I’ve heard reports that the water in the river is quite warm, but I can’t imagine the race director wanting a non-wet suit race for the inaugural float down the river. Does anyone have any info on the water temps?
Yes. No matter what the water temp is. They will somehow fudge it if need be. Threre is no way an IM wont’ be wetsuit legal.
Why not? Every year Florida 70.3 is not wetsuit legal.
You mean like Hawaii, which is put on by WTC, which is the same organization putting on IMKY?
How about IMFL?
I think Hawaii has fewer first-timers and a higher ratio of experienced swimmers. I mean, I could be wrong, they may have it be non-wetsuit but I would be shocked. Especially for a non-Hawaii IM in the US.
IMFL has been wetsuit legal as long as I’ve lived down here. We generally get the first ‘winter’ cold front coming through 7-10 days before the race and that knocks water temperature down to the 70-75F range.
Ron, do you play jazz flute? just curious…
to answer your question, i do think it will be wetsuit legal because the river has a huge channel that flows through it; the water gets very churned up underneath the surface (therefore enabling a cooler temp).
also, we’ve had a series of thunderstorms recently which will make the river cooler.
the storms may not continue; as August has a low average rainfall, but at least in the short term the water should be a little cooler than if it didn’t rain at all. July is the hottest month, but hopefully the storms have offset some of the heat effects.
over the past few years August has been cooler in the second half of the month. so with all of that said–there is a good shot at the event being wetsuit legal.