Except that he could be behind me yet still beating me. In which case I would never see him to know that I was being passed.

I agree with this. Show some results of prior swim times, and get seeded in a corral with others of your ability.

So in a large age group where you have 300 to 400 sprinkled like pepper within 2700 people, then coming out of the water after an hour plus, You know where your compitition is? Really? If you mean to qualify then you have to know where 7-10 people are after the swim in all that. You really think you know where they are on the course most of the time?

300-400 is reasonable for a wave start.

If they do waves, and I think they should, they should start each AG together. It's not hard, other races do it just fine. This preserves the integrity of competing head to head in your Ag for KQ spots.

Start everyone M&F 60-65 2 min after the pro's, start everyone 66+ 2min after that then 2min 50-59 M 2min 50-59F, then 10-15 min before starting the young guns.

You get 15 or 16 hours from the last wave start to complete.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Kenney, it's all totally foolish. The best way? Start everybody at once and fastest wins. But (as it would seem) I guess WTC doesn't like that way, so hence the outlandish suggestions. No need to understand them. All we really need to do is design the system we want, not put band aids on the one we don't want.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

I think we over-estimate any advantage of knowing where your AG competition is in an Ironman.

this is also a good way. I'd put more time between waves to prevent screw ups, at least in North America. This is not a Swiss watch. Allow for swim warm-ups and you're set. 15 hours is plenty to finish an IM. Or, start pros at 6am. Also, add a just happy to be here participant wave at the end.

6:00 male pro
6:05 lady pro
6:10 really old folks, physically challenged
6:15 big chunk of not quite so old, but still
6:30 young guns in 5min intervals of 4-500 per wave
7:00 done

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

Well the problem all goes down to people not being properly prepared for an ow swim. Examples like last year at St. George are a prime example. If they have have bad weather, chop and in water over their head it becomes a mess

and now we're talking culture and $$, which is really the root of the issue. Most people absolutely have no business in a triathlon, let alone an IM, but that's not going to change.

Brett Sutton had a good tweet about how triathlon should be for the healthy and fit but instead it's been for the hyper-intense, Type A obsessive look at me types. He might be right, but I know which one of those groups I'd generalize to have more money to spend on the sport and I bet WTC does too.

bottom line, if you want good competition, start cycling. Races every weekend, strategy and tactics at all levels, local, cheap, cash prizes for almost all the podium guys, and above all the Category system.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

You don't even have to go to the Half or IM distance.
A few years ago at a race in tempe they said no wet suits. people were crying b/c they weren't sure they could do the sprint with out a wet suit. Before the first buoy 200m into the 600m swim people were breast stroking, back stroking hanging on canoes.

I've seen this same problem at other races in the 400-800m range. it's not IM specific.

but when you add waves, wind, chop a race that is right at head level easily becomes over their heads.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

you know, you might be on to something. IM is no wetsuit, no breast stroking, no canoe. Instead of lifeguards, you have guys that hit you with oars if you slow down or stop. IOT get on the bike, where the race "really" starts, you have to do the swim course, kind of like gates at a ski area which put the super-huge hits behind some palmares proving prerequisite hits.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

Lets just put the swim last with no boaters to help ;-) but no $ that way

Isn't this actually a BIGGER problem at the shorter distances.

You get a lot more first timers, and a lot more middle aged, middle managers, with a big middle.... oh wait that is me.... at sprints than at an IM.

You are so right.......forgot last year at our local 800yrd sprint tri, the water was to warm for wetsuits. When announced no suits poeple had such a fit and everyone kept complaining until suits were allowed. ..........................Last year I said in a thread that to be safe in an over your head water where weather conditions could be bad that someone should be at least able to swim a stand alone 100yrd 2:00 minute in perfect conditions (pool) and was crucified.

I don't know about this race, but if you have to choose between time trial starts and deep water mass starts I'm going to argue deep water is safer.

You have mandatory warmup vs having everyone running into the water in large groups 15 seconds apart? Yea that is going to keep the heart rate from spiking.

I like your idea of reversed wave start but It would be very prudent to do a timing analysis to see where the wave conflicts/passing occurs. I'm not entirely sure where you would want to have the majority of the passing happen... lap two of the swim, T1, first 20k of the bike?

I prefer your semi-elitist idea with the following modification:
Pro Start (separate M&F)
KQ start (maybe this costs extra to prevent people from self seeding up (if you qualify the cost goes to Kona entry, else the funds go to charity or pro purse or something) and requires proof of prior near-qualifiable time)
Competitor start (this group wants to race but not vie for a KQ slot, no rolldowns)
Participator start (this group just wants to complete the event with time be damned)

If you buy a finishers photo...for 5 bucks the company will fix your finish time. $5/($650 entry fee + $30 race photo) = approximately zero. The 5 dollars was worth it to me.

It's more from a lifeguarding standpoint.....someone who needs help can *potentially receive it faster.

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I'm faster in Kilometers!
Wattie Ink Triathlon Team
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Fine, strap us all with special HRM's and panic buttons so that if we have a heart "event" or hit the button our swim cap starts blinking red.

I mean, isn't it mostly about visibility then?

Many people use spotters on the course to know where they are. I haven't ever had this luxury, but if you read many of the race reports people actually know approximately where they are relative to the other competitors in their AG. Additionally whether you are competing for first or fiftieth it still is nice to know.

Then congrats to you that you are fast enough to be a qualifier for it to matter with so many out there.
With all the other IM's you have done did it matter or keep you from qualifing?

Or, you could just use wave starts as lots of other races do and have been proven to work just fine and not resort to ridiculous slippery slope arguments.

btw, if you could invent a practical blinky red swim cap to alert lifeguards to a problem....you'd probably make a fortune.

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I'm faster in Kilometers!
Wattie Ink Triathlon Team
Powered by Accelerate 3

This thread is wacky on a number of levels.

1. To the OP point. I would be disappointed if they moved to a TT start. TT starts are wacky.
2. People are coming up with ideas that are completely out of this world and unneeded. HIM start in waves and it does fine. Everyone coming up with corals and using marathons as an analogy is wacky. Hello, Ironman already has a process for swim waves!
3. I am pretty certain ST brought this problem on ourselves, inadvertently as it may have been. The complaints about swim starts and deaths is exactly the reason why they are doing this, and now we think it is crazy? Wacky

While I think mas swim starts are great and add to the allure of an IM event, it certainly wouldn't be the end of the world if they used Waves to get people started. Heck, it could actually help. Why do you think they let the pros off before the AG'ers?

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"i�m the one guy who says don�t force the stupid people to be quiet � i want to know who the morons are." -- mark cuban

I actually like this because it spreads out the start and more importantly reduces congestion and ultimately DRAFTING!! Think all IM races especially those that are not hilly should have wave starts!! Some of the drafting seen in IM Florida is almost a JOKE!

:) Very true! Z