A buddy on mine was out in Utah a year and a half ago. In the week he was there, he heard a lot about that lake and the trouble when the wind picks up. He heard it called death lake. He and I were both there last year as participants. Now this year… a very similar weather condition.
Either someone is buffalo-ing… or someone is not listening. It does not appear to be the ‘fluke’ condition that the press releases speak of.
when I went last year and they said that the lake has a bad reputation for being very dangerous.
Mind you, after last year there is no way I’d ever go back, I know that it was extremely unfortunate but between what I experienced and what I was told by my friends that live out there, I’d rather race elsewhere.
I doubt that anyone will ever have to worry about going back to Utah (at least to race in an IMNA event).
I’ve lived near Utah Lake for 51 of my 58 years on earth. I’ve swam in it, water skied on it, fished out of it, and ice skated on it.
The lake can be and often is dangerous. I wouldn’t describe dangerous conditions as flukes. In the past 4-5 years, I think 4 people, including the great American distance runner Paul Cummings, have died on it. (BTW, none was wearing a life jacket.)
But the really dangerous conditions only happen one or twice every three to five years, in my estimation. Would you consider that frequency a fluke? If it’s not while I’m on or in the lake, yes; if I’m in the middle of a triathlon, no.
If Utah Half IM is held next year, I’ll sign up again, but I sure wouldn’t sign up if I lived out of state and had to spend time and money getting here. Not worth the change–fluke or no fluke.
What I love is the “spin” that Ironman Live put on this race. Here’s an excerpt from their coverage:
“Fortunately this gave the age-groupers time to watch the pros and a little more time to stretch and fine tune bike preparations.”
What an unbelievable load of crap that is. The hubris of IMNA to have this as a qualifying race after last years fiasco is beyond belief. I have a tough time having simpathy for those who paid for this race…nobody with any sense should have been there in any capacity. By the way, last week at Brazil, the RD didn’t have the swim course buoys properly secured (one blew away) and didn’t have enough volunteers in the water. Some swam off course and were DQd…real nice for the participants there. Chaos abounds. I just pray they have it together for IMCDA (my race).
I raced at IM Utah last year and although it was a bummer to be in the water for over 1h and then see the swim cancelled, I thought and still do that they made the right decision. What I don’t understand though is how you can call a fluke the same occurrence two years in a row. From what I read, this year lake conditions were pretty bad at the start of the race and they got better and better in a little over an hour. Exactly what happened last year. Last year Utah Lake conditions weren’t that bad after a little more than one hour, definitely swimmable. It looks to me that IMNA either didn’t do their homework or somebody put a spell on beautiful Utah County. Either way I agree with whomever said that even local participation was mild at best and that one of the great things of doing a long distance triathlon is the support one receives from the crowd. Last year I spent about 2 grand for a duathlon (I’m Italian), while last month for about a quarter of that I had a blast at IM Lanzarote, where everything was first class.
See you at IM Switzerland
Filippo
Here’s Cam Brown’s quote about the day…says it all:
“Pro athletes were used as guinea pigs to test the severity of the swim and, if my own experience was anything to go by, the cancellation - which applied to age group athletes only - was probably the correct decision.”
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I was late catching the news on this one.
IMNA didn’t do their homework before IMUtah last year. They didn’t learn from their mistakes last year. And all 900 people who signed up obviously haven’t been paying attention either!
i happen to be in utah for a few years. i swim in the lake regularly during the summers. yeah, it IS unusual for conditions to be like that, but it does happen. and after last year’s race, they should have been smarter about it. i know that it would be less convenient, but there are other bodies of water around here. they could build races around the jordanelle reservoir, deer creek reservoir (though closing off the 2-lane highway 89 could be problematic), and even look at the venues for other races in the area (echo canyon, etc.). i think the issue is being able to have this close to a decent-sized city (provo-orem or salt lake city) to get the publicity, volunteers, etc. i was going to do the race this year, but an injured achilles tendon kept me from running enough to make me feel comfortable paying $200 for a race. i was glad i didn’t do it, since swimming is my strength, but i hope they figure out a solution that can work.
i forgot to mention in the last post that the swim was going to be in the boat harbor, protected from possible weather conditions, which would have solved the problem. but the drought here lowered the water level too much, so they had to have it out in the main body of the lake or not at all.
Honestly I doubt there will be another IMNA sanctioned event in Utah County for a long time, the reason being that in my opinion, from what I learned in a week in Provo last year, Utah lake is the only venue where you can hold the swim. I’m not an expert, but from what I remember, Deer Creek Reservoir was freezing cold and definitely unsuited for a triathlon. I don’t know about other lakes, but they all seem a bit too far from a large city/town, and I doubt IMNA will risk going to Utah Lake for a third time