Might I suggest that they would not have had front page coverage if the opening image consisted of a line of several hundred people standing behind a row of 3 tip toeing their way gingerly across the rocks?
Epic visuals grab your eyes, and sell papers, at least they used to.
As a coach, I would have a realistic conversation with my athlete that if theyāre not swimming under an hour, they should probably rethink their Kona ambitions (unless they chose their race wisely).
FWIW, nearly all of my ārolling startā experiences have not been four athletes every four seconds. Almost everyone in the sub 65 minutes or so swim start is in the water within eight minutes of the cannon. Awards for most run races, even those with ārollingā starts, are gun time, not chip time.
Most runners who run races arenāt racing for āoverallā but for time are they not; unless your at the very pointy pointy end of the field? Like if your racing for overall, you obviously go at the front corral, and accept that your 12s behind the front line if your in the 6th line of athletes crossing the line vs the very front line. But every other runner whoās starting 2 hrs behind (hell Boston has people starting hours after the 1st athlete FINISHES correct?) knows they arenāt going for āoverallā but times within the running events, correct (thus they use chip time to then give those athletes a time)?
So within triathlon the āgun timeā category is the proās, everyone else is just like every other endurance event = chip time. Any other method wouldnāt make senseā¦IE you canāt do a rolling start but then go off gun time only; if you want gun time then you go off mass start.
Haha. Agreed. And note. When they held the IMWC there, they considered the rocks too dangerous to run on. Iāve gone full-tilt down that beach many times.
While that is absolutely true, that doesnāt undermine the somewhat maybe irrational feeling that most people still have. In every race Iām in, as Iām getting closer to the finish, Iām still looking at people up ahead and wonder if I can catch them and how much it matters. Itās totally irrational, because itās just as likely, perhaps even more, that itās the people behind me I need to be worried about that I canāt see. So even if I can see someone in front of me, and wonder if itās worthwhile to chase them at all, thereās 1000 people behind me, some percentage of which could very well be just seconds away from being in front of me, despite being completely out of view.
So despite the irrationality of it all, the rolling start does introduce these externalities to the competition that confuse things for competitors. I havenāt been in the position before, but I assume there is an occasional pissed off AG winner who had no idea what they were up against.
We can say, āWell you just need to race harder all the time,ā but we should also be fair and acknowledge that the concept of racing your competitors is undermined this way. A blind time trail is probably the least fun type of competition given the alternatives.
In fact the ādemand of competitionā is now in that you are essentially racing an iTT and that now you do in fact have to ārace harder all the timeā. Thatās simply the now demand of the sport. So essentially the idea of you racing your competitors should in fact be thrown out the window. With the new AG KQ rules, your racing yourself + everyone by way of basically 3k iTTās (I guess it now is technically women only and men only; so whatever % of gender is in that race that day) that get ranked in order after the race. So yes you now should 100% āyou need to race harder all the timeā mindset, not the opposite that your suggesting. Whether itās the best or worst format- this is the new reality of non-draft IM racing (and not new, but only new in that rolling starts have been around for years, but now atleast for IM racing your racing every gender in the race; not just your own AG).
I would want a bright orange one so they could more easily find my lifeless body floating away LOL
Pissed off competitor needs to brush up on optimal pacing and race strategy for the demands of the course. (Iām actually serious)
However - I will give a bit of grace period as the new KQ rules shake out. This is all brave new world for everyone, of both genders, and will take time for everyone to learn quirks.
That said, I do stand behind my statement that if you missed it by 4s and felt like if that person had been within eyesight and you could have maybe overtaken them, start looking at your transitions, or your nutrition, or overall pacing before asking for mass starts so that <1% can have that experience.
(Iāll also point out that if the other person youāre trying to overtake sees you, whatās to say that they didnāt also have a bit in reserve?)
Your right the new kids are soft on mass swimming. Mass swimming is the true IM experience. I loved the starts particularly IM Lake Plaid. Mirror Lake had a cable below for triathletes to swim the cables line. I found it better after many IM Lake Placid swims to go outside the cable. No traffic just clear water finishing under 60 minutes in all the races.
All 5 of my IMs(FL,LP,AZ,CdA,Cozumel) were mass starts and that makes it more epic especial racing the midnight deadline luckily not me as I was dead tired after 11-ish hours and couldnāt imagine 17. Most of my other tris were age group wave starts. I think I āretiredā from IM before the rolling starts began.
For IM I would at least want a AG wave start as the people racing want slots. I believe my M30-35 wave was 200-ish people, which I think is still doable. The smaller age groups can be combined to hit the sweet spot number. For my best IM at LP I think if I was surrounded by my age group I mightāve pushed a bit harder and got closer to the the Kona slot.
That old reason is not really that applicable anymore, since you are racing the entire field in your gender for those slots(outside the winner) But I agree with you that AG starts are the best, they used to do this at USAT nationals(maybe still do), so you get a good feeling who you are actually racing in your AG. I think most were 100 to 300 in size, so easily managed, and they would also put 10 minutes between to avoid any real swim contact with the earlier group. Those were the daysā¦ (-;
Since IM seems to be receptive to various demands as long as itās not directly related to price, I wonder if enough pressure could be applied on this issue.
The mass start has the potential to attract more prestige to the event through the visuals that get disseminated. However, if itās an in-water mass start, thatās much less exciting from a visual perspective. The mad dash across the beach is what everyone wants to see. So the mass start really only becomes a selling feature at events that can facilitate the beach start. I donāt mind the in-water start at a world championship as Iām not really racing for my place. But at a regular Ironman, Iād definitely be floating my way up towards the front just to make sure I donāt start 45 seconds back from the gun time.
The question mark of a more dangerous swim is an interesting component, but the real question is, what requirement is that. In my work, at least, our insurance company does not get so granular as to what kind of operational changes need to be made to reduce liability premiums. Itās pretty much, are you involved in X, how much are the sales/participants, hereās your price.
If it can actually be shown that deaths have increased after rolling starts, thatās at least a case that can be made to persuade Ironman the change is worth considering (I highly doubt if they make this change they are going to run it by their insurance company or that their broker is paying attention to these decisions).
The ultimate question is, would a mass start increase participation or decrease it? If the answer is, āboth, depending on the groupā then, the next question is, can you facilitate both without increasing the operational complexity of the event?
By all means reach out to IM to get mass starts back! But yeah what Ryan said.
Ironically, as has been pointed out there are actually mass starts happening at some races now, so that 0% is cute, but not accurate.
As I said please be the crusader to get it to 100% races and then you can dunk on our assessment.
So accurately itās currently 0.5% of IM events that are a mass start (1 out of 187 non-draft half or IM events) according to a quick AI search. So yeah what Ryan said (again).
No dunking needed (I save that for oreos the night before a race). It wouldnāt make sense at 100% of all races.
I added an edit, itās currently according to AI search 0.5% of IM events doing a mass start. 1 out of 187 70.3 or IM events. So yeah what Ryan said. So yeah that 0.00 is cute and pretty damn accurate. Even if itās half a dozen races, it aint coming back.
there is mass start this saturday in taupo, itās epic
Penticton! Even half a mile from shore no way to do anything but swim forward. Like being in the middle of a massive peloton. Such a good memory : )
Sometimes I think the rolling starts was never about safety but about attracting more participants - it seems like today people have marginalized there swim training. This seems coupled with the popularity and increase of down current assisted swims.