I don't understand why this wasn't clarified before the event if there were any concerns. What did the professionals who entered expect (I am not being flip just don't understand). It was understood there was a not pro race yet they took entry fees from them.

The pros can't compete as age grouper so basically they were not racing but just participants.

When did you register?

Curious, I do finish in the money at races. But what percentage of pro do you think actually finish in the money? Then what percentage of pros make money after travel? I think the majority of the pros end in the red.

For me, as I said before.


- If I did compete and maybe win, I wanted to see what it would be like to compare and contrast pro field races versus non pro field races and the post race experience. I have finished Louisville 3, 3, and 2 so I feel I have good feeling about finishing on the podium as a pro. As a prior automation engineer, I always found it funny when customers just wanted to solve their problems without every experiencing problems. In order to truly solve problems you need to understand problems inside and out. At some point after my career, or maybe even during, I would like to continue to crusade for problems with pros or the sport and general and there is no better way to understand the problems. One at the forefront that comes up on here is the question of do we really need pros.

- I have had 30+ wins in my career and my dad and mom have never seen me once and this gave them an opportunity to do so.

- I live a block away from the race. So travel, logistics are a no issue.

- This race is very nostalgic to me. This was my first race way back in the day, and I have done it every year except for 2011 when I went for pro card at Rev3 Cedar Point which was the first day.

- There is always something to learn - experience is important in this sport.

- Every swim start is so important, every Ironman swim is so important as well in general and I am always working on my swim. Any time I have a chance to do an hour swim in field I try to take it.

- For the love of the game - unlike my peers, I started as age-grouper and worked my way up. Sometimes it is nice to go back and experience racing in a mass field with a mass swim start.

- I switched to a single speed setup and I like to test out race equipment in races where the risk reward is low.

- I have been tweaking my race nutrition incorporating some Base products into the line-up and again I like to test when risk reward is low

- I have had a knee injury since around Aug 2nd. I was not able to complete IMMT and only did 38 mins painfree on the bike. Outside of the knee injury I had been in the best shape of my life. Prior to the race the knee injury had been creeping up about 90-105 minutes into training rides so IMMT was quite a shock that I only lasted 38 mins. I took a few weeks off post IMMT. Yes I had only been biking for about 12 days. My first semi real ride (low Z2) was last Tuesday. I raced an Olympic - it was a non pro race - I race a lot of non-pro races - that was Saturday. I had no expectations on this race, I didn't think my knee would hold up for the whole ride but I wanted to at least start and I was planing to stop as soon as I had pain which never occurred.

The reason for doing the race are endless. I could write another ten reasons but it has gotten late, and it took a few emails and meetings just to get my name to show in the results and I want to make sure I answer a few more responses on here.

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I signed up on Friday afternoon.

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Pros compete at regular races all the time. Regardless, pros can win the overall title. However, I am sure there are plenty of pros that are not even removed from the age-group awards for simply lack of awareness.

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Thanks. Those all sound like pretty good reasons to me. Congrats on the win.

I just responded to a previous reply that answer the questions why. But yes the registration was paid for. I was ok with how things went down until about 30 minutes after the race. This is after Rudy Kahsar had already finished as well. He was racing as amateur, and from talking with him, he communicated that he no longer had an elite license and was competing as amateur. They still assigned him bib #1 and he finished second. However that is when the 3rd place guy came in. Mike Reilly, called him an "Ironman Champion and the winner of the 2015 Ironman Wisconsin race". They had the finisher banner, had him sign it, did the big post race hoopla and what not, but what kind of blew my mind is that apparently Mike Reilly said something to the affect, again, this was before I came in "~the first two athletes who are coming in a pro and they WILL NOT be listed in the results". This created a ton of confusion with people coming up after the race - I will leave it at confusion.

Through the run I had a lead biker that had a placard that read "1st place male". And again, I was going for the overall win and nothing less. Had I been told sure, you can race, but we will strip your results, and if you win we will ignore your win, and by the way please pay the entry fee then I would have said - thanks but no thanks.

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Regardless of all the problems, it looks like you had a very good race. Was the 8:59:59 your best time at IM Moo??? Obv hard to compare one year to another due to varying weather conditions but just curious. Also, speaking of weather was it cold up there today??? It was around 52 here this AM with PM high around 70, with part sun, part clouds, so i would guess it must've been pretty chilly up there:)

Congrats on your excellent race!!!

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

From the start there should have been no issues if they let you register
* Racing for overall placement only
* Known to you that AG slots / prizes not available since you hold a pro card

Pretty straight forward ... simple

Happened at Vineman 70.3 (when it was Vineman Half Ironman) when they had a hiatus with no pro field racing (maybe 2005 or 6?) ... 2 pros raced, raced in the first wave, racing for overall only

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Dave Latourette
http://www.TTENation.com

I didn't find it chilly but I was actually burning up on the swim - my core temp was thru the roof. I had to do the pull down on the suit at least ~60 thru the course of the swim. It isn't my best time but I definitely shut it down and just cruised the last 8 miles or so. On paper it wasn't my best race, but pro race tend to be faster if you can help each other out and also push one another. This was more getting back to my roots of an age-grouper and racing myself. I did like slipstreaming on the bike!!! I will mention that given my injury pre-IMMT and lack of training I was totally blown away by fitness. My last decent bike ride was Aug 2 or 3rd.

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Stringcheese,

I answered your questions in another reply to another person asking the same ?. I will add that why not race. I race non-pro races all the time. It may not be a pro race, it doesn't mean pros can compete. How many local pros out there do their local olympic or sprint - it just so happens that my local race is Ironman Wisconsin.

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which is part of why I was confused. I knew Rudy wasn't actually a pro and so I figured they had just removed the results. It turns out there was some sort of glitch. It may have had a fact that I registered on Friday. Regardless, the results are in there now.

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Sounds like perhaps your body just needed some rest??? Anyway, congrats again on an excellent race, all things considered.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

the Clarification of pro/ age grouper is the problem.

I know age groupers that train more then pros and pros that have more going on then even busy age groupers.

The thing here is there are fast triathletes and slower triathletes every race should be pros can race and there just isn't any money at the finish line.

The race is a race and first one across is the winner no matter the title. if an age grouper won an Ironman against a pro field damn right they would announce him or her the winner, he just gets no money because he didn't check the box on registration.

I pro doing a local race can do a lot more of them then going to Wales this weekend and finishing top 5. It is better locally in the tri community ,with sponsors, and you come out with more $$$ then 5 th in wales after you put in travel $$$.

I know you want the win because before they removed the pro field it was a goal likely so you did it Thomas.

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Technique will always last longer then energy production. Improve biomechanics, improve performance.
http://Www.anthonytoth.ca, triathletetoth@twitter

Agreed, this is how an article reads: http://host.madison.com/...0d-c6364ad8bf5b.html

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Well said about all. Btw, I am in the results. Apparently I was told I was never showing in the tracker and there was a glitch with a late entry. But I agree with you, far too many pros traveling to far to gain little experience, suffer fatigue, financial setback and nothing to gain when they would be better off staying age-grouper or at least racing closing to home.

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Yep Ironman are super tough on the body, but I knew wanted to swim hard and bike hard and just try to take it easy on the run. Rudy being his first Ironman I really expected him to explode a bit more than he did. If anything it was me exploding on the swim, I should have known better than wearing a full-sleeve. It will be interesting to see my recovery. Part of my knee issue was changing my cleats so maybe I am over the knee issue but I am crossing my fingers. If I can start at Chatt maybe I will.

-TG

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Thanks for the info. There have been a variety of pros start non-pro races. Again, all a pro race means is there is a purse and special rules for the pro in regard to rules. I am in the results now, apparently there was some sort of glitch.

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just curious.....

your the local guy....finish first, and mike Reilley didn't come do a interview after your cross the line?

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Jonathan Caron / Professional Coach / ironman champions / age group world champions
Jonnyo Coaching
Instargram

You were never on the tracker today and I got confused when Rudy was shown on the tracker listed as MPRO.

I completely understand your list of reasons to race, and if I were in your shoes I probably would've made the same choice, maybe someone is kicking themselves for not joining you at check-in Friday...

What was your registration process? Did you go through the same process as age-groupers on Friday? Was there any clarification with volunteers/officials that you race with an elite card?

So now I am curious, what is the difference of an elite (Pro) racing an age-group field versus an age-grouper who has qualified to race as an elite (Pro) in an age-group field? Thoughts? Several athletes at IMWI and various other IM's have qualified to race elite (pro) but choose not to.

Nice kit change in T2 ;)

For the record I see no fault in your decision today, its the same as every time you race local and no one has a problem with it.

I think it is exactly what you in terms of communication. For instance if you look on the Ironman Wisconsin "Live Blog" they use the phrase "Please note that the 2015 IRONMAN Wisconsin is an age group only race"

I think what they mean to say is that "we do not have a pro purse for this race and therefore we will not be doing a live blog following the pro race." A race is either a pro race and it has >5000 or more in the US in which case only pros can compete for the money. Or the race is a non pro race in which case anyone can compete, but age group awards can not go to the pros. If they want to bar pro racers from racing then fine, just communicate that, but that isn't what happened here. The race entry fee was paid.

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Full kit change in T2 was certainly not helping with confusion that is for sure. I went thru a similar registration process on Friday as an age-Grouper, but because it was so last minute I had to go to the "solutions table" to get it done. It was handled by the Ironman staff that has checked me in at many races and everyone was informed and knew I was a pro and registering as a pro. That is why they gave me #2. In addition, I checked with Tom Z (Ironman Operations) on Friday before registering to make sure it was ok and also with the race director Ryan Richards. I first started with our pro liaison but I never heard back from before registration closed so went to Z and Ryan.

As to your last question this example comes up. Great examples include guys like Adam Zucco, Dan Stubelski, Ryan Guiliano (former pro), and others. It is there choice not to race pro. The downside is they can't race for prize purse at races with >5000 in the US. But they can go to Kona, AG Nats, etc and compete for world titles without having to go head-to-head with Jan Frodeno, Javier Gomez, and Sebastian Kienle.

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Nope, funny thing is that I am by no means Jordan Rapp with a microphone but I am very comfortable for the most part speaking and I had a great story lined up about why I was racing. Instead there was absolute nothing - I mean crickets.

Btw, because I had such a comfortable lead, I started my hands slaps way early, like nearly a mile out, and slapped everyones hand I could. It was quite a bit of work by the finishing and prob lost a minute just in backward momentum. I do really try to smile, look people in the eye, and enjoy the moment. If I am not being realistic someone can castrate me on here and tell me otherwise. In addition, last year racing head to head with Big Sexy, the race came down to 16 seconds - that is two in sight of each other for the crowd. I don't think there was nearly the fan support at Louisville than on State Street - amazing support. And the finish too and then as soon as I crossed the line I was so blown away. Nothing. No media, no interview, absolutely nothing. And this race is NOT a rolling start. It is still a mass start so you know who the first one across the line is.

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It was nice seeing you out there today, even if it was somewhat of a surprise! (nice bib btw) Congrats on the win...