Rinny’s interview she called REV3 her worlds and that the IM 70.3 Worlds is a “Mickey Mouse race”
nice honesty…I like it
.
Just don’t link to the article or anything.
It was live on the Rev3 coverage post race.
not an article rev3 race coverage video
.
Got to agree with her. The course in Clearwater is a joke. Anyone who claims a PB on that course needs to have an asterisk beside it
Yes, but with the extra challenge of oil during the swim this year, maybe it will be better…
I was there when she was interviewed and those were her words. Pretty much verbatim.
Here is the video. Quote is about 3:50 in…
I was there when she was interviewed and those were her words. Pretty much verbatim.
That was awesome. It’s pretty hard to discount someone for “sour grapes” when they’ve won the race. Good on her for saying it. The Rev3 course would make for an epic WC.
That’s awesome. “It’s a Mickey Mouse race; the course isn’t hard enough”.
Rinny’s interview she called REV3 her worlds and that the IM 70.3 Worlds is a “Mickey Mouse race”
nice honesty…I like it
and this is why i didn’t want to take my slot for this race this year. my wife forced me to… more for the trip i think though.
*don’t tell me the ways i could have not listened to her… i know the drill.
While I’m happy Miranda said that as I raced Rev3 Sunday, I wouldn’t just piss on Clearwater. The race is what YOU make it. Don’t draft off someone else and run your own race.
One of my major goals this year is to Qualify for Clearwater. It is the only race that I’m aware of where EVERYONE had to qualify to be there. There isn’t a lottery that I know of.
I don’t think going to Clearwater is something to blow snot rockets at. It may not be the hardest race for 70.3, but just like all race days, it’s about how you got there.
Agreed. You can race Clearwater 100% legal. We need more people who want to go there and race clean. There is plenty of room to drop back your 4 bike lengths IF YOU CHOOSE TO.
Many choose not to and the packs form. You can either play with the packs or let them go by.
I chose to let 5 packs go by, but my bike time and effort was 100% in line with other events. At Clearwater I averaged 224W (if I recall correctly…may have been 225). At Mooseman this weekend on a very tough course, I averaged 209W (the downhills drive the average down, but certainly not as much as soft pedaling half of clearwater at 160W).
I would LOVE to see a harder course or a true TT format with a swimmer leaving every 15 seconds (not every second or two). Last year I was athlete 1241 and got in the water at 7:22 AM…22x60 second = 1320…in other words, 1 athlete was entering the water per second. Spread it out to one every 10 or 15 seconds and we have a real race.
Clearwater has a athlete “spacing limitation” because there is one part of the course that is used on the “out” and the “back”. The last athlete heading out, must be done before the first athlete coming back. Talking with Steve McFessel last fall, it’s something line 90 minutes.
So 90 minutes = 5400 seconds.
As a bare minimum, let’s try 1 athlete every 4 seconds…that covers a field of around 1400 athletes. Sure will create a lot better athlete spacing than 1 athlete per second like last year.
Once the local contract with Clearwater expires, WTC is aparently looking at other venues.
The great thing about Clearwater is:
Lots of cheap hotels beautiful beaches Lots of flights and great connections from around the world to Tampa Great weather Excellent family destination
They should just jack up the fee and limit the field to 1000 and have more competitor spacing (5 seconds per athlete) and then I truly believe we have a chance at a fair race.
As for Carfrae’s comments, if the pros had TT start in Clearwater, then it’s just about who executes a better race.
Great post Dev. Clearwater is a cool race. you can certainly go there, have a great time, and race on a really fast course without drafting. Not sure why Miranda feels the need to call it a Mickey Mouse race. I found it to be an equally hard, if not harder race than Eagleman. I don’t may people hammering that race. So I say PB’s, if earned the non-drafting way, are legit. Not that I really care what my PB is!! Just my $0.02.
If they could move the 70.3 champs to Kona it would solve half of wtc’s issues.
As a point of reference, my Clearwater time was 4:22. I did 4:17 at Esprit in September. Esprit is ~1-1.5K short on the bike, so call it a 4:20. I’ve done 4:17-4:14 at Esprit the past 4 years. Bike times ranged from 2:10, 2:12, 2:15, 2:17 to 2:19 depending on direction of wind and rain (hard to take the corners fast when soaked). Esprit course is the only other course that I do that is pancake flat with good pavement, so its a good comparison to Clearwater. So I’m not a Clearwater PB hero 
Here is something more interesting:
My Wildflower-St. Croix- Mooseman bike splits since 2006 have all been 2:44-2:46. These are tough courses with lots of elevation gain. At Clearwater, the 224W average gave me a 2:16, in the same range as some pro women.
There were age group women who I saw whipping by in packs who I later looked up who have done 3:15 bike splits in St. Croix and 6 hours in Kona doing 2:13-2:17 in Clearwater. They are not that much bigger than me, so if they biked with equivalent efforts on hard courses, how come their times at Clearwater can be close to a pro woman, but when they go to hard hilly race, they are around 30 minutes slower?
I’m really hoping that I get to Clearwater and there is a “chance” that I get to actually have a race with the other guys in my age group. But if the wave spacing is tight and there is a lot of drafting, then I’ll just revert to “racing myself” and enjoying some vacation time in the sun. I really can’t control what other people do even though it might piss me off a bit. I’m committed to work with the folks at WTC to provide input on what did and did not work in 2009, so hopefully it can be improved on in 2010 so that Ms. Carfrae and others feel compelled that they NEED to come back and win again at Clearwater, rather than feeling like the event is Mickey Mouse.
It’s a nice wake up call for WTC when an ex Champion who is also on WTC’s Kona podium is willing to come out and hammer the even that she won. I don’t think Mr. McFessel wants that…it has a bad ripple down effect on the value of all those Clearwater slots that RD’s pay good money to hand out at their races.
Dev
“you can certainly go there, have a great time, and race on a really fast course without drafting.”
I would not have a great time knowing that I was losing to people largely due to their ability to draft.
“you can certainly go there, have a great time, and race on a really fast course without drafting.”
I would not have a great time knowing that I was losing to people largely due to their ability to draft.
True, True. If you are fast enough to be looking to win your AG, then Clearwater would be very frustrating. I was not going to win my AG regardless (4:25 in M35-39 does not get it done!). I was just coming from the perspective that I was definitely not going to draft and was just going to really challenge myself on that course, and I think I was able to do that. The big packs that came by got ahead of me pretty quick (after I dropped back), so their influence was minimal to me personally.
Might also have something to do with Rev3 having $150k prize money, and the “World Championships” only having $100k.
That is kinda Mickey Mouse.
-bobo
I think the bigger issue with Clearwater is the challenge of the course, or lack there of. All the pros I talked with who spoke about Quassy talked about the fact that it was a challenging course and the best and fittest athlete won.