Just curious – would anyone be willing to pay somewhere around double the regular IM entry fee (say $800) if signup was capped at somewhere around 900 entries.
I’m guessing that something like this could be just as appealing to IMNA (same $$'s for them?), that a lot of the females would gain extra space in the swim, that the largest group of swimmers (somewhere around 1:15?) would thin out considerably, and that really competitive AG people might like to eliminate the mass in the swim that turns into riders of varing speed and skills at the beginning of the bike?
Nope. I would look towards other cheaper non-Mdot races if the fee was that high.
Having done IM LP’05, the only really tough part from a crowd standpoint was the swim. Loop 1 of the bike was a bit crowded, but being a not-so-great cyclist put be in openness on loop #2. Run course was fine as far as I am concerned. So keep the people in the race. You have to survive a swim, that’s it. No biggie.
If anything, lets try and get the fees down a bit.
I’d guess that total IMNA revenues (and expense deferments from the local community) is based on a larger number of competitors and their families/friends. Hence their sponsorships depend on a certain exposure and the community support comes from lots of hotel and meals being sold. So it might not work with half the number of competitors.
But I would be very happy to pay $300-$400 to do Vineman, ChesapeakeMan, Grand Columbian, Blue Devil, or any of the other non M-Dot irons along with a few hundred other people. And if more people were willing to go the independent route, then those numbers might make it up to the 900 you cite.
But I would be very happy to pay $300-$400 to do Vineman, ChesapeakeMan, Grand Columbian, Blue Devil, or any of the other non M-Dot irons along with a few hundred other people. And if more people were willing to go the independent route, then those numbers might make it up to the 900 you cite.
James…sure, as long as you could still qualilfy and get a $450 entry :-). Or they just need to make us run the marathon first, then bike then finish with the 4K swim and all the drafting issues would be resolved…then you can have 3000 people in the race although you’d have lots of dudes drowning…so how bout swim 4K, run a marathon and then ride 112 miles :-).
Short of wave starts there is no real solution to the current congestion during the swim and first couple of hour on the bike.