I was out there! Very cool event yesterday!

I've got some photos in an album here:

https://www.scottflathousephoto.com/events

Race went great. Everyone finished the swim. The water and conditions for the first 3.5 hours in the swim were good. We had a little delay in the morning with some fog that hid the first turn buoy. But we figured out a solution. At about 3.5 hours into the swim the wind picked up considerably and it got a little rough. The grouping of the top three men(Tyler, Matt and Justin) was fairly tight on the 10k. They all finished within 5 minutes of one another. The temperature on the run course heated up quickly. By Lisa’s final loop on the run it was 95 degrees.

Tyler Blackburn, a local age grouper, led out the swim and made it through about 4 miles on the run He called it a day when his heart rate spiked and his pace slowed dramatically. Matt was running a few hundred yards back and passed him and held pace for the remainder of day. He looked solid and ran a 2:46 on a course that end up being about .2 long.

Justin started his second loop with Lisa on her first loop. They ran together for the majority of the race. Scott Flathouse, great local photographer, got some cool photos of them running together.

We had volunteers in two cars going around on the course supporting the athletes with mobile aid stations. We were able to get them what they needed every mile or so. The biggest concern was the heat on the day. In Texas at this time of year it can either be perfect or not so perfect.

After a long day and an event that many of us had talked about for a bunch of years, Matt Hanson officially became the first athlete to swim a 10k Marathon swim in under 3 hours and run a Marathon in under 3 hours. He also completed the entire single day event in less than 6 hours with transition. And Justin and Lisa became the second and third finishers of a first time event.

We couldn’t have put this race on without all the support from the local community. Aaron Thomas sponsored the majority of the pro prize purse, Scott Flathouse came out to document the event, Kim Bowden is a tireless volunteer at many local running, swimming and triathlon events and thanks to Slowtwitch and Lars for spreading the word about what we were doing.

Thanks for checking in and if you have any other questions, please let me know.

Tim

Great. Like I said I’ll keep you in the loop. We are planning on late September/early October next year.

You can find the results here: http://snappingtortuga.com/...hon-squared-october/[/url]
If you have any questions, let me know.
Tim

Great. You are thinking exactly like we are about the event(s). For the next iteration, we'll open it up for a general registration and see how it goes. If you're interested, I'll keep you in the loop.
Tim

here is a photo gallery on the homepage from Sunday
i didn't successfully complete the marathon run and only just barely made the 10km swim (2hrs, 56mins). i dropped out after ~ 4 miles of the run once my pace went below 6:52 min/mile needed for a 3-hour marathon. temps in the mid-90's certainly made it a scorcher out there!
it's a pretty unique skill set and mindset required to be able to successfully dip under that 3-hour mark in BOTH events, on the same day. i don't think it's a challenge that anyone but pros and/or the fastest elite age-groupers could complete in the same day format.
so your idea of breaking down the distance offerings is a good one to make it more doable and accessible because it's a cool challenge!
the sport of swimrun and this challenge are two very different beasts. swimrun interchanges swimming and running depending on what nature provides you and anything you start the race with (paddles, pull buoy, shoes, etc) you must carry to the finish.
this challenge was essentially an oversized/ultra aquathon. the marathon squared challenge in it's current format is far less accessible/doable than swimrun so it will be interesting to see where Tim decides to take this. but, i'm excited to toe the line the next time he offers one up!

here is a photo gallery on the homepage from Sunday

i didn't successfully complete the marathon run and only just barely made the 10km swim (2hrs, 56mins). i dropped out after ~ 4 miles of the run once my pace went below 6:52 min/mile needed for a 3-hour marathon. temps in the mid-90's certainly made it a scorcher out there!

it's a pretty unique skill set and mindset required to be able to successfully dip under that 3-hour mark in BOTH events, on the same day. i don't think it's a challenge that anyone but pros and/or the fastest elite age-groupers could complete in the same day format.

so your idea of breaking down the distance offerings is a good one to make it more doable and accessible because it's a cool challenge!

the sport of swimrun and this challenge are two very different beasts. swimrun interchanges swimming and running depending on what nature provides you and anything you start the race with (paddles, pull buoy, shoes, etc) you must carry to the finish.

this challenge was essentially an oversized/ultra aquathon. the marathon squared challenge in it's current format is far less accessible/doable than swimrun so it will be interesting to see where Tim decides to take this. but, i'm excited to toe the line the next time he offers one up!

I was thinking, for no particular reason, you could also track sub 6 for the event. IE for some loser swimmer who swims 2:30 and runs 3:25.

We talked about this but Tim I am glad you did this. We cannot keep the world moving by ourselves, but we can do our little part.

I think I could have been close to that "loser swimmer" in my 20s or 30s, as I swam 2:40 for the USMS 10K in the pool several times, and ran 1:32 for the half mary at the end of a couple of 70.3s. We need "age-adjusted" goals for those of us who are, ahem, a few years over 40. Maybe say sub-3:30/sub-7 for 50-something men and sub-4/sub-8 for 60 something males. I'll leave it to the women to chime in on their standards for over 50/60. OTOH, in a sense "goal times" don't have that much meaning IMO as I've always simply tried to go the best time I could on the given day.