I spoke to a few of my friends racing yesterday and they all just about DIED of heat stroke on the swim with the wetsuits on. What´s up with the WTC allowing wetsuit in such warm waters? Fresh water lake, no waves, shoreline, should be the easiest swim in terms of safety so that can´t be the reason?
Is this just a suck-up to wetsuits sponsors or do the WTC want their IM´s now to be so approachable for the common guy that swimming ability isn´t even necessary?
Not only is wetsuits in that warm water nothing but a foating device but downright dangerous with the high temperatures later in the day. It sets you up nicely for a heatstroke!
Of course you can choose to swim wo a suit but will be way of pace and mauled by a neoprene clad wall of boyance aided swimmers.
oh I´m sure the “official” water temp was on WTC´s side but the real and actual water temperature were by all accounts a luke warm 24-25 degress as been reported by just about everyone I talked to.
I raced that year – no wetsuit for pros. I remember it was announced that a.m. and many pros seemed a bit ticked off…some of them had speedsuits in their gear bag, some did not.
actually Jonas, this is not the pussification of Ironman it is the opposite. Ironmans are too easy so an added challenge is to have swimmers swim in warm water wrapped in rubber. By your own admission people were overheating…
We were told at the pro meeting on Friday there would be no debate and that race officials had decided it would be a wetsuit swim “optional” swim for pros. They said it was out of concern that fast age groupers would catch the pro swimmers as there was only a 10 minute head start leading to too much bike course congestion.
In my opinion, this was a bad call as it was too hot (reports of 75 or 76 degrees on race morning) and overheating was a big problem. I opened the front of my wetsuit to let water enter in no less than a dozen times and still felt hot throughout the entire swim. I don’t know how this would have effected the race from an organizers standpoint but it seemed silly not to start the pro wave 15 minutes in front of age groupers and then not allow wetsuits.
WTC is just following USAT rules, if you have an issue, it’s with USAT. I think there are frequently openings on the USAT board, you could try to affect change, or just complain on ST.
I raced in a fullsuit yesterday and didn’t overheat at all.
I have some friends who are RDs and I think there is quite a bit of pressure to allow wetsuits by “fudging” a degree or two. Most racers want a fast time and underestimate the heat issue so the decision to prohibit wetsuits is unpopular. The RDs are also aware that many participants are marginal swimmers at best and don’t want to be pulling people out of the water.
I would think that IM would mean that the participants are decent swimmers, but who knows?
Jonas is referring to the pro rules. If it over 72, then the professionals can’t wear wetsuits. Yesterday it was 75, and they were allowed. That is the problem.
The pros swim fast enough that they are certainly going to be quite uncomfortably warm in wetsuits in 75 degree water.
i suppose if age groupers wanted to they coud have done something crazy and used their own judgment and freewill and decided it was to warm and raced without a wetsuit rather then let some third party tell them if it was to hot or not??? i know personally i can never tell if the water is too warm unless an RD tells me so
Looking into the issue and there will be “official” complaints registered. Not sure if you are on our professional email list but this was polled, voted on, and past earlier in the year. Our professional organization agreed upon a NO WETSUITS above 72 Degrees for events 3000m or longer. The fact that this was ignored this weekend is a slap in the face. Working on it.
i suppose if age groupers wanted to they coud have done something crazy and used their own judgment and freewill and decided it was to warm and raced without a wetsuit rather then let some third party tell them if it was to hot or not??? i know personally i can never tell if the water is too warm unless an RD tells me so
X2
There were a few people that did do the swim sans wetsuit. It was probably more of them being badass then the water temp tho.
I think there is quite a bit of pressure to allow wetsuits by “fudging” a degree or two.
Pressure from who? Pressure from the 90% of triathletes that whine whenever the RD announces that the water is too hot for them to wear a wetsuit.
So then…the RD takes out a rule book, puts it on a table and walks away…that is what I would do. But, RDs want as many people as possible to want to come back so they try to do what the majority of their customers want. Since the overwhelming majority of triathletes want to race in wetsuits, it seems only rational for RDs to err on the side of having the race be wetsuit legal. Given rather well known rules of physics, it’s not that hard to get water temperature measurements that are lower than the actual average temperature for the body of water used for the swim. I don’t like it, but it does make sense.
There were a few people that did do the swim sans wetsuit. It was probably more of them being badass then the water temp tho.
I’m not so sure. As a dude who overheats pretty easily, I would have gone sans wetsuit and paid the time penalty. I did the same thing at Vineman half where the water temperature was similar and I ended up having a great race although my swim time was a solid 10% slower than normal. I also went sans aero helmet in that race for the same reason. I think people underestimate how much swimming hard in warm water can heat you up.
Regardless of race length, I think people should be aware of their threshold temperature, above which they will go without a wetsuit or go really easy to keep themselves from overheating.
The perfect water temperature for me with a wetsuit is between 60 and 65. That feels nice and cool and refreshing to me.