fyi
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This is truely extraordinary and congratulations to the folks at IMNA for doing what they do.
Think about it - an event, that has never been held before, in a new location with race courses not even finalized is almost sold out!
Think about how many races struggle for years to get numbers to even break even. Amazing!
Fleck, so true and I think even if they jacked the entry fee up to $1000 US, it would sell out at the same rate ! IMNA puts on high quality events, but the quality is not that much higher than many other good races. Given that only 10% of the field is actually racing for Kona slots, surely this is not the draw.
Then again, for $1000, you can enter Roth and fly there and stay for free in a homestay rather than pay the 4-6 nite minimum stay at many IMNA cities. I think my next Ironman will be a return trip to Roth (I hope), but I may be overruled by my wife and told to enter an Ironman where we can stuff the family in a car and drive to in 3.5 hours (ie LP).
Dev
You can do Roth for about a grand!!! 
When I finally decide to find my inner slow twitcher that sounds like a good plan. But then again I was so hoping to do New Zealand (such a pretty locale)…decisions decisions…
Just curious, since I do believe that IMAN races would sell out if they charged $1000 and agreed it is a well done event.
Would you be willing to pay $250 to enter Alcatraz race?
How about any IMAN qualifier? If they upped it to $400
How about a local sprint tri that sells out quickly? $150?
At what point do athletes start to say enough?
If it got to that I think a lot of the die hards (myself included) would be starting up a grassroots tri series where the costs were a hell of a lot lower. As much as I love the sport…and some races more than others…I would never pay that kind of money for a single race. I am racing the whole year this season (every weekend from early May to late Sept) and paid a grand total of $625CAN…for 20 races. Amounts to about $31/race…not including travel/lodging. I think if prices ever go that high you’ll see a lot more private, smaller races popping up.
I don’t think they would sell out at $1000. I think enough people would take a stand and refuse to pay that they wouldn’t even come close. At least that’s what I would hope.
At what point do athletes start to say enough?
When the average annual salary of US Triathletes is ~108,000 dollars per year , I’d guess that point is a long way off from where we’re at right now.
I did pay $200 plus for Alcatraz, and I paid it three times over for the family’s relay team, so I guess the answer is yes. I won’t do it again though.
I seem to pay $400 plus for Lake Placid every year, so I guess the answer is yes to that too. I don’t do local sprints at $150, but I imagine that could be the going rate in California. There is a limit.
I love the $7 sprints in Lake Placid every Monday during the summer. I do as many as I can.
I considered the race but it seems a tad early to me to do a full IM coming off what usually is a cold Chicago winter which limits outside bike time and means a lot of indoor bike trainer work. But it was tempting though…
I hate where prices are going, but I will say this: I will never again pay $400 for a non-Mdot event.
Not that CaliMan was that bad, but it was nowhere near as well-put on as an official IM. IMNA has set the standard for what to expect for your $400, and J&A didn’t even come close. I love the idea of having other IM options, but price your race accordingly.
For the quality of race they put on, I’d say it was worth more like $250, tops.
I’m in. See you folks in April…
It seems that the conversation always turns to $, which I sorta understand.
But…to compare Cali or UM to the ole M-dot seems rather silly. I’d rather set-up my own course with a few buddies and run it on a weekend with nice weather than travel to anything less.
Would you be willing to pay $250 to enter Alcatraz race?
No way. I can do it for free everyday.
How about any IMAN qualifier? If they upped it to $400
What do you mean “if”? They already have hit the + $400 level? No for me, not right now for the locations they have. None float my boat to travel to. Instead I’m going to IM NZ and Ultramax (family lives there). Roth, IM Brazil, IM Western Australia, IM France and maybe a couple other international IM races are ahead of any IMNA race. Though IM Austin would make me reconsider.
How about a local sprint tri that sells out quickly? $150?
No way. Even the Oly distance races around here are only about $80-125.
clm
I would never pay $150 for a sprint when they can be had for $50-$60. As I said earlier, I passed on an Oly that I have done for the last three years because it went from $70 up to $105. I didn’t like the shirt THAT much.
Olympic Distances is the east are selling out at $125+.
Our costs to hold these are ridiculous.
Our Steelman Du to close the roads $7K
Thank goodness we worked our butts off for sponsors
I’ve heard others say they’d put on their own low key races for real cheap. Good luck getting a permit. If no permit, no insurance route - hope you enjoy sitting in a jail cell.
Remember Fletcher Hanks? They put handcuffs on a 70 year old man.
Wow, that is spectacular. It just goes to show that a fool and his money are easily parted. No course, just announced a couple of weeks ago, sounds like another fantastic event put on by a well misguided company. I hope they overload the course like every other damn race they do and 75+ person drafting packs wander the asphalt grassland like a hungry pack of hyena. Awesome.
I wonder if it will be possible to just write Graham Frasier a personal check and buy an IM slot from him someday. Why go to all the effort of doing an IMNA race?
I can enter an Olympic distance race in Ottawa Canada for $50 CDN and it is as good value as any race that I have entered in Europe, Asia or the US. That’s approximately $37 US. I can’t believe you folks pay >$100 for Olympic tris. Racing is overrated anyway. Just get a group of friends together and put on your own race.
IMNA does a fine job and you get your money’s worth (in my view), but other non mdot options are pretty awesome too.
Fleck, so true and I think even if they jacked the entry fee up to $1000 US, it would sell out at the same rate !
I doubt you would sell out an Ironman at $1000 a whack, but at a $50 increase per year, IM races will be there fairly soon. When people are used to paying $400 a year, you can bet the next year it will be creeping closer to $500.
When you consider many people’s yearly bike and gear expeditures, $400 doesn’t seem so great. It really blows my mind that people do it a year in advance. Who knows what could happen in that time? Crazy.
Chad
We really are spoiled here in Ontario. The quality of race managment has been, for some time, very high. It was Graham Fraser, that set the standard for this years ago.
Fleck, you are correct that , Graham started out in 1985 and set the standard with great races as did the folks at IMC that Graham bought out, and whose template he has applied across North America over the past 5 years. Interestingly enough though, the very races that he started off in the late 80’s and early 90’s such as Muskoka continue to have excellent organization (run by his brother Mitch) and continue to have “sub $100 CDN” for entry fees.