Yeah F**K that.

Nope. Nope. Nope. Nooooope.


Yeah, I know they are there. I know I've had them around me when I've been free diving, but there's just common sense. Open Water swimming when there's one that big right in front of you is just psycho

quote LuchaLibre]


OH F*CK THAT!

I did a swim in my hometown in a deep dead end channel where I know there are HUGE alligators and the water is like coffee...I think I PRed that swim. They paddle boarded people around making sure there were no gators, but lets be real haha[/quote]
Amen, amen!!

I'm fully aware of all of that and was when I wrote the quoted post. I would consider the original competitors to have been the RDs of their event. Yes, they based the distances on existing events in each discipline that happened to be available for reference at that locale. I'd consider that arbitrary.

They have a history but it's not that long. Given that course distances aren't certified and records are therefore dubious, I think there's lots of scope for tweaking. I don't think that's a bad thing.

Few things
-I did my first IM at AZ in 2008, I think I've been hearing that IM is watered down since then when they moved from April to Nov to get better weather and less wind. And I'm sure it was bemoaned back then. There's this weird "back in my day" thing that people like to get all hopped up about, like things were so much harder then (and thus, they are better or harder triathletes, to which I say whatevs)

-Interestingly the OP has dropped his rant in a few different places, including the FB IM Canada page. He has not piped back in to defend it or address any issues raised in any forum I've seen. Seems a bit of a troll to me

-Speaking of Canada, they released the new bike course this year which has the most elevation of any in the Americas, by far. So much for watering down courses.

-With the caveat that I totally respect any IM finisher no matter the time, and am not belittling those that finish at any time, but reading a 14 hour finisher saying it diminishes his head to head experience, and that he'll never do another IM unless it's mass start, is all a little silly, no? I mean he's fighting "head to head" for 127th place vs. 128th place. That means that much to him?

The marathon distance wasn't settled until the 1908 Olympics ... the very first time that 26.2 miles was contested. It was supposed to be an even 26 miles but was extended 385 yards to finish in front of the Royal Box. How arbitrary is that? But it's irrelevant, because just 13 years later it was settled as the accepted, official distance. Due to differences in terrain, transition lengths, and so on, IMs are unlikely to ever be certified (e.g., IM Texas bike at 110 miles), but that doesn't change the fact that target distances are settled, and 40 years later they aren't moving. And you don't have world records under those constraints, you have worlds "bests". You may beg to differ but the rest of the triathlon world understands that an IM is 2.4 - 112 - 26.2. You can set up your own 2 mile - 100 mile - 23 mi course for an even 125 miles (or similar) since you think it is acceptable to tweak the distances, but I would bet big money that it would be a commercial flop.

I thought the point of all this was the OPs assertion that RDs were tweaking races already in order to make them commercial successes!
There's still plenty "non-standard" races about, in Europe anyway. I'm less familiar with the US scene. They're not better or worse. They're just different. The Alpe D'Huez triathlon isn't a commercial flop is it?

Everything is relative. Yes, a full IM is much tougher than a 70.3. But a 70.3 is no cake walk even to most experienced triathletes. It's still considered long course. I think one of the guys who ran the barkley said IM Kona was like a "fun run" to him. So if you think IM is being watered down, go run barkley, badwater or western states and call us in the morning :)

---

"The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue; courage is only the second virtue."
- Napoleon Bonaparte

Not sure if you're just responding to the last post, as I think the OP is full of shit in the "watered down" comment (well, he's FOS in the entire post IMO).

The star attraction at Alpe DHuez is the bike climb. Apart from the bike challenge it isn't even remotely comparable to a long distance race since it is only 2.2 km - 115 km - 22 km ... more akin to a 70.3 than an Ironman. I think your analogy is apples and oranges. Suppose you tried to establish a race with those same distances, but with a flat to rolling, run of the mill bike course. Do you think it would sell? Meanwhile, everywhere I look in Europe I see Ironman and Challenge using 140.6 and 70.3 as their standard courses...and a shit ton of independents doing the same thing ... notwithstanding that Europe has some iconic races at varying distances and is more open to non-standard events. I lived in England for a couple of years and it was refreshing to run a bunch of road races at odd distances. With few exceptions those have pretty much died out in the US.

Amen, amen!![/quote]

If/when you get to Wales, you'll probably encounter the local.... jellyfish. I grew up an hour east of Tenby and surfed/lifesaved in the sea there and was used to jellyfish of a size that you could easily scoop up and chuck at your mates, with occasional bigger ones washed up on the beach after storms. On a shakeout swim a couple of nights before the race I felt something bump my leg out near the first turn buoy and assumed it was just a fish.. and then felt another bump a few yards later. Someone at the beach showers was asking if anyone else had seen the jellyfish out there...






Harmless enough but seeing them coming up at you from deeper water on race morning does give you a little extra boost :)

Those are yuuuuuge!! But if they don't sting and with lots of people plowing the way in front of me one could hope that they would clear a path. :)