Hello ericMPro and All,

Do you suppose I am getting some training accomplished by just rebreathig the CO2 in my N95 mask?

Think a hematocrit reading after a few days in my mask might show some extra red blood cells?

If so masks will become ubiquitous with athletes and the Venn diagram .......

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Cheers, Neal

+1 mph Faster

Hi Neal!

Haven't seen you in awhile. Yes, let's say that N95 masks raise hematocrit in endurance athletes.

We spend thousands of $$ on bikes and recovery gear but we don't sleep enough or train slow enough. Will we wear a mask if need be in order to allow a race to go off?

E

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I can't see masks in races working at all. As soon as they get damp they fail to offer benefits, so at what point after the swim do you put them on. Also reality is at high exertion they get soaked pretty quick on the bike anyway. Then you need to keep moving them to be able to drink/eats. Finally on the run the reality is the mask is likley to be a limiter to exertion. So the best performance would come from the person with the least filtering mask, or the one most ill fitting with gaps around.

For me the reality is that worldwide there are millions of people making real sacrifices to stem covid. Losing jobs, not being able to see their family who are terminally ill, being unable to get married or have a funeral etc etc. True or not, having a race in a location with community spread is something that will cause stress to thousands of non racers, and is not an essential thing in these extraordinary times.

Once we are in a situation when races should be happening, then masks would be unnecessary. I'm all for being conservative and mitigating risks where we can, but I cannot see a situation where a mask actually mitigates a risk - before I'd see it sensible to have a race the conditions would be such that a mask would add no further real protection. We can mostly train outdoors or indoors. We can even compete indoors on zwift, or make other ways to keep the motivation in 'virtual' races outside. So let's put some perspective on when it becomes realistic that races start again, and that's not when wearing a mask is needed.

I can't see masks and racing going together. I see the near future of racing as local races run as time trials. I'm in Finland and my local trail race is setting runners of every 10 seconds. Time trials are up and running but they never had big turn outs anyway and 1 min apart is fine.
First triathlon on June 5.