sorry, i am not a race director.

but, i just wanted to weigh in and say that if I was registered for a july race and got a full refund (instead of postponement to another date or only options for deferment/transfer to next year or another race), as a registered athlete i'd be pretty happy with that result, all things considered.

I am an RD of a running race that takes place in November. Based on the criteria set forth by the WH and subsequent documents from governors, I do not see large gatherings happening in June, July or August. It isn't until phase III of these plans that allow unlimited people in close proximity--if you have a small explosion in a county, it becomes a problem all over again--go back to prior phase. Phase II, gets you a whopping 50 people and then you need to be stable or declining to move on.

I believe some will see it as fine to participate, but a very large percentage will not. NYC Runs put out a survey last week. Those results should help us understand who is willing to race and under what conditions.

If I had a race scheduled for July in the MW, I would cancel it. People appreciate not being strung along like some other large race companies are doing.

Only my 2 cents.

x2! If you're on the fence, cancel now, give me my money back and I'm coming back to your races in the future.

It's not just big races. I'm signed up for a small race on May 9th. The website has been updated to say "postponed" but the only communication I've gotten from the race director is a spam email asking my to get my friends to sign up. Is it so hard to send an email that says "we're not holding the race on May 9th and we don't know what the options are at this point. Hold on and we'll let you know when we know.

I’m surprised my June race has not been cancelled or postponed - but I’m holding out hope they working the logistics to postpone since there are not a lot of Xterras.

Thanks for reference the WH Three Phase Plan. I would agree that I don't see large gatherings happening until closer to September. Reading that it doesn't look like restaurants will even open for another month.

Other thought, how do you effectively social distance at a tri if there was somehow a radical swing. I understand this is doubtful but what creative ideas are out there.

Rolling swim start
Transition area would be a problem
Bike you could coach athletes to do their best
Run may be a challenge
After party and awards couldn't happen

Yes, this is the biggest problem when I think about it (I'm not an RD). My first thought as a potential solution would be to make all three legs time trials with randomly selected starting order to enhance distancing on the course. That way you can also somewhat control the number of athletes in transition area at any time, if you even need such an area. If parking is available near the start/finish, you just proceed to your vehicle after finishing each leg to prepare for the next leg.

I would be willing to consider such a tri this summer, if the details of the race flow are described to my satisfaction on the race site and I have done previous races organized by the RD. I would be more hesitant to do a tri this summer with a normal functioning transition area, but I'm 61.

Good luck with your planning and decision!

I was only registered for two tri's this year, one in June and one in August. The June one is somewhat small and local. I was pleasantly surprised that they cancelled and offered refunds to everyone who requested a refund. I'll do it next year for sure.

The August one has already issued a statement that there will be no refunds or postponing your entry to 2021. I might not do it this year and I certainly won't next year. It's $$.

As a registered participant in IM Muncie in July I am actually perturbed at the lack of information that the race has sent out on the probability of cancellation. Heck, we’d be lucky to have a pool open in June for practice. I am probably not going to race in the Midwest this year, and usually do 10 or more races. Even if a race is happening later I wouldn’t register for it until a week before. I applaud the idea of full refunds and it is very surprising to me that some smaller races I’m in have offered full refunds (rethinking my loyalty to Ironman). When offered the option I deferred entry until next year.

Are you really expecting to get a positive response from public safety personnel about planning a mass gathering event in a few months?

Not in the mid-west (or the US for that matter) but was a RD for a slightly larger triathlon for 12 years. Cancel. Offer full refunds and get the goodwill from that to use in 2021. You have no idea what the next month or two will look like. The race I was involved with is the end of August, my recommendation to the new committee is to cancel now so they can offer full refunds. They have paused registration (no one was registering anyway) and will make the final decision June 1 but are not making any purchases until a decision is made. They will still be able to offer full refunds, they will lose about $6000 this year.

Honest inquiry and not necessarily aimed at you...

People keep talking about large gatherings happening in the fall. How? What's different between April 21st and September 1st? We won't have a vaccine and we won't likely have any proven treatments that are anything more than a bandage on a gunshot wound. The only thing keeping us somewhat safe is social distancing. That's not going to be any different four or five months from now.

I agree that some aspects of society and business can and should reopen. Ease up on some of the draconian shutdown measures. Retail, hospitality, restaurants, common office environments, etc. With strongly enforced and encouraged social distancing, hygiene, and the like. I can see allowing some small crowd gatherings of less than 50 but even that scares me. There's no way we can allow crowds of hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands within close proximity of each other. Can't happen now, can't happen in September. Do we really think any scenario in which we could allow 500/1,000/3,000 triathletes or 20,000 runners or 30,000 concertgoers or 70,000 football fans or 100,000 Disney World customers to chew up the same real estate is at all acceptable. It's not. It's just plain stupid.

I'm not opposed to certain segments of business and society opening up. I have no issue with my state (Florida) opening the beaches as long as the restrictions are enforced. I have no issues with allowing restaurants or small shops to reopen as long as they do a good job of keeping people well spaced. There are certain business segments that are just not going to be able to move forward until there's a vaccine or some amazing treatment. I would not want to be a business in which their entire business model is predicated on gathering a lot of people into the same general area. Ironmans or Boston Marathons are one thing but imagine something like Disney or Las Vegas or Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. They're fucked for awhile.

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

From a contagion perspective.... the racers them self are probably not the problem. But spectators and setting an example for the rest of the community should be.

IMO, if locally social distancing is required, races should not happen.


From a business point of view, not sure of the viability of races with a reduced field.

From a racer point of view (me), I'm really annoyed at races that get cancelled +3 months ahead of time, i want a reasonable delay (2 months) and easy refund policy.

People how had bad experience during that short episode of our lifes are less likely to be returning consumers
(ex: i'm really agree at my local airline, probably less likely to return to historical normal once this is over, same could apply to just about every business, including races)

I should have mentioned one other thing, volunteers. For many races, they tend to be older. Why in the world, would they sign up to hang out with a bunch of us given what is going on?

I live in the Midwest and just heard that our public pools may not open until Fall. They are less concerned about the swimmers spreading COVID to one another than they are concerned about their lifeguards picking up the disease if they have to resuscitate a patron.

We talked to our local health department when canceling three events and rescheduling the ~200 participant one for the end of summer. They may be of help.

One stark reality is that social distancing is still going to be the main (only?) tool in our toolbox the rest of this year. I highly doubt large spectator events are happening this summer (or year), but local events under a certain number.......maybe. I work in research at a medical school with a bunch of public health faculty and couldn't even begin to do anything other than guess at this stuff.

[As a registered participant in IM Muncie in July I am actually perturbed at the lack of information that the race has sent out on the probability of cancellation. Heck, we’d be lucky to have a pool open in June for practice. I am probably not going to race in the Midwest this year, and usually do 10 or more races. Even if a race is happening later I wouldn’t register for it until a week before. I applaud the idea of full refunds and it is very surprising to me that some smaller races I’m in have offered full refunds (rethinking my loyalty to Ironman). When offered the option I deferred entry until next year.

Are you really expecting to get a positive response from public safety personnel about planning a mass gathering event in a few months?]

Same with Des Moines

Also not a race director, but race participant in the midwest. I echo the earlier comments about being happy to get a full refund.

I'm in Michigan and have completely written off racing this year. I just don't see how it's possible with the social distancing measures that are going to need to be in place -- along with the potential of a surge of new cases in the fall/winter.

While i'm a big fan of social distancing, contact testing etc.... this one is BS, how many times a year do they need to do CPR??

I don’t disagree that it is BS, just sharing what I heard.

Good thing I don’t need lifeguards at the lake.

I have an event scheduled for early October and at this point I assume I will be canceling it. Part of my thinking was personal exposure and exposure of volunteers. When you promote a race you have a lot of face-to-face time with a lot of people up close and you're asking volunteers to do things like sit on a chair while people stand over them to get their numbers. If there is a chance that I will get sick or volunteers will get sick then it's simply not worth it.

I think the whole reason you have life guards is not for the 99.9999% of the time where no one needs help. It's for the .0001% of the time. I've had my ARC LG certificate for years as I guard at an annual church camp. Over the thirty years I've done this, We've only had to "save" one little girl. Fortunately, I spotted her before she went under and got her out before she took in a lot of water, so no additional life saving activities were needed.

The point is that thankfully if you're doing your job right as a LG, the number of times a year you need to do CPR is generally 0%. But you don't know when that one time will be. If you did, you could just show up on that day.

How many times every year do you need your bike helmet?

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Not a coach. Not a FOP Tri/swimmer/biker/runner. Barely a MOP AGer.
But I'm learning and making progress.

Oh, i'm not saying we don't need lifegard... But did EMS stop responding to calls because of Covid?!?

What if the guy has Hep-C... that is a much bigger problem for the first responder.

It's 2020, use PPEs all the time and that will all be fine....

The triathlons that I was registered for in July have been cancelled and refunded already. I have on in September that has told us that they will let us know by June 1 if it will be cancelled.

The open water swim events I'm doing in July are still tentatively going forward, but registration never opened.

At work, most of our trade shows and conferences have been cancelled through June 2021, or they just aren't opening up for registration.

Things would have to be pretty rosy and non-risky for me to sign up for a summer race at this point.

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Hillary Trout
San Luis Obispo, CA

Your trip is short. Make the most of it.
https://www.slogoing.net/

No problem and I realize you weren't saying we didn't need LGs. What I was saying is the question of how often a LG needs to go to extreme measures to save a life isn't really a question that benefits whether a pool should be concerned about their LGs.

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Not a coach. Not a FOP Tri/swimmer/biker/runner. Barely a MOP AGer.
But I'm learning and making progress.