Galveston 70.3 cut off time implementation

The official cutoff was 8:30 after the last swim wave.  They did start doing progressive cutoffs starting with the swim  (1:10), then midway through the bike, then the bike finish, as well as part of the way through the run. 

I got the info during the athlete's meeting and I finished early enough where this didn't matter.

Pros started at 7:00am and the last swim wave started around 8:30am so cut-off was 5pm.  However, they did have intermediate cut-offs where if you were not likely to make it, you didn't have to keep going until 5pm.

There were volunteers/officials that were supposed to be at the cut-offs to let the athletes know.

So am I right to calculate the swim cut-off speed at 3:38min/100meters?

If you were in the last wave.  Say you were in the first you'd have much longer.

Yeah, that looks right. Of course, if you aren't in the last wave then you have more of an advantage. I've been looking at doing the Galveston 5150, and the swim cutoff there is 1 hour, so 4:00/100m

I would hate to be the volunteer to tell people that they missed the cutoff.

OK, on the risk of underestimating this, but I swim currently 2:15/100m in a 25m pool.

When I swim I feel like a turtle as all other swimmers are faster than me.

So I wonder can you really swim a 3:30/100m if you have properly trained for a HIM?

I would reckon so...  depending upon the stroke and your navigational skills,   it could be nip and tuck.  AFAIK there is no requirement to only swim freestyle - I see plenty of breast stroke going on in most OWS along with some folks that do some sort of OWS IM -  freestyle, breast stroke, back stroke, kayak - repeat until transition

You are right the rules do not require any stroke.

It is only required that you do not obtain assistance in moving forward.

Wave times are in the athlete guide

http://www.ironman.com/triathlon/events/ironman-70.3/texas/athletes/athlete-guide.aspx#axzz2QFqsdgAP

Thanks for the link below information again is helpful. I read it atleast 5X i cant find the wave times there only mentioning 1hr.10mins after the last wave.  I guess they really expect us to finish it at that time exactly.

Oh well i found some HALF IM distance our of state that are more lenient with swim cut offs, considering swimming is only 1.7% of the race.

Thanks for all the info.

I was not in jeopardy at Galveston so IDK what they did there.

At some races that I have volunteered at they tent to kind of look the other way if your close on the swim. They get a little more strict on the bike and run. I guess they think you can be a weak swimmer and strong on the bike and still finish.

To answer question about will they actually stop you? Yes they will I have seen them do it.