I had a disc yesterday in nice quiet windy!!! Plus descends at high speeds in that wind it was no issue. And if an athlete had an issue don’t use it.
Run loops in kona. Yes
Nice Has a great run experience and kona is kind of boring.
My good idea for kona would be
From t1 you head out on Ali drive and go further out 8 km Then come back and up palani and a short run down the queen k. then back making a 21 km loop . You can get 4 looks at runners and race info and keep people on the run course.
Plus Ironman you can cover the course easier and close the far out and back area of the queen q earlier. And less aid station but have then more often in kona this is crucial. Plus the energy lab hates us running there pre race.
My idea, make the swim start for age groups way way wider. Nice too . I would rather swim 20 m extra on the outside wide then fight people.
My idea . We need a high caloric drink we can grab . Like a bottle is 500 calories or mautren 320 at least.
Yeah I was thinking about that this morning. You could even include maybe running up Kuakini Highway from some more climbing. You could also do a loop of up Palani, north on Queen K, turn left on Makala and back into town. Although the Energy Lab is iconic and a place people really struggle, I think that might be worth the sacrifice to make the run spectating easier. I don’t think just doing 4 loops of Ali’i would be as good, it’s just really narrow.
HELLS no. Terrible, terrible, terrible take. It was clear at at Nice that there was going to be no substantive changes in the leaderboard bc there was no challenge from the course. A looped course in Kona would make the race boring as F!. They (PTN) may hate the Energy Lab, but it forces changes in the game. Think about Laidlow’s blow up bc he couldnt take the heat after cooking on the bike. Instead they need to find a way to enable spectators in the Energy lab.
No opinion
Meh, This has been debated to death and there will be one side that says drink your calories and another that agrees with separating carbs and electrolytes. I wouldnt be opposed if PFH takes over all fuel and hydration for them to have both the carb version and the electrolyte only version, but for now it’s possible to self support just like any other race. I actually like having them separate, what I’d prefer is they use the high elecrolyte version vs the standard.
They need to build or buy a facility to hold training camps in the off season and to house athletes during race week. I’d absolutely go there in the off season to train if they did. I loved my training camp in Kona.
they need a serious local presence. Kona is IM so why isnt IM in Kona? They need to have a staffed office there with a gift shop and other things like bike and wetsuit rentals.
Ya the disc thing is stupid, has been for over 40 years. I know how it happened and the stubbornness within each owner to not change it…
but I vote no on the run course change, it is just too iconic to change. Yes the run course has changed many times over the years, but it always had a big marathon feel to it. Different little out and backs and covering a lot of different ground. A looped course like Nice is certainly easier and folks on site get more looks, but the eyeballs that are counted are not the ones on the island. And watching battles coming out of the energy lab, or up Pay and Save hill, or up the last grade into town, are just way more exciting that someone putting on a second a k more speed and slowly moving away from someone on the flat on Alli drive.
But like in Nice, they probably did it for the least impact on the community, and the easiest for the RD to to setup and control. Plus a lot cheaper to be able to use just a few aid stations over and over, in volunteer labor and course set up…
Pros ride in a pace line and pass 1 at a time. So the outcome of a pro getting shoved by a gust has a low risk outcome, they may crash but they don’t take many (any) people out. An AG race is far more congested. So if a rider gets shoved by the wind there is a significantly higher risk to them taking someone else out than just themselves. I think you need to build into that before just jumping head first. So pros absolutely should have them, then maybe AGers in a few years.
We do need nostalgia, it’s what retains engagement. It’s why people watch the Masters, go to Lambeau/Wembley/Wrigley/Camp Nou. There is a ton of value to a brand to retain things which spark memories. But that’s the side benefit the real benefit is having a real marathon not a bunch of 5-10k loops around a veritable race track.
They do, but they don’t have a presence there. Those employees should have an office with branding and a outward facing presence. I went 7ish years ago and was very dissapointed to find there was no gift shop no nothing. If they did that they could build up some level of good will with the locals but contributing to the community through out the year by employing people to work in the gift shop, maintain a visible presence and heck generate some extra cash through sales of merch.
I’d guess the amount of lost revenue from having to rent an office and a staff of locals 7 days a week, isn’t really worth the investment in local good will. The amount of merch they’d have to sale would likely be more than you think it would be.
Having worked at a tri store where I went from fitter to management, seeing the number of line items to run a business where you either pay rent on the building or mortgage (and thus how much revenue you need to make) is always more staggering than you think imo. And when all your selling is a t-shirt or backpack, suddenly you realize just how much you have to sell n order to stay in biz
If your wanting to give back just making a yearly donation would be likely better for all involved and assume IM “gives back” in that type of setup as well.
Nope I wouldn’t be, retail merchandising is my profession so I’m pretty well aware of what it take to turn a profit on a retail business. They don’t need to turn a significant profit just cover costs, but what they do need is goodwill among the locals as they have committed to Kona being the go forward WC.
There are a lot of athletes who go to Kona to vacation and for training camps. So creating a space for that isn’t out of question. They could easily have a little coffee shop along with a merch section to cover the cost of an office location. The office could be used for the local team but also for storage of WC assets as well as a home base for the larger team during the lead up to the race. A place for meeting with key vendors/sponsors during the week and even better an onsite studio for the broadcast team.
It’s a terrible idea, if you want to do good will just give back in a yearly donation to the community. IM builds basically a remote city every year there in the build up to Kona to fill any meeting/location needs for the race. So beyond that, your going to need every part of that location to sell merch to cover costs, so stuff like a coffee shop would be great. Places for 3 meetings a year, waste of space.
If you add a coffee shop to it, you’ve just either shrunk the space to sell merch or you have to double your shop size (and increase costs). So as I said regardless of your expertise, opening up a shop for local good will sounds great on paper, and terrible to some guy in a board room when they are “losing” money on that but hey the good will of the people is there? *Generally they want some type of measureability to atleast then say it’s worth the investment or not.
I also think the whole “good will” is at this point what is it? Renting and employing a half dozen locals isn’t going to make one bit of difference imo. I think it’s sorta is what it is, we get 1 weekend a year type of “good will” with the locals now. There’s almost no chance we suddenly become more popular and better vibes imo with any *realistic idea.
