I'll add my thoughts...
I am an experienced triathlete. Did my first triathlon 27 years ago.
I grew up a swimmer, and now coach swimming for a living (and have coached for a bit longer than the 27 years since my first tri).

I did IM Texas and did not wear a wetsuit. It was the worst open water experience of my life, bar none.
I was in sub-60 minute IM swim shape. Not a doubt. I have the knowledge to evaluate such, and I was ready. Looking at results it appears a lot of potential 57-59 min racers were a bit slow by 3-4 minutes. Not sure why, and it's not important to the conversation. (course long? too tight? see below as well)

I lined up on the far side, opposite the entrance. Swam a bit and warmed up. Felt great. No issues. Ready to have a great race.
Treading is not an problem for me. As someone else said, I can tread with no legs and just easy sculling of the hands. Not an issue. As I am waiting for the start I was getting pushed farther and farther towards the far shore. It irritated me, but I was focused on the race. Oh well...let's get down to business.

The race began, and I have never been pummeled so bad in my life!

It was insane. I will echo much of what I have read on this thread from other TX & LP racers. Squeezed, swam on, pulling my arms-shoulders-legs. I felt like I was going to drown! I had to swim head up to catch my breath. I have never done that in any triathlon, and I have done well over 100. I was thinking what the hell is happening?
The thought crossed my mind that I wanted to stop. I never have had that thought in a race...WTH?!
Have I been bumped and pulled on in other IM's? Yes. Was it ever to this extent? No...not even close.

Post race thoughts: Why was it so bad? What was different? I came up with these (1) lined up in a bad place - bad luck. (2) wettie vs. non-wettie. (3) too narrow start area (I had no problems in the canal).

My post race conclusions were mostly surrounded by assuming I made some errors.
But after reading all the reports from others with strikingly similar experiences, it had to be more than that.

I feel someone with a wettie on has an advantage, in that...if there is contact (by grabbing me) the person wearing the wettie has more leverage than me w/o one on. They are in a much better position to pull on me and move themselves forward and/or up. If the non-wettie swimmer has 2 or more wetsuit clad swimmers pulling on him at the same time...ouch! Kind of pushed down and staying down. Until there is room to come up and they let go.

This is what happened to me. It was like when one person was done using me as a ladder, someone else latched on and used me as the same. After that happening several times I could not catch my breath. Head up breaststroke became my locomotion until I could breathe again. That happened 2-3 times. Then it cleared out a bit and I could at least swim, but most around me were wearing w-suits and could not hold a line for beans. I ended up swimming with people I normally would not be around. Result: my worst IM swim I have ever had.

It also changed the rest of my race. I have never been in the change tent with it so crowded before. It was chaos. I guess I am spoiled by usually being in front of that crowd. Then, once on the bike, the bike course was crowded too. I'm not whining, just saying that it changed the dynamics of my race.

Then...I did not know who I was really racing against. Did that dude wear a wetsuit? What about him?

Then, when looking at results online that evening, my placing was different than it ultimately turned out to be, due to the wetsuit racers being listed in results and not yet pulled out. Damn...what a mess!

My solutions:
(#1) entire field allowed to wear wetsuit or not (I agree if you can't swim 2.4 without, you should not be racing an Ironman. Can you use training wheels if you can't ride a bike?)
(#2) start wetsuit clad after everyone else has started. Give them 17 hrs. But get them out of the race. If you wear a wetsuit in this instance you are in another race. Similar to the early pro start at Kona - to get age group men away from the pro women on the bike.

My 2 cents!

Yes. In this scenario is most definitely would make a difference is some were wearing and some were not.
Those wearing would have a much easier time maneuvering. And could pretty much breathe at will. And would use non-wearing as leverage to get the hell out.
Advantage? Hell yeah!

Hi Fleck. If you want to battle for an all or nothing solution, you are welcome to. Just do more about it than posting for the sake of posting and create uneccessary noise in here. Get on the phone with WTC and start your battle. Collect your data and influence change. Don't just come on ST and whine about everything being confusing. You're not being proactive nor constructive in doing so. If you want to get the wetsuit temp rule change, fine, please start a thread with that as the explicit goal. Rally consumers, officials and race directors please and proactively affect change.

I'm just trying to come up with data here and provide WTC with feedback for a better solution GIVEN the current rule set that results in a mixed start based on the actual feedback of real customers who experienced the drawbacks. As Chris G said, it is very rare on ST that there is a universal consensus about a topic by THOSE WHO ACTUALLY EXPERIENCED IT.

To the others debating what the difference between having a wetsuit on vs not in a mixed start, save that discussion for another thread please. No need for Monday morning quarterback. This thread is for those who had no wetsuit in a mixed start to post their experiences.

To those who have posted your experiences, many thanks. 112 lb 61 year old women competiting for Kona slots should not feel their lives threatened in a mass start from men twice their size clad in rubber.


Dev

Dev, you might want to tell Dev ;^)

That's a pretty frightening experience, especially coming from a strong swimmer. I don't understand the behavior that's at the root of the problem. Why does the anonymity of a cap and goggles make people feel like they can swim over the top of others, grab legs, etc.? I can understand the occasional kick and locking arms. That's going to happen with that many swimmers in a confined space. But the brawl mentality is ridiculous and downright dangerous. This doesn't happen at the local 5k running race with 2000+ people.

While I can usually push hard for a few minutes and get clear of the scrum, I never do it by swimming over others, grabbing limbs, or other aggressive behavior. In fact if the person next to me is swimming wide, I'll sit up and pass behind them rather than swimming over the top.

Personally, I'm in favor of wave or time trial starts, but I know that's not the Ironman tradition, nor the topic of this thread.

Like I said, you are missing the EMOTIONS. Panic. Fear. Or better yet, the confidence that comes with knowing that you are wearing a life vest and are less likely to drown.

I'm guessing that the athletes without wetsuits on KNEW they could swim the distance without help, while the others that did where a wetsuit thought they MIGHT need an element of help (warmth, flotation, whatever). With a wetsuit acting as a flotation, whether intentional or not on the behalf of the athlete, the athlete is only concerned with going forward and not using energy to keep the head above water, or not as much I should say. The athlete without flotation needs to exert energy to keep the head up, more so than the athlete with flotation.

Speaking only for myself; I know beyond a doubt I am a strong enough swimmer to swim the distance without a suit on. I am confident in my ability to swim and tread water. I have no fear of water. I can not say the same for the other athletes, especially the ones that opted to use a wetsuit even when told that the "race" was not wetsuit legal.

Had NO ONE been wearing a life vest, then they might not have been so confident to swarm in such tight packs and crawl over each other. Or crowd together when treading water. If you need to move your arms to tread and have no flotation device, you will instictly move to a spot wear you CAN move your arms to tread water and survive, instead of bob up and down in the water wearing a wetsuit and crowding together like a mob.

Here's a data point for you.

I've never done LP, or any IM for that matter. I'm a 160 lb, 52 yo male who has swum competitively and played water polo. I swim 25 min for a HIM.

Although I'd someday like to race at LP and attempt to qualify for Kona, all this talk is scaring the you know what out of me and making it unlikely that I'll ever sign up.

Fleck, I agree with Dev in that there is no way WTC will ever completely disallow wetsuits. There are too many people who just want to complete the course. To do that they need to survive the swim and for many of them that requires flotation. I'm not saying I like it, but that's just the way it is.

Victor

Disclaimer: I wasn't there and have never worn a wetsuit, so this is just a guess.

If there is a behaviour difference between wetsuit wearers and non, I'm going to guess it would come down to the wetsuit wearers having a few mm of rubber protection.

To strain another analogy: let's say you're in a bouncy castle with 20 other people. If you're wearing a football uniform with padding/shoulderpads/helmet, you're probably going to jump higher, run at the walls faster, etc than a guy wearing shorts and a tshirt, because you know you're protected and if someone bumps into you, it won't hurt. It might hurt the guy you hit, but you'll probably still play a bit harder anyway.

It may be the same with wetsuit wearers: since their skin isn't exposed, they don't feel the bumps as strongly as the non-wetsuit folks. Swimming over a guy might feel awful without a wetsuit (you'd feel their skin and hair, and probably get scratched as they try to get to the surface), but to a wetsuit wearer, they'd just feel some bumps and pressure through the rubber.

So there's probably two elements:
1) Risk compensation - they swim more aggressively because they feel protected
2) Numbing effect of a few mm of rubber - because they don't actually have a direct feel for the water and people around them, they can't tell how violently they're bumping into people.

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STAC Zero Trainer - Zero noise, zero tire contact, zero moving parts. Suffer in Silence starting fall 2016

How does the IM Lou bike suck? Just curious for your thoughts.

Are you strictly speaking of IMLP? Or are you trying to say all races will have the option of wetsuit, because if this is the case, then I will mention IM Louisville and IM Cozumel.

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Pink? Maybe. Maybe not. You decide.

Thank you, perfect analogy.

As you point out, core temperature is dropping the entire time a swimmer is in the water, so drop in core temperature will be much less in a 55 minute swimmer than a 2 hour swimmer. Maybe having a gray area is safer.

I'll have to take you guys' word on this, as I never thought of a wetsuit as "armor." Do people really think like that? How can anyone not be aware that they are running into and over other human beings? Yikes.

Reminds me of an experiment in trying to teach chimps to drive cars (or go-carts, more likely). They were able to teach them the fundamentals, but they couldn't get them to understand that you don't accelerate when the light turns green if there are cars stopped in front of you.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

I'm sure they're aware, but since they can't really feel the people they're grabbing/elbowing/kicking other than as points of pressure through their suit, they aren't aware of the damage they're inflicting. [I assume] they're not going out thinking "haha, I have this rubber suit, so I'm going to rail this guy in the head", they're thinking "oops, I think I just hit that guy in the head" or "oops, I just ran that guy over", without realizing at a visceral level how hard they just hit a guy or how hard that guy underwater is having to work to get back up.

Another strained analogy: you probably wouldn't kill a small animal via blunt trauma with a hammer or golf club, but you've probably killed lots while insulated in your car.

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STAC Zero Trainer - Zero noise, zero tire contact, zero moving parts. Suffer in Silence starting fall 2016

Here is my solution.
Start wetsuit wave first as a TT from 6:30 to 7:15. Even on a 2 loop swim things will be spread out and chip timing will ensure everyone does 2 laps.
"Kona" wave starts inmass at 9:00. Midnight cutoff for both starts.
May want an exception for 60+ crowd.
Sure Kona wave needs to pass others on bike, but should be strung out by then.

Not sure about armor but I pretty much always feel like batman when I put my wetsuit on ;-)

Again, I do not think there is any conscious difference in the way people act when they have a suit of vs not. Taking yet another stab at a good analogy its like how people tend to yell when they have head phones on with the music loud. They do not mean to yell and do not know that they are but it is easily discernible to those nearby.

Good point. I was specifically thinking of LP, but perhaps I'll have to amend my statement: "There is no way WTC will ever completely disallow wetsuits where the masses expect to be able to wear them."

So ideally, WTC should reset expectations, but I don't think that is likely either.

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Agree that the bouncy house analogy is a good one.

I don't think anyone (or mostly anyone) is *purposely* swimming aggressively in a wetsuit - they probably don't even realize they are doing it.

When you have one on, you are much less effected by the scrum, so you don't really think about it or worry about it much, it's just part of the game.

A few thoughts i had while driving in to work today:
1 - it's very unlikely this ever is an issue at LP again. It took a record freak heat wave to get the lake above the 76 degree threshold.

2 - 76 degrees is NOT "too warm" for a wetsuit. I was cold standing in waist deep water prior to the start, and saw numerous others shivering. Was totally comfortable w/ the air temp, which was high 60's at that point. But the water made me very chilly.
I spent the first 20' of the bike ride shivering and teeth chattering. I've been hypothermic before, and it sucks. Glad I was able to warm up again prior to the Keene descent. That woulda been ugly w/ a shivering rider aboard...

3 - IF they were to have this happen again, having 3 waves - Pro, awards contenders, and Finishers, each :10 apart, would alleviate much of the issues.
You can't have more than :15 max after the Awards wave for the rest to start, or else it would negatively impact the Pros on lap 2.
So say Pros at 6:50, Awards at 7:00, Finishers at 7:10 - something like that.
Keep the cutoff at midnight, and the wetsuit awarded probably gain ~:10 minutes anyway by being allowed to wear one, vs being forced to do without.

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float , hammer , and jog

I raced IMLP with a wetsuit. I would be fine racing it without a wetsuit, but I chose one because I knew I would be way off from awards/Kona and I didn't want to deal with the issues that all of the "non-wetsuit" swimmers are reporting. Having said that, I did see a bunch of the non-wetsuit people shivering pretty badly before the gun went off. I was perfectly comfortable temperature wise with a sleeveless one on and am overall very glad I had one on since I got kicked and punched a bunch.

I raced Cozumel last year, and didn't even feel remotely the way I felt on Sunday. Nor was I beat up the way I was on Sunday.

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Kat Donatello
2015 Betty Designs Team
RD, The Pumpkinman Triathlon Festival
http://www.pumpkinmantriathlon.com/

This was my exact experience. A late season running injury erased my chances of any award/ KQ, therefore I had no reason to leave the wetsuit in the bag. I even took the time to prop one of the non-wetsuit swimmers while waiting for the gun. She was (hot) shivering and happy for the relief.

To the OP: This was, by and far, my tamest experience in LP swimming. Last year being the worst in the bump and grind. This year I had a smooth ride around both laps of the swim.

That being said: I am in full support of the cut-off temperature. I like black and white, no gray. I can swim comfortably with or without.

I am not in support of wave starts. When the gun goes off, the race begins. Not just for some, but for all. (Aside: I don't mind the pros going off a little early, they are racing for different stakes.)

I also think that the RD/ WTC needs to develop a better communication policy for current water temperatures and wetsuit/ non-wetsuit at least 24 hours in advance. There was way too much speculation, even at 9:00 pm the night before the race without anything posted on their site. I can't imagine the anxiety of some of the athletes that wanted to compete for an award/ slot going to bed not knowing what to expect in the morning.

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

Dev,

Thanks for the slap in the face!

I thought I was helping provide a bit of back-ground information regarding how the WTC arrived at their position and the stance that USAT takes on the matter. This is not important information in this discussion? You don't need to understand the, "Why" before you try and suggest a change? My apologies, for contributing to the "noise" of the thread!

And why wouldn't the WTC change the rule (if there is a sound basis to do so), they seem to have become fairly adept of late, recanting on all manner of things after taking ill-advised steps forward? Why does this have to be within the current rules?

I also thought that my 30 year back-ground and perspective on the sport might be helpful (compared to the, with all due respect, knee-jerk reaction from one race of many others) as well as being someone who works in the wetsuit business and has had extensive talks on this very subject matter with various stake-holders and players involved with the issue. But I guess from your perspective my input is wasting yours and others time. I am sorry.

I'll make no further contributions to this thread!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

There's actually a fair amount of interest and research in appropriate water temperatures for open water racing right now because of the Fran Crippen affair. FINA now regards 28C/82F as a maximum temperature for bare skin competition. I wouldn't be surprised to see USAT/WTC take that into consideration when they're deciding on wetsuit cutoff temperatures, and find it very unlikely to see legal westsuit temps adjusted upward any time soon.

That's interesting. Depending on who you believe, the water at Muncie this year was 81 or 82 at the start and I'm sure only got warmer as the swim went on.

First, there were a handful of people that still wore wet suits because they could.

Second, I came out of the water hot and sweaty, the first time ever in any race. I was also very dehydrated and had to drink a lot just to catch up on the bike (which I never did and eventually had problems).

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"...the street finds its own uses for things"

Steve, you can call the reaction of those who experienced IMLP without wetsuit "knee jerk from one race". In fairness to them, everyone who raced without wetsuit in this mixed start has provided this forum (as well as myself offline) the same description. I'm just collecting this on their behalf. I don't think in your 30 years, (16 as competitor, last 14 as non competitor), you have experienced what they did, so I am sure a few are feeling a bit peeved that you are calling their reaction knee jerk.

The direct feedback I have received, is that their experience was very unpleasant, the situation was unsafe and in many cases took away from the ability to race.

The boys at WTC are smart guys and am sure will be willing to address this while still allowing a large amount of their field to use wetsuits. If you can get Jimmy R to help with separating the types of swimmers with waves, that would be awesome, but as I said earlier in the thread, this thing appears to be more on the race organization side and how the rule is implemented and race logistics executed, rather than a pure enforcement of the rules. As far as I understand Jimmy is there to enforce the rules, not create them nor to influence structure of race logistics.