I am signed up for Daytona and have 3 athletes that were ready to roll too. That being said, I'm not confident it will happen and I am not sure how comfortable I am with heading to Florida.

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USAT Level II- Ironman U Certified Coach

Challenge could change the amateur bike course to stay inside the speedway's private grounds (speedway loop and parking lot loop maybe?) with multiple laps for age groupers. The swim and run are already confined to the speedway grounds and they have a system in place to track laps on the speedway for age groupers via chips. Last year they had your lap count displayed on a board so you knew when to exit the speedway. It could get crowded but they could mitigate by shortening the bike leg and staggered start times.

Or they could cancel it if they don't have permits.. But the age group event is what's funding the pro event, so I'm not sure how that'll work.

Super curious to see how this pans out. Would obviously love to have the races happen (not as much as I'd love to race now that Florida 70.3 is cancelled wahhhhh), but just because something is held on private property doesn't necessarily mean it can still happen, right? We don't know exactly what cancelled the 70.3, but it may be that Florida, or the county is about to enact new restrictions on gathering size or something like that. The event being held in the speedway wouldn't change that as far as I'm aware. It also seems like international travel would still be a huge hassle for the pros coming from all around the world. I'm sure they have all that worked out now but I can't imagine a lot of those countries are happy about their resident's flying to one of the hottest, up and coming covid spots in the world for a few days and then heading back.

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Benjamin Deal - Professional - Instagram - TriRig - Lodi Cyclery
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I can almost guarantee that the local government will not permit a race that is going to use public roads. Florida is about to explode from a COVID perspective. So Challenge's best bet is to keep the race confined to the private area, which sounds like a logistical nightmare of a bike course for the AG race.

Even keeping the race on private property still involves some level of permitting. While they wouldn't necessarily need permits for road closures, they would likely need some kind of large outdoor event/special events permits. They would also need to still use some municipal resources like law enforcement and medical/ambulance services. I highly doubt the AG events happen. Maybe the pro race is somehow small enough without spectators to avoid any permitting. Who knows. It would be a financial bloodbath. Probably would be anyways but that's another topic altogether.

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

Do you have some inside information that the general public is not privy to when you say FL is about to “explode” from a covid perspective?

At the Esprit Triathlon in Montreal it is 100% on the 4.2km formula 1 track (closed off from the rest of the city). They have multiple age group waves going off over the day to limit density on track. What is nice in the years that Triathlon Quebec is serious is they can really give our penalties and break things up. A pack is easy to spot and they can make the entire crew pull into the penalty tent. I have had years where I am pulling an entire pack (when I was younger and much stronger) and years where I just drop back when they blow by (older, and less strong). But overall on years they are serious you can get a fair race as the F1 track is 3-4 F1 cars wide.

Should be doable at Daytona, if local authorities allow crowds to gather at a private venue outdoors. This year in Quebec it was a lid of 250 people so they just ran several 250 person spint tris rather than a full, a half, a olympic, a sprint and a du. But it was one of the only races in Canada all year open to age groupers. I deferred my entry because a sprint did not interest me wrt to driving 2 hrs each way just to race. I would do that for an Olympic or half, but not interested in a sprint.

I hope you get to race in Daytona in some capacity.

Daytona isn't like a lot of other tracks, it does not possess a massive parking lot. Although an exterior loop is semi-feasible on the property.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

The first year they did this race a large storm rolled in. They shortened the bike to a straight up and down the main drag,a couple loops through the parking lot and kept the run 13.1. I could see them doing that again. I would rather they cancel and give me the option to defer to 2021 Daytona.

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http://www.sfuelsgolonger.com

In Montreal, they had 3 waves start Saturday and Sunday all sprint distance races. 7am, 11am and 3pm start times in a rolling fashion no more than 3 athletes entering the water at once spread every 10-15 sec don’t recall the exact time between nevertheless the less athletes needed to wrap up their right after the race and go home. Basically, every wave was done within 2 hours to complete. Athlete starting 11am couldn’t arrive in transition 1 hour prior to their start, same thing with the late start at 3pm.

All athletes needed to wear masks at all time until the swim start, once you crossed the finishing line first thing they gave you is a mask, lunch after the race was also pre-pack in a lunch bag. Yes, a lot of logistics but the race went pretty smooth only for Sunday athletes it rained a lot.

Race packets could be pick up as early as Monday on the week of the race to avoid crowds.

I’m betting the race will occur for the age groupers but reduce to a sprint distance and on 2 days. The PRO race will remain full distance. 2km - 80km - 18km.

Finally, no spectators, friends or family were allowed on race site except for coaches.

Do you have some inside information that the general public is not privy to when you say FL is about to “explode” from a covid perspective? //


Here is your inside information, pretty easy to get actually:

https://www.worldometers.info/...navirus/usa/florida/

Thanks for sharing those numbers with me Monty...that still does not explain FL "exploding". Two weeks ago in GA, the number of cases quadrupled from 1,580 to 6,297 per day, the following week, those numbers were down by 60% to 2,704.

You can find those numbers here:

https://www.npr.org/...ronavirus-in-the-u-s

You would have said GA's numbers were exploding then, but what would you say now. I'm not downplaying anything. Just sharing numbers and wanting the poster to explain how they arrived at their conclusion.

For those racing Daytona, I hope you get to race. I raced three weeks ago and it was extremely gratifying.

So in two weeks cases went from 1580 per day to 2704; given the exponential rate that infections tend grow at this does not bode well. Add to that the likely spike that T-day travel and family gatherings are likely to cause.....

Bottom line is it is riskier to run these events now than it was over the summer (when all events were cancelled), and the risk is getting higher as we hit the cooler weather and holidays.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
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The tone of your question was stupid... as others have noted.

Wanna takes bets that FL COVID cases a month from now aren’t double or triple today’s numbers. As well as the lagging statistics like deaths and hospitalizations?

Didn’t think so.

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

I was supposed to do this race last time (April 2020) and it cancelled. I deferred to April, 2021.

Now I can’t find the April, 2021 event on the website. Not sure what to make of that. And I wonder if people from this race will fill into the April race.

Ironman events might be too big to happen any time soon anyway.

 

I personally think the race in Daytona will go forward. Challenge has a detailed safety plan and they have the partnership with the speedway. The central Florida area has been having events (like a spaceX launch with thousands of spectators) for a few months. It’s just my guess but I think it will happen.

Talbot Cox is saying that Lionel will win so you can cancel the men's race to keep the numbers down.

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Okay so I’m just throwing this out there. I think it’s worth noting that in the cancellation notice Ironman sent did not say that this decision was made because of discussions with Haines City.

If I read it wrong - let me know. I’m not registered so I read a picture in the FB group.

I don’t have any inside information but I wonder if the race organizer just pulled the plug.

There was some rumor/talk about this with the cancellation in Galveston too - that it wasn’t cancelled by the city.

I dunno. Just thinking out loud. I have no info. I’m just curious. Just 30 minutes away the theme parks are open. A few miles in the other direction GFT was held with no issues. Haines city just held an even opening a new Aquatic center. Seems Kind of odd that in that same scenario this race would get cancelled.

Along those lines, there are multiple triathlons going on right now in Dubai, but for whatever reason Ironman is not opening registration for that event based on people I know there.

They just had a bike tour this weekend with 20,000 cyclists going through the middle of Dubai, so 2000 people in a half IM should be no problem. Maybe the new owners are holding back a bit and not wanting the brand to get tarnished in the middle of a second wave of this pandemic. Its one thing for pro sports to shake out, another thing for events for 2000 weekend warriors involving travel

florida is obviously doing poorly, but can you show me where any projections show it to explode
https://covid19.healthdata.org/...&test=infections

I agree I wont go if the race is shortened or altered I trained for a 70.3. If anything Covid has kept me in pretty good shape this year, Training consistently for a year now what's another 6 months lol! Besides I will have a pretty full schedule of deferment races for 2021!

Looks like the daily -new- cases in FL have gone down the past few days, but I would say the assumption is that Thanksgiving and Christmas could cause a lot of new spread.

In other news, PEI and Newfoundland just pulled out of the 'Atlantic Bubble' (allowed for quarantine-free travel between atlantic provinces) because New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have had something like 5 to 10 new cases per day the last few days.......... Funny how Florida has 6000+ cases per day, theme parks open, new aquatic center opening, etc etc. Honestly not judging at all, just interesting how different it is.

Makes me wonder if it was a numbers issue with registration. The race was still at Tier 3

Oh man I wish I had that mindset. I've been training super hard since April and I have had 3 races canceled. After Haines city canceled yesterday, I signed up for Daytona lol. I'm desperate over here!!

I'll see you there... Keep your fingers crossed. Challenge FB page sent out an alert that there were only 100 spots available 40 minutes ago. So there's that