Day after Thanksgiving, isn't this Ultraman Kona time?

Triathlon Forum
1

Always remember this as being the time those ultra folks do their thing in the motherland of triathlon. Had a quick glance and see that relays are in this year, is that a new thing for Ultraman?? I ask because it looks like a really good friend of mine and a Ultraman legend have teamed up for that relay division. So who is racing this year, going to be competitive, any possible records falling?? Seems like the overall numbers are down a bit, is this considered the world champs for this category?

thailandultra, you out there buddy to critique this thing?

2

so they have relays. Interesting. Curious how the licensee RDs feel about the money they are paying for that. Do teams qualify at their races? curious. honestly.

Anyway, that said I have a friend in this race on womens side with Anja Hooten from Kelowna and part of her crew is an 'ol friend Tara Norton who is a previous winner. Go Anja!

BTW: have you seen Leanda’s short documentary from 2022 race? Interesting commentary on quality of organization of said Ultra WC.

3

Day 1 has almost finished. Simon Cochrane leading with a 7.15 (2.38/4.36). I’m not sure what the course record is but I think he will break it given his UM Australia and Ultraman Canada results earlier this year.
Numbers are low, really low (22 individuals). Maybe that’s why there are relay teams? It would be a very expensive undertaking travelling to Kona with 3-4 support crew for the week.
Good coverage on Facebook via Bob Babbit or the Ultraman worlds pages.

4

Ya they say the limit of the race is 40, and no where near that number. I suppose the Kona allure just didnt transfer over to this race, too bad. Not my cup of tea, but love to follow it and the folks that do make this an actual race. The relay thing would be a smart move to just keep this thing going, only 2 teams this year but I bet once word gets out, a lot more would attempt a day of this amazing island tour.

My buddy has lead this race and done all sorts of crazy ironman things, like the 7 Ironmans on 7 islands thingy. He is teamed up with a multiple winner too, so probably both guys were not really ready for a solo effort, but still want to be part of the show…Tim and Rob, not sure who their 3rd teammate is…

That seems like a pretty fast time for Day 1, solid swim and bike, presume he wore a wetsuit??

5

down to 15 after a lot of day 1 DNFs
Simon Cochrane with a 3+ hour lead
.

6

Numbers are way down. Usually the 40 slots are filled up immediately and there’s a waitlist too. However I think that the presence of alternatives and the expense of doing this race played a big part in the reduced demand. Unfortunate too since it is the 40th anniversary which is also why relay teams were allowed. The relay teams have to consist of at least 2 qualified people and the third one can be a rookie. I had fun out there with Tim Sheeper and Ian Hersey, and for once I got to just enjoy being there without trying to win anything. I also got to crew for the first time ever (same for Tim) which was an interesting experience.

It’s a pity that Simon had this world class performance with nobody there to race him. It makes it even more impressive since it was just him against the clock for 3 days. Yes he wore a wetsuit but his swim was actually relatively slow. However the conditions on the bike were very favorable both days (the best I’ve seen) and that makes a massive difference.

7

Numbers are way down. Usually the 40 slots are filled up immediately and there’s a waitlist too. However I think that the presence of alternatives and the expense of doing this race played a big part in the reduced demand. Unfortunate too since it is the 40th anniversary which is also why relay teams were allowed. The relay teams have to consist of at least 2 qualified people and the third one can be a rookie. I had fun out there with Tim Sheeper and Ian Hersey, and for once I got to just enjoy being there without trying to win anything. I also got to crew for the first time ever (same for Tim) which was an interesting experience.

It’s a pity that Simon had this world class performance with nobody there to race him. It makes it even more impressive since it was just him against the clock for 3 days. Yes he wore a wetsuit but his swim was actually relatively slow. However the conditions on the bike were very favorable both days (the best I’ve seen) and that makes a massive difference.

Hey Rob, I have followed this for a couple of decades and know guys like you. Tony, Marty etc who are regulars, but it feels like the event never did itself any favours with how much it costs. Would it not be possible to have this event with checkpoints inside each day with refuelling and making it self supported in between (versus having to have a fully supported crew). They already know the “players” so if a player does not show up between checkpoints, with a certain time, the organizers just send someone to find that person. Also the checkpoints with aid could be “rolling” for example the early morning checkpoints back up and move to early afternoon checkpoints, the late morning checkpoints pack up and move to late afternoon checkpoints.

Then can have 100-200 people in the event without 100-200 crews driving all over the road at 30kph clogging up traffic on the bike and run

In a way, if I am doing a crew supported loop around the island, I can fly two of my friends over to Kona, rent a car and follow me around the island in three sports in the car and I get the same thing as entering ultraman? What am I missing?

Instead, jack up the entry fee, provide aid at checkpoints (they can literally be 5km apart on run, and 20km apart on bike…at the checkpoint, pick up enough to cover you to the next checkpoint…label your bottles and stuff just like special needs in an IM and go fish it out of the pile) and organizers move the checkpoints down the road. On the swim, I show up, organizers find me a kayaker and with my kayaker, I work out my pacing, nutrition and navigation and tell her/him what I need them to do for me. I have done that on a local 12km lake crossing. You had to pay extra for the kayaker and kayak if you don’t provide your own.

I believe the issue with capping the entry is support crews all over the road creating traffic? If you get rid of that, then it reduces the barrier to entry if its like any old race?

Congrats to you Tim and Ian

Dev

8

I’ve suggested this type of solution but they are dead set on two particular traditions that limit scale:

  1. no loops of anything (everything is point to point)
  2. everybody makes a speech at the dinner (even those that DNF)

These are things that give the event a particular type of family atmosphere and feel. The alternative branded events like the 515 series do not have these rules, and can therefore scale. I did an event in Mexico earlier this year where we had a 1km swim loop in a lake, a 5km bike loop and a 1km out and back run on an old concrete airstrip. No crew vehicles, and I actually got to see all the other athletes the whole day because of the loops. So a different experience for sure, and if I ever put on an event I will do that kind of format. From a safety perspective this was also really good because we had police escorts up and down that 5km bike loop. The overall cost to the athlete is therefore a lot less, more like the range of doing an Ironman race (although definitely not at that slick production level)

9

I’ve suggested this type of solution but they are dead set on two particular traditions that limit scale:

  1. no loops of anything (everything is point to point)
  2. everybody makes a speech at the dinner (even those that DNF)

These are things that give the event a particular type of family atmosphere and feel. The alternative branded events like the 515 series do not have these rules, and can therefore scale. I did an event in Mexico earlier this year where we had a 1km swim loop in a lake, a 5km bike loop and a 1km out and back run on an old concrete airstrip. No crew vehicles, and I actually got to see all the other athletes the whole day because of the loops. So a different experience for sure, and if I ever put on an event I will do that kind of format. From a safety perspective this was also really good because we had police escorts up and down that 5km bike loop. The overall cost to the athlete is therefore a lot less, more like the range of doing an Ironman race (although definitely not at that slick production level)

I see the attraction for the Ultraman Hawaii to be a giant single loop of the island which is why I suggested my rolling aid station/checkpoint option vs dedicated crews. I also see the attraction of the 10x1K swim loop, Nx10km bike loop, 42x2km run loop in terms of ongoing intamacy.

Speeches at the end sound cool, however, I think if they limited to top three male and female finishers and last place male and female, and top male and female new finisher, right there you have 10 speeches and that would seem plenty to cover off the breath of experiences and “road to Ultraman” stories.

If anyone wants to hear the rest, I am sure all the competitors share their reports on facebook with each other anyway.

It’s not like we are sitting in 1983 when ultraman started, Vinod Khosla and Andy Bechtosheim had just founded Sun Microsystem (pre personal computer, pre Macintosh), the hypertext transfer protocol was still 6 years from being released by CERN and Zuckerberg was not yet born. Today we have modern “big iron computers” in data centers, we have a comms protocol to transfer files between computers all over the world and Zuckerberg and crew brought us the likes of facebook after slowman invented slowtwitch.com…surely we can read all the stories on facebook and don’t need to hear them live before the dawn of the internet.

Having said, that my body broke just as I was getting interested in giving this a try. The closest I would get is the swim leg on a team at this point in my life.

10

Having said, that my body broke just as I was getting interested in giving this a try. The closest I would get is the swim leg on a team at this point in my life.

For me the relay was a dream come true. I have crewed for both Tim and Rob multiple times and also live on the island, so I got to team up with great friends and athletes - all I had to do was make sure I finished so that Rob would get to run the double marathon he was so looking forward to.

Which was no easy feat, by the way. I did Day 2, and 172 miles is 60 miles further than I had ever raced. It was not pretty, but I got it done, and experienced a beautiful sunset on the way to Hawi. :slight_smile:

At 61, I think I was the oldest competitor (Tim’s only a babe at 60), so maybe there’s a shot at doing the whole thing while I still have a functioning body. I need to stop all this startup stuff, though.

Ian

11

I was super happy to see the two teams full of Ultra-legends this year.Must have been lots of fun over race week.
Well done all.

12

I see the attraction for the Ultraman Hawaii to be a giant single loop of the island which is why I suggested my rolling aid station/checkpoint option vs dedicated crews. I also see the attraction of the 10x1K swim loop, Nx10km bike loop, 42x2km run loop in terms of ongoing intamacy.

Speeches at the end sound cool, however, I think if they limited to top three male and female finishers and last place male and female, and top male and female new finisher, right there you have 10 speeches and that would seem plenty to cover off the breath of experiences and “road to Ultraman” stories.

If anyone wants to hear the rest, I am sure all the competitors share their reports on facebook with each other anyway.

It’s not like we are sitting in 1983 when ultraman started, Vinod Khosla and Andy Bechtosheim had just founded Sun Microsystem (pre personal computer, pre Macintosh), the hypertext transfer protocol was still 6 years from being released by CERN and Zuckerberg was not yet born. Today we have modern “big iron computers” in data centers, we have a comms protocol to transfer files between computers all over the world and Zuckerberg and crew brought us the likes of facebook after slowman invented slowtwitch.com…surely we can read all the stories on facebook and don’t need to hear them live before the dawn of the internet.

If you’re going to do Ultraman, you basically have to be on board with the values they want to preserve. They don’t want it to be bigger, and it’s not just about the fast athletes, because in the spirit of ‘ohana, everyone is part of the family, so everyone gets to share their experience. They do limit the length of the speeches, though, and they’re pretty quick to let you know when it’s time to wrap up. Speaking from direct experience. :slight_smile:

You should come and crew sometime and take in the vibe. It’s a fun and rewarding way to spend the Thanksgiving weekend!

Ian

13

Ian, congrats on the team success with Rob and Ian. I do get wanting to preserve the values, but what happens if in preserving the values, eventually not many people are there? Again, I am an outsider, so I don’t know how it works just adding from the peanut gallery.

As for the startup thing, I offer all my employees a three month paid sabbatical after their fifth year of service (they can tack on longer with leave without pay). In any case, next year, I am at year 7. I am thinking about going to watch Kona, stick around the island, be around for UM week and then head to NZ for 70.3 Worlds (I still have to qual so lets see) and then go back to startup life and count that as my sabbatical while working remotely part time. This assumes I close my next round of financing long before, but there is no real chance I can personally take a “turn everything off” sabbatical. But I can use it to just not be local (we decided at end of pandemic, no more remote hiring, we want to be in the same city and see each other “often enough” although we are hybrid). So I don’t think I can take the true sabbatical to go do tri stuff, but hope to use the same privilege I give my employees to work from Hawaii and NZ and count that as my sabbatical time. Maybe I can get on a UM relay and do the swim. I don’t think even the bike is in my cards anymore. My longest ride in 8 years is 4 hrs !!!