sorted into those age categories listed on the wtrl.com page. these are not the results, but its something. you can sort your age group by w/kg for an idea of results..

WTRL website now has a "Results Submission" page too. It looks like you can manually submit your race 1/race 2 bike/run distances. Oh boy....

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tinman

I think you are being slightly unfair here; they're keeping the community updated through the Duathlon series facebook group, as is the norm for WTRL and most other zwift event organizers, and have just implemented a makeshift fix of a results input page to get an extremely provisional set of results out. It's no secret that they're not making excuses and Zwift promised them a working system in time for the league, yet failed to pull through. They've explained in the facebook group the fact that pulling the series was considered by people instead asked for it to continue as good training and fun. WTRL are two guys who manage three large events weekly, with the ZRL and TTT also marred by little useful data provided by zwift. Essentially the issue boils down to without a functioning Zwiftpower, WTRL have to do things manually, something which is nigh on impossible yet they somehow manage for the slightly simpler ZRL and TTT's, although they don't have the data to police results to the same extent at the moment due to the lack of data they're receiving. It's far enough to be annoyed at the lack of results, particularly when they were promised in a timeframe that has expired. However, WTRL are doing the best they can in the circumstances, and if you want to help move things along there's a thread in zwiftforums on live data not uploading correctly that is the place to hound zwift to sort their s*** out and get zwiftpower back to the quality it was when run out of a garage, and help event organizers.

So my facetious idea of us all time-cropping our Strava activities on the honor system and adding to a shared google sheet is basically happening? Cool... Cool. I assume I can expect royalties for my creative development effort shortly. I'll be happy with .00001% of the recent (Zwift) funding round.

Heck, it's way less governed than your cropped FIT file idea. The WTRL results submission page simply has you key in your bike/run distances. Not FIT files/Strava results required. So, we'll be seeing lots of ITU-type speeds across all age groups I suppose.

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tinman

I think I got ~6950 points in round 1 and may have eked out 7000 in round two...which only tells me (via strava stalking) that Slowman probably spanked me by about 500 pts, running by me like I was standing still. But, it's all about the bike, right? Right?? I reckon Herbert is flirting with 10,000 points - beast.

I saw this, too. Pretty inconceivable that they are in the situation they appear to be in. Since 'normal' (i.e. bike-only) races seem to be generating results, the problem must be in the bike + run complication. So, I wonder how fast you can self report your average speed before getting flagged? 40 kph? 50? 60? 70? 80? Really, I don't care about my placement. I'm more interested in the Zwift meltdown and WRTL v Z conflict. Maybe I'll get some popcorn going...

I’d disagree with the comment about bike only results being ok. It’s pretty clear if you read through the Zwift Forums about race data that there are issues across the board with ZP data (ie ZRL, WTRL TTT, even non race data like TdZ). The bike/run combo is an additional wrinkle but the read on the lead up to the series (ie. Testing) seems like they had a way to handle bike/run data

Ah, I don't do Zwift bike-only races, so was unaware of problems there, seeing nothing on 'general' channels. Well, this seems to be a pretty strong indictment against Z leadership. I suppose that you can build the brand on folks riding around in virtual worlds, but the marquee functionality that will drive Z forward in the long run is totally broken and the overlords don't seem willing to devote the resources to fix? C'mon over to the Sufferfest where the community is great, the leadership is involved and the suffering is strong. Watch out for the laser goats, though...