You have got to be kidding me, I saw at least one pack of 200+ riding in a nice peloton and numerous packs of 10-20 guys just cruising along, drafting quite nicely, and making a concerted effort to get on peoples wheels. If there are not numerous penalties for drafting I will be very dissapointed.
On a lighter note, I just finished my first half ironman. Good swim, great bike (and I did not draft), but real rough run. A gorilla jumped on my back at mile 10.
I was amazed and impressed by the number of volunteers and how hard they work to help us out. To those of you reading this that volunteered, a heartfelt thank-you goes out.
I have to agree, the drafting was absolutely ridiculous, the worse I ever seen. I think the large group you saw was actually a Sunday morning group ride. However, I was passed by three or four smaller groups riding wheel to wheel…some even coasting and still moving at 24mph+. I called some guys out on it when they went by in tight little groups of 6-8, but got nothing back. They know who they are, they have to live with themselves…especially the ones who got Kona slots. The wife nor I saw one, not one, USAT official/marshall on the course during the entire bike. The only drafting penalties were given to pros, Spencer Smith I think. From what I saw, there wasn’t one drafting penalty given to the AGers. For a Kona qualifier, I think that’s completely unacceptable. BTW, the volunteers were awesome. The Elvis aid station at mile 30 was awesome.
That 200+ pack was the Windermere ride that goes every Sunday morning on the same roads that were used by the course. They were asked by the bike coordinator (very nicely by the way) to go early or cancel, but you know how roadies are about their weekly rides! Z
Great race Tom. Was that you singing the anthem? Voice sounded familiar.
The drafting though, was quite bad, even taking out the confusion with the regular Windermere Sunday ride (PS. Given how historic and well known this Sunday ride is, organizers should have showed up to the elementary school to ask racers to take a slightly different route). I was the last wave of 35-39, so about 600+ racers from the 30-34 and 35-39 waves were ahead of me. Is it me or are these male age groups the worst offenders, period! On most of the out and backs I saw multiple huge groups of blatant drafters. I never saw any packs behind me in the other AGs. I caught one pack, passed them and yelled a sarcastic comment, they looked at me with that “F You” look on their face. I never saw one marshall. Many of my friends noticed the same thing - huge drafting, no marshalls. Too bad. Why tri?
I concur above on the volunteers. They were fantastic. The course was fun, too. I liked all the little changes in venue on the run. The heat sucked, but it is Florida after all. Expect a death march in any race in Florida between May and September.
RA - yes, I did get to sing - the real singer did not show up, so I’m the back-up. Come on out to our Lake Louisa Sprint Triathlon on Thursday night at 6:00 PM. No one ever drafts at our races - if they do, we feed the to the gators at the post race party! Z
I concur, I would say 70-80 percent of the field was drafting, the only person I tried to draft was a little hottie with the name GROGAN, I caught up and talked to her and sure enough it was kevins wifey, I said hi and passed her on the downhill but she caught me on the next climb laughing at me and then dusted me, damn, hehehehehhee.
There was some cool riders that I was hanging with, we were pushing each other but NEVER drafting and we were checking out and commenting on the hotties as they passed us, this race was hottie central, wooohoooooo.
Great volunteers, elvis was cool and the basketball dunk was great, it think I missed.
I met Gerard the day before and posed for a picture with my peacefull tribe shirt on, what a cool guy. there were other friendly St’ers that came up and said hi after seeing the shirt.
Good job Tom Z
Im sodium depleted and im going for a massage today, I think Im gonna pay extra for the happy ending, hehehehehehe.
You can count me among the disgusted at the drafters yesterday. I’ve done a lot of races in Floriduh, and I have NEVER seen so many blatant cheaters. I paced with a group of 4 or 5 people, but we were playing by the rules and keeping space between us. Then a few groups of 20 or 30 went flying by at probably 27+ all drafting. Fortunately I was ahead of the Windermere ride at the turnaround on Marsh road, that was probably hell for the guys who had to try to turn around as they were going through. If I had cheated along with the rest of my age group on the bike I probably would have placed a lot higher. I also did not see a single race marshall on the entire course.
Am I the only one who was PISSED that they didn’t have a water table anywhere close to the run start?!?!?! The damn thing was over 1.5 miles away! I intentionally went a moderate 21.1mph on the bike so I could run my butt off and try to hit a 1:45 half (fast for me). I started out cautious, hit 8:45 on the first mile and was planning on picking it up once I got some water in me and on me. By the time I got to STOL-Port at the first water table, my stomach had locked up and I was severely overheated. It took the next 5 miles at about a 12:00 pace to recover, and by then I was too pissed off to run fast (although I passed a lot of guys that had gone past me earlier). Did I miss a table, or was that just retarded to not have one?
I wondered if that Windermere group ‘picked up’ a few racers along the way. I saw that swarm going the opposite direction and figured it’d be pretty easy for a few guys to slip in there unnoticed. The drafting definitely was terrible. Worst I’d ever seen. I even saw a few guys riding shirtless! Imagine!
On a positive note, even though I had to pull out because of cramping, one 30-34 guy stopped to give me his gatorade flask at around mile 1 of the run when I was having an episode. He then gave up some of his salt tablets at mile 4 right before I pulled out. What a champ he was. I wish I’d got his name. If you’re reading this, thank you very much for your generosity!
Hope to see you on Thursday night at Lake Louisa - I’m trying to talk Natasha into doing the race! Even if she does not race, I hope she will come out to watch and cheer everyone on - I promised her a beer and hot dog, so I’m pretty sure that she will come out. Z
Any comments on the drafting complaints? How many draft marshals were there, and how well were they spaced? Looks like there were a total of 20 penalties handed out (not counting Smith’s). As someone about to do his first half IM, I’m curious.
Looking at the USAT penalty report on the results board yesterday, at least a dozen of those 20 or so penalties were for ‘Entering and Exiting’. From what I remember, there wasn’t one drafting penalty given to AGers…in a race of 2000 racers, that seems sort of odd.
There was a small water table about 100 yards from the start of the run, it was easy to miss because it was at a turn and only had a couple of people manning it.
Can tell you that 1 of those 20 penalties was mine for coasting over dismount line. Kind of ironic really as I too saw no draft marshalls out on course and a couple of fairly hefty packs of riders. A 4min penalty hurts particularly when p4 thru p7 in age group is separated by 1.5 mins. Otherwise great race, great volunteers and (compared to st croix) great organisation.
Great race. Yeah, I did it (despite last year’s complaints), even though it was just a training day for me-a “C” race. I pushed the bike and drafted a couple of times, mostly because so many people were on the course it was almost impossible not to draft. That was race 107 for me without a penalty. I’m so bloody lucky, particularly since I’ve done a gazillion sprint races in Clermont. Those races are just one long pace line.
But, it was a nicely put on race. The transitions were a bit long, but everyone did them, so no complaints. The guy singing the national anthem can sing a bit. That’s a hard song to sing too.
Heavy D, I thought for sure you were going to be right there with me or forever pass me the way you came flying up. I was suprised to see someone else going up the hills aero.
Tom, I’ll take Natascha some banana nut bread to help the bribe for Thurs night.
As for the race I too was upset about no USAT off. on the bike course, especially when 3, 40-45 women passed me going 25 towards the end!
I have to put in a side note, Racing is more rewarding now- I try to get to the finish line faster to get the best prize ever, my little peanut, Gavin.
For a while there, I thought you were talking about me! Althoug I suppose you do have a valid point. That little peanut is pretty darn cute. I saw him in his stroller on Saturday.
Hey congrats on getting back to racing form by the way. You looked good out there.
Still don’t understand why you’re so bent out of shape about St Croix adwood… perhaps 2 less beers and some swim training might have been the ticket! (I’m pretty sure they swept that course - there were no bits of your head left on the road from earlier in the week)
I wasn’t there but it is interesting when you look at the results and see a bunch of people avg 22 to 23 mph on the bike and then run an 8:45 to 9:00 min mile. Doesn’t seem to equate. Flat, 2000 people and a limited number of officials spell drafting. People who were there need to voice their opinion to Ironman North America so they can make some kind of effort to correct the drafting and officiating.
I’m a bit surprised by how much everyone has said the drafting was. I’m sure everyone expected there to be officials on the course during the bike, so people definitly took note of this lack and decided to take advantage of it.
Just goes to show you that you can’t reley on some racers to be honest. They must be policed into playing by the rules.
I’m so bloody lucky, particularly since I’ve done a gazillion sprint races in Clermont. Those races are just one long pace line.