That makes sense. Making the fast swimmers slower and the slow swimmers faster would create a decent cluster. That and IM continuing to push the limits of how many people they can cram into a race...

Jodi

I completely agree. I did IMTX. I was planning no wetsuit but at the very last moment I noticed tons of people getting in the water with a wetsuit. I knew I was not going to make it to Kona on my first IM so I slipped on a Desoto speed tube pant. I cannot imagine what that swim would have een like without some flotation. I felt very bad for the people without wetsuit because the floating wetsuit people would basically sim over the top of the non wetsuit wearers. Also the crowd never seemed to thin out because people who should be at the back of the pack were unfairly able to keep up.

Thanks...please keep the reports coming. I have enough direct feedback from athletes who swam without wetsuit to believe that the situation is far from fair for those going without wetsuit.

I think in any rule making in triathlon, criteria number 1 is safety, criteria number 2 is fairness. The mixed start fails on both counts.

I like how they did it a both Rhode Island and Providence 70.3.....wetsuit guys start in last wave. In the case of a mass start IM, wetsuit folks should start in a different wave and give the non wetsuit guys some time to ease into their swim without getting clobbered by people whose lower bodies all magically float. The non wetsuit guys just sink.

My personal experience from non wetsuit swims is that people behave completely differently when they are not wrapped in the annonymity of rubber....people seem to behave in neoprene how they behave in a car in traffic.....immune from normal decent behaviour because of the anonymity cloak....well that's fine if everyone has the same flotation, but not really fine when a chunk of the field don't have that.

Dev

The cutoff should just be 76 degrees flat and simple. Above that NOBODY wears wetsuits. If you can't do it then you were inadequately prepared. Vineman was smart had the water temperature been above 76 they were firm on the fact you would have to start at the last wave if you were to wear a wetsuit.

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This was my exact same experience, same start place, everything. The treading water thing was almost worse than the swim. I've done this race in 08 and 10 and never experiencd the kind of aggressiveness as yesterday. I came close to clocking a few people. It's one thing to push our legs down, but do it three times and expect my foot in your face. Then the traffic on the bike after swimming 1:15 was way different than 1:03.

My vote is for either wetsuit or not, no options. That's the only way to have a level playing field.

I would be all for this. If you aren't prepared to race without a floatation device you shouldn't be racing.

I started halfway down the flag line, probability 50m from the pier. I was expecting a 1:10 to 1:15 swim. I got in the water at 6:52 reiley was begging people to get in at that point. There were few people there, so I ended up in the second row, probably an even mix of wetsuits and non (I was wearing one). The crowd pushed forward with a couple of minutes to go, but not too bad. The cannon goes, and everyone around me goes off with no issues. I stayed about 25m wide of the turn buoys, no problems, out in 34min. second loop I stayed 10m wide of the line and the buoys, same thing- no contact. Finished in 1:09. May have been the easiest swim of my tri life- I've had more contact in a 75 person wave at the local sprint. There was a fairly equal mix of wetsuits and non for most of the swim.
I cannot imagine what would make one swim differently/ more aggressive in a suit. Maybe I got lucky but that swim was a breeze and I probably swam an extra 100m for it. I can see how it would impact faster swimmers and the usual experience in the change tent but I am a 12.5h guy and I got through T1 in 5:45.

And I'm a hell of a lot more comfortable with a wetsuit. They're fun. I can swim without one, I'm in the pool 5-6 times per week for over a year, but I prefer swimming with one and in CO, I've never encountered a swim too warm for one. If you can't handle a mass start scrum, maybe you should consider whether you should be doing an ironman to begin with.

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Aerodynamics are for people who can't build engines. -Enzo Ferrari

Jodi - with all due respect, STFU already. You weren't there, you didn't experience it. You have no fucking clue.

This thread is for athletes who have *EXPERIENCED* this phenomenon in an M.dot race to post about it, not Monday morning quarterbacks sitting at home pontificating about what they think.

I made it thru the Kona swim just fine, thank you very much. It was pleasant and civil, since we all were in the same level playing field.
Granted my swim was uber-slow, but that's cuz I was a worse swimmer then, and I took it super easy and just got thru it.
I never once felt threatened for fearful for my life, or that I was going to be drowned. I really enjoyed the experience.

LP was completely different. As was said, even treading water before the start was scary and dangerous, as the wetsuit-clad folks crowded in, and I had no room.
I have never felt in fear for my life like I did for the first 2-300m yesterday - I was *thiiiis* close to heading for a kayak and punting.

Getting bumped and dunked and grabbed is really no big deal when everyone has a wetsuit on. I don't mind it at all, since the contact is minimized, and you bob right back up to the surface w/ zero effort.

When somebody swims over you and you are not in a wetsuit, you go under.
When somebody grabs your ankle and you are not in a wetsuit, you slow dramatically or even stop.
When somebody pushes your leg down and you are not in a wetsuit, you need to kick extra-hard to get back up again, and/or to fend them off.
Doing that repeatedly caused my calves, thighs, and even feet to cramp, which slowed me down more, which subjected me to more of the same.

It was a horrible negative recursive cycle from Hell. I have never experienced anything remotely like that before; I never will again.
I don't know of anybody who didn't wear a wetsuit who had anything positive to say about the experience. Zero. None.


I'd be a fan of either no wetsuits for ANYBODY above a certain temperature, or better yet, the 2-wave start idea, with the wetsuit folks 15 mins back.
They don't even need a time penalty, give them until 12:15 to finish, whatever.

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float , hammer , and jog

I keep seeing this line of reasoning, but I am not certain that it makes sense.

Isn't entirely possible that people want to use a wetsuit because they know they are faster in it?

I have an upcoming OLY (or an Aquabike....we'll see what my Achilles has to say about it!). Water is supposed to be mid-70's, but may be higher because of the brutal heat we have had in the last week. I'm hoping the temp stays down because I know I swim faster in my wetsuit. I know I can swim the distance no problem w/o it (and have) but I also know I will be faster w/ it.

Is that really any different than a set of aero wheels?

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Had the same exact experience. Went w/o wetsuit yesterday, as I didn't think it would sit well with me afterwards - would think I cheated myself somehow and especially as announcements were made, which I interpreted to be that anyone with a wetsuit would be dubbed a Finisher only.

My experience? Felt like I went into battle without armor, or any other similar cliche you can imagine (knife to gun fight, etc.) I literally got pummeled, swam over, dunked, punched, and pushed under repeatedly by a swarm of wetsuits. I believe I swallowed an enormous amount of lake water. At the turnaround buoy, I recall looking up from 2' under at a sea of wetsuited folks treading water. Last year, I swam 1:06, whereas I barely survived yesterday in 1:16. After all of the lake water I swallowed, I felt completely both nauseous and bloated on the first bike loop and netting me the same bike time as last year, where I experienced 2 flats in 2010 IMLP - just could not get anything down in me until Loop 2, where I seemed to recover and get back on with the race, thankfully. Looking at the results in IMLP today (via Athlete tracker) and IM Texas, I see no differentiator between those who went commando and those who did not... For IMLP, I have no idea who, in my age group (yet or ever) who went with or without a wetsuit. Sure I did it for myself, but some validation would also be appreciated. They need to think this through some more. I can understand the organizers not wanting to scare away or inconvenience their Customer base, but the playing field should be level and fair.


On a lighter note - very happy the weather was perfect, sandwiched between a heat wave (although mitigated in LP) and a miserable rainy day.

Cheers

Ummmm....

You ended your barrage of anger with the exact same sentiment you hammered me for saying

"I'd be a fan of either no wetsuits for ANYBODY above a certain temperature"

But thanks for rephrasing my post.

Jodi

Thanks for your response on this thread as painful as it is today. We're all in this sport as a hobby. No one should be fearful for their life. This is a horrible experience. It's been corroborated to me by 60 minutes, 65 minutes, 70, 80, 90 and 100 min non wetsuit swimmers. Hopefully more of them will post their experience here. Then we can write something up and send to WTC so they can see/read the direct feedback.

The technology exists for wave starts and WTC already does this for 70.3 events with the wetsuit group starting last. The midnite cutoff driving the logistics for 99.9 percent of the other participants makes no sense. Yes, we'll all eventually be battling the midnight cutoff if we hang around this sport long enough, but I don't want 1000 people having a not so pleasant race just so that I can make the midnight cutoff.

I didn't rephrase your post. YOU effectively said, you should not enter a triathlon if you cannot swim w/o a wetsuit.

Quote:

If you aren't prepared to race without a floatation device you shouldn't be racing

I would think someone with your education would have better reading comprehension skills.

It's not about not having a floatation device. It's about EVERYONE in the field having the same thing - either with, or without.

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float , hammer , and jog

While not a FOP swimmer, I'm a top-20% swimmer. I had no intention on wearing a wetsuit at IMTX. All my training leading up to IMTX was with the non-wetsuit mentality. I'll use a pull buoy to simulate a wetsuit if I have a wetsuit race coming up. I was doing none of that.

Due to some cool weather the couple days leading up to IMTX, the lake temp was actually hovering around that 76 degree mark. I brought my wetsuit with me just in case. Race morning water temp was 78.8 or something like that so wetsuits were optional since it was above the 76.1 degree limit. I had my non-wetsuit kit on (DeSoto 78 degree top) and still had no intention of donning the wetsuit. I had my wetsuit in my morning clothes bag and was putting the bag in the box when, for whatever reason, I took the wetsuit out and said screw it and put it on. I got into the water at like 6:59 and was one of the last folks into the lake. Planned on a 1:10 non-wetsuit swim but figured a 1:05 in a wetsuit was easily in the cards.

The water temp was fine in the suit but I had issues with calf cramps. Since I wasn't trained for a wetsuit swim, I was artificially pointing my toes out too much and not relaxing my feet and ankles and my calves tightened up real bad when I straightened them out at one point. I spent a few minutes hanging on to a buoy while the cramps subsided. The calfs cramped up again later in the swim. My swim was 1:11. The cramps (which would not have happened if I had swum sans wetsuit) cost me several minutes and I ended up with a time no better than I would have with the wetsuit. I also dealt with the calf pain all day which certainly had some affect on my bike and run. Needless to say, I'm not sure why I put on the wetsuit and I wish I had a do-over.

Back to the point of the thread on the safety/contact issue...
I thought the swim was crowded because of the narrow swim course, especially the last 1000m in the canal. There was nowhere to go. I didn't find the swim nearly as physical and violent as IMFL. IMFL did thin out after the first turn and was pretty much smooth sailing from there but that initial 800m or so was brutal. IMTX never thinned out and actually got worse with the canal portion. It was non-stop contact with people but not in a violent way. It was just a narrow course that made navigating around other swimmers difficult. It was just a tough swim to find a groove.

I race pretty respectfully and made a conscious effort to not swim all over the non-wetsuit wearing folks. The line of thinking that people are more aggressive with a wetsuit is just BS, IMO. It just equalizes the swimmers more and makes it more congested which may seem like things get real nuts. Perception is often not the reality. Some people's mileage may vary though. There are super-aggresive douchebags at every race.

All that said, I would like to see a uniform swim rule. Either the race is wetsuits or not. My understanding is the RD can make that call despite the WTC or USAT rules -- but I'm not sure in this litigious society that any of them would have the stones to do that.

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

The results book will differentiate between the two.

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

Yes, you can say "HTFU" and learn to swim, but the bottom line is they all paid their $700 and deserve a fair race.

Personally, I am not sure how we reached this point with the grey area. If wetsuits are not allowed, wetsuits are not allowed!

I know that I may sound like a hard-ass about this, but if a body of some sort has taken into consideration all the variables and has said, due to these conditions, this will not be allowed. Why is it that everyone seems to want their own proprietary rules? I am not sure what it is about this sport, but it seems everyone has a story. Sorry folks, that's not the way sport in the grand scheme of tings works - their are rules to every game and it is assumed that everyone plays to those rules. What is so confusing about this?

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Chris G & Murphy'sLaw nailed it in my opinion. I entered the water at the same time and had much the same experience. Treading water was fine as long as there was room to move, but when the crush hit a couple minutes before the gun, I found my range of motion limited and arms pinned to my sides sometimes...so I had to kick like hell just to keep my head above water. Couldn't just bob like a wetsuit wearing cork. I was drinking water before the gun even went off and for someone who kicks as little as I do it was very fatiguing. Finished the swim 20+ minutes back of where I expected to be and legs were done. My race was over but it took one loop of the bike to convince me that I was not going to recover and get it going. Disappointed that I put all the time and money into preparing for and competing in the race only to never really get to race. Not raging mad here. Not intending to whine. Just don't think the decision to run things that way was well thought out. Maybe changes can be made in the future.

Fleck, there is nothing confusing about this. WTC has decided that they are going to allowed mixed starts. We're trying to collect some feedback to figure out how the mixed start can be conducted in a better manner that makes it more fair and more safe than what happened at Woodlands and Lake Placid

You can chose to pontificate from the ivory tower, but I doubt that WTC will ban wetsuit outright over 76 for a non championship event with 1000 newbies. So let's figure out a better way to do the "mix".

Dev

  
I don't know of anybody who didn't wear a wetsuit who had anything positive to say about the experience. Zero. None. .[/quote]

This is not true. As is said above there was clear water available for a 1:10 swim. I was in a wetsuit but many around me were not and were not burdened by contact. One non-wetsuit guy I swam near for much of loop 2 commented on the bike what a smooth swim it was.
Sorry you had such a rough ride, but saying there was nothing but a mosh pit is not correct.

I'd bet that 2 waves wouldn't reduce this. People swimming in that time frame are 'good' swimmers (for IM) and are likely competitive in the other two parts. So they'll be 'duking' it out. Sometimes (usually) it's not on purpose, just because so many people are trying to swim a good line, stay in a pack (faster). You might have 1/2 as many people, but it will still be people trying to swim stroke for stroke, draft someone etc.

Fleck, there is nothing confusing about this.

You can chose to pontificate from the ivory tower, but I doubt that WTC will ban wetsuit outright over 76 for a non championship event with 1000 newbies. So let's figure out a better way to do the "mix".

Dev,

There is a whole lot confusing - that's why you have what you have.

I am not pontificating, I am trying to simplify things. How much do we have to keep thin slicing this. What's next? A special lane going down to Keene for those who don't want to go over 45kmh??

Step back a bit and look at the big picture and see how strange it looks from the outside looking in. Try and think how odd it is that they say, "No wetsuits, but if you want to wear one, that's OK to"!! Then try and explain it all to an outside observer who knows nothing. You'll have a lot of "not exactlies" in your explanations and a lot of head scratching on the part of your listener!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

You pretty much summed up my prior 2 LP swims. Less contact than any other normal wave start. Once it thins after 100 yards or so the faster people are gone off the front and the slower folks off the back. You end up swimming near a bunch of people that swim about the same. No other waves to go through, no faster folks from behind go through you. I was not remotely worried about the swim going into Sunday and have always thought the fear of the mass start was way overblown.

I think saying that people are more aggressive in a suit or more civil without one is not accurate its just that the same behavior has a different effect, As I mentioned in my earlier post I have experienced the same thing to a lesser extent in our tuesday night training sessions with 150 people. Not a race, just training and it is dramatically different when I wear a suit rather than go without. Just is, hard to explain.

I still do not understand the two tiered rule. If it is too warm for suits then why is it safe for anyone to wear one? If it is safe to wear one then how can it be too warm? Whatever. I will be sure to bring some different gear in the future now that the rule has changed.

Oh and I do think the race folks did a good job of enforcing the rule. If that is the rule and that is the temp then they should enforce it. Also, I was standing there and watched them check every speed suit or skin or whatever you call them. There were a couple people super pissed that they were not allowed to wear what they had on.

I'll add to what Greg said, about swallowing water - I felt like one of the 5 Chinese Brothers, who swallowed the entire ocean.

I was so bloated when I finished It was very uncomfortable, and impacted my whole bike ride, as I spent the first ~20 mins mildly hypothermic, w/ shivering and teeth chattering (so much for the water being "too warm"), and then every downhill for the entire rest of the ride I was standing on the pedals trying to pee some of it out.
I did manage to do so finally, to some extent, but my gut was backed up by the time I got off the bike. Even after peeing in the change tent for 2 minutes, I couldn't get any calories in at all during the run, and then vomited and got dry heaves after 4 miles.


My sentiments exactly. Investing all that time and effort into this event, only to have it effectively be over before it even started, was very disappointing.

Jodi's kind thoughts notwithstanding, I have never been better prepared for anything in my life.
Frustrating that I didn't get the opportunity to show it when it counted.

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float , hammer , and jog

Fleck please save your pontificating for some other thread. This thread is to simply collect feedback from athletes with first hand experience and provide that back to WTC.

I get what you are saying, but unless YOU want to do something about changing WTC's mind about the mixed start, you're not achieving anything here other than coming across as whining.

If you're willing to take up the cause of having uniform all wetsuit or no wetsuit starts, please go for it.

I personally am not willing to take that up, knowing that there are 1000 Ironvirgins at each start that WTC needs to cater to for their bottom line. Many of these folks want a wetsuit...fine, I get the practical reality. I'm not willing to fight for some idealistic cause knowing full well that 1000 Ironvirgins x 700 dollars is $700K of revenue per race that WTC is not about to jeopardize. Money talks.

Given these business realities, I'd like to collect feedback to make the mixed start more fair and more safe.


thanks

Dev