I’ll be in, seeing how well I can do in a new age group - M45-49. This one is a bit of a tune-up race for me - first actual race of the season (not counting the local sprint a few weeks back), and a bit of a how’s it going in advance of making a 70.3WC push later in the summer.
Current weather forecast is rain overnight, which would likely mean a cancelled swim. I don’t mind all these new river swims from the perspective of ‘beginner friendly’ but they all carry the risk of “small amount of rain cancels the swim.” Last year’s swim was cancelled, and I hope that this year’s swim doesn’t suffer the same fate.
As someone who swims well and handles his heat decently, I’m almost wishing if the weather gods can pause the forecast for a day so we get Saturday’s weather, which is hot and muggy.
Hoping you don’t have it canceled, that was a bummer last year. I will say last year we got a significant amount of rain all day Saturday the day prior, it just kept coming down. My only tip would be to get there as early as you can for check-in if there’s a risk of it getting canceled again. I didn’t do that and was near the back of the line for the time trial start. Stood around for about 90 minutes waiting and then was constantly passing people all day.
I think two years ago it was cold and rainy all day during the race, they aren’t having much luck with the weather for this one. But then again it seemingly rains every weekend around here!
Doesn’t this account for all OWS locations for races, whether a river / lake / coastal or ocean swim? Rain = run off issues for any body of water I would think.
True. But I do think the larger the metropolitan area surrounding that body of water, the more likely it is to affect water quality. If the body of water is much larger than the surrounding urban area (ie, Kona) much less of an issue.
The run off is the issue from not just all the junk in the roads, but the sewer/drain pipes zigzagging across the surrounding areas that have slight leaks in them, leeching small but “manageable” amounts of waste water into the ground that gets saturated with rain and flows downstream in a storm. That problem I think will never really be fixed as long as we bury pipes in the ground.
I’d actually argue it depends on what the nature of the land around the body of water is being used for. If your in rural areas with lots of livestock, that will have as likely contimnation issue than just metro areas. (so each area or body of water is going to be specific to the human impact of said body of water; whether metro or rural farming etc)
I’d have to worry about this as I did a weekly OWS for almost a decade. My rule was 48 hours was more important for rain fall run off then within 24 hours…EXCEPT if it. was inches of rain, it would be an no swim. But less than 1 inch of rain within 24 hours of a swim, I’d still hold it, because generally the “run off” hadn’t reached it peak at that point (nor had the debris that also fills the body of water as well). My swim was always 7am Sunday swim. So pretty much Friday night weather was the last weather I gauged, again unless it was an complete Saturday all day rain fall, but the Carolina’s don’t really get that all too often. Summer time it was usually pop up afternoon shower/storm and then sunny (and god’s inferno high humidity). This was all done talking to water quality specialist and whatever literature I could find, etc.
I was actually thinking more along the lines of if it rains, that means that your current flow is going to increase, and that past a certain “safe” flow rate, IM cancels the swim. vs a lake just gains a few inches of depth (and likely gets a bit colder).
But yes, there’s also sewage and agricultural runoff; which I imagine would be more sensitive to recent rainfall. A lake can more readily absorb a bunch of e.Coli (even through just volume), but a river may be more directly impacted.
I would still think flow rate is going to be factored into when is the rainfall, mostly because your as much affected by way upstream with flow (which then takes time to get downstream) as you are “local” rainfall affecting flow. I just checked the weather underground site, it doesn’t look like rain anytime soon except Sunday mid morning showers. So unless that area got 3 inches of rain the past few days, there really shouldn’t be anything that affects it.
I just looked up the weather history for 2025.
June 6th had 0.6in of rain
June 7th had 0.4in of rain
June 8th race day (no rain from 12:00midnight until race start time)
I just looked up the weather history the past few days (in addition to the no rain in the predicted forecast that I saw):
June 1st- 0.1in rain
June 2nd- no traceable amounts of rain detected
June 3rd- no traceable amounts of rain but “light rain” as conditions
Downriver swim always tightens up that part of the race, so it doesn’t confer much benefit to better age group swimmers in my experience. At least that’s what I tell myself. Overall, this race seems like chatt with shitty potholed roads with a ton of turns, and no running on an exposed highway or across a furnace bridge.
I plan to go straight to registration from the airport on Friday. Guess we will see what happens with all this.
I just took all the data from weather underground. I generally find that to be more accurate than other weather sites (weather.com or others). Their weather station is the airport. I wasnt there if it was heavy rain, fair enough, it just didn’t show up on this weather historical data. It looks like from later evening previous night to race day early AM it was “mist” w/ fog (that never wasnt heavy enough to be “measurable”). Again if it heavy rained, fair enough, it just apparently didn’t heavy rain at the airport that I guess is 10 miles from Springfield “proper”.
And yes it looks like rain saturday 4pm ending ~midnight, but that may be enough to cancel it, if it was cancelled last year with similiar weather.
Hey All, I’m doing this event for the first time and have a few family members on the trip as well. The website and athlete guide don’t provide much info on where spectators can camp out during the event, especially since the bike and run courses are only one loop. Any tips from those who have done this event regarding what/where are best spots to watch/wait during the event? And yes, praying the swim is a go. Thanks guys and good luck,
I haven’t done it yet, but from my youtube preview watching, I gather that the best places on the bike for spectators are circled in green. If your spectators want to move around the course, the easiest path is that they can take the quasi major road (labelled “feeding hills” then → southwick) and then camp out the southern spot. Then when you go by, they transfer to the northern spot.
Though from what I gather this course isn’t the greatest for spectators overall.
My wife was there with our two kids and they stayed around the transition area to see me finish the bike, head out on the run and then at the finish line. They didn’t get there until I was almost done with the bike though, our kids are young and only willing to hang around waiting for dad for so long! I don’t think there was a ton for them to do around transition, but they seemed to have an okay time. Tim’s idea on the bike would likely work based on my recollection of the area, if your crew is inclined to get out on course. The run course would likely be tough for them to spectate on since you do that 1-2 mile out and then it’s two loops before doing the 1-2 mile back into town. Worse case they can go hang out at the casino! Haha
Yeah, this is ultimately the big issue: storm and sewer lines all dump to the same treatment facility, and if you wind up with too much rain, you get overflow into the nearest body of water.
Factor in that by Springfield you’ve had 4-5 of those such facilities up and down the CT River and, well, let’s just say I don’t recommend a white kit.
I had a chuckle today at the transition seeing the setup in person. While I suspect that this technically meets branding guidelines, I’m not sure this is exactly the best look. On the plus side, the run course is quite nice (if hilly)
(Yes, I knew it was in a parking garage, and yes you make it work with the facilities you have)
