When you have orange swim buoys, do not assign orange swim caps to a wave. At Eagleman, the buoys going out were yellow, and coming back were orange. My wave (like 11th of 13?) went off eight minutes behind a wave of younger women. (Aside: when the Web site and the wave start time notices at the pre-race expo say that there is a ten minute gap between these two waves, please don’t send the second wave off at eight minutes instead. Yikes!) So I get to the turnaround in second place in my wave, finding my own course. Going out was into the sun, so there were no buoy colors to be seen, just these slightly large shapes that I guessed were the buoys and not various and sundry boats nearby. After turning, I pop my head up to sight for the buoy. You know that scene from “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, where Jones is trying to find two guys carrying a reed basket on their shoulders, only to come to a market place filled with guys carrying reed baskets on their shoulders? That’s what I saw. Nothing but bright orange blobs scattered all over the place. Yow. No time to stop and figure it out, so I just swam vaguely towards where I thought I should go. I then theorized that the current was pushing the women to the left, so I just aimed for the rightmost orange blob I could see. Turned out to be the right good guess.
This is why I always say don’t site on the bouys, find something well ABOVE the water to site on, and use that to get you to the first bouy. A tree on the skyline, a building, anything. The bouy will be too low and waves/heads/arms & feet will obscure it.
This is why I always say don’t site on the bouys, find something well ABOVE the water to site on, and use that to get you to the first bouy. A tree on the skyline, a building, anything. The bouy will be too low and waves/heads/arms & feet will obscure it.
Usually I try to do that, but the logistics (first wave started at 6:50, and I went at 8:16, er 8:14) precluded a pre-swim reconnoiter. There was a big TV tower that was at the finish, but the route back from the turn didn’t go directly there.
Yeah…and for me this weekend the only thing behind them was trees…all of the same height…damnit
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oh but wait…it gets better.
the race i’ll be at this weekend uses blue…yes…blue plastic barrels to sight along. The race does use yellow tetras to mark the two main turns…but then the yellow caps kinda mess with that too.
Exactly. This was a huge problem at the Nice Triathlon. Made difficult navigation all the more difficult.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! That totally happened to me last year in a race. There was nothing to site on (ocean swim), and it sucked. 100’s of orange bobbing heads look just like orange floating buoys… Love the “Raiders of the Lost” Ark reference…
I posted the same complaint earlier with no response. At IMCDA the women wore yellow swim caps and, guess what, the buoys were yellow! Let’s see, we only need swimcaps in 2 colors, duh!
“You know you are getting old when you see your father in the mirror.” Anon.
let me first say that i truly appreciate all the effort that race directors and volunteers put into making these races happen. but sometimes, a bit more training might be valuable.
a few other notes from the weekend:
make sure you tell the athletes the correct turn buoy in the swim
getting volunteers to at least move in the same direction, makes grabbing bottles much easier on the bike, especially on a flat course. holding them on an open palm does not, and dropping the bottle in my lap only serves to cause excruciating pain
it’s nice to actually hand cups to the runners, not just stand behind the table.
it’s nice to have mile markers in the correct place
diet pepsi is probably not what people are going to want on the run
let me first say that i truly appreciate all the effort that race directors and volunteers put into making these races happen. but sometimes, a bit more training might be valuable.
a few other notes from the weekend:
make sure you tell the athletes the correct turn buoy in the swim
getting volunteers to at least move in the same direction, makes grabbing bottles much easier on the bike, especially on a flat course. holding them on an open palm does not, and dropping the bottle in my lap only serves to cause excruciating pain
it’s nice to actually hand cups to the runners, not just stand behind the table.
it’s nice to have mile markers in the correct place
diet pepsi is probably not what people are going to want on the run
I sent a nice email to the folks at Eagleman with my suggestions, and thanking them for putting on a quality event.
I was really confused about where exactly the swim turn was: past the sailboat? buoys beyond the boat? second boat?
What was your impression of the length of the run? My buddy says he had a much better run this year than last year, but his time was much slower. Was it accurate?
Did they really have diet pepsi? Yuck!
someone asked the rd before the race about the first swim turn - he said it was around the boat with the american flag. as we are well past the buoy swimming toward it, they are waving at us to turn.
i saw bottles of diet pepsi at at least one of the run aid stations. at least i think they were using the real stuff first. feel sorry for those in the later waves.
i think the run course was probably accurate - just those signs were wrong. my first time at the race, but apparently the run has been short in the past and the weather was not as favorable this year.