Ironman Coeur d'Alene : Official Thread (Page 34)

Response from WTC regarding IMCdA mass start:

Thanks for reaching out. My apologies about the delay, I wanted to make sure we had all the facts before responding to your inquiry. As you may have seen, we announced a new SwimSmart initiative focused on improving athlete satisfaction and reducing anxiety during the swim portion of the race.

The 2013 IRONMAN Coeur d’Alene will feature a rolling start. Athletes will enter the water in a continuous stream through a controlled access point, similar to how running road races are started. An athlete’s times will start when they cross timing mats under the swim arch.

Athletes will be directed to self-seed on race morning based on their projected swim time. Volunteers and staff will be in the staging area with signs and will assist with this process. Self-seeding will not be mandatory but will be encouraged. All athletes will have access to a dedicated warm-up area in the water located adjacent to the swim start.

Age-group athletes will begin entering the water at 6:35 a.m. for IRONMAN Coeur d’Alene and will have the 2 hours and 20 minutes from the time the last athlete enters the water to complete the swim. An athlete’s time does not begin until he or she crosses the timing mat located below the swim arch. All athletes are expected to start by 7:00 a.m., thus keeping all other timelines and cutoffs the same. This will ensure that all participants have at least the full 17 hours (subject to intermediate cutoffs) to complete the event.

Please do not hesitate to contact me with any additional questions, have a great day!
Best,

April Dickerson
Coordinator, Athlete Services
World Triathlon Corporation
2701 N. Rocky Point Dr. Suite 1250, Tampa FL 33615

thank you for sharing this, and nice job getting a direct answer!

I'm still somewhat on the fence about this, but leaning towards happy. This will be my first full distance IM so thats where some of the relief comes from..however I do want to have the experience of the mass start. Oh well..it's out of my hands so I'm just going to roll with it as thats all I can do.

What are others thoughts? Is this a good thing, bad thing, indifferent? Just curious to see if I'm the only one slightly happy about this.

Cheers,

Brian

"Age-group athletes will begin entering the water at 6:35 a.m. for IRONMAN Coeur d’Alene and will have the 2 hours and 20 minutes from the time the last athlete enters the water to complete the swim."

No matter how I read that I see it saying that people who start before 7 will get extra time.

Read it the exact same way. The next sentence regarding and athletes time not starting until they cross the swim start seems more in regards to overall time, but yes folks will get extra time according to this.

That pretty much relies on proper self seeding...but if slower swimmers (I'm not fast..but if  you need more than 2 hours 20 minutes I dont think your going to finish perioed) but could pose a problem in regards to folks who might want to game the system a bit if they'd like the extra time.

Wont effect me as I'll be wide right and hope to not see any of you in the water

"Athletes will be directed to self-seed on race morning based on their projected swim time"

Oh FFS, when does this ever work?  Triathletes are a bunch of LIARS when it comes to swim time.  I'd rather have waves based on age groups.  Booooo!

It does look like that, however, let's say you start at 6:45 and don't get out of the water until 9:10.  You're out of the water before the 9:20 cutoff but still over the time limit.  You'll be allowed to continue the race and as long as you make all the other cutoffs, you'll cross the finish line like everyone else, get your hat and finisher's medal, but your results will be listed as a DNF.  That according to the race director in a meeting yesterday afternoon.  They anticipate there will be only a few, if any, people who actually do this.  We'll see.  I'm not a fan of the rolling wave start but hopefully it works out ok.

Thanks for clearing that up.

I think AG should start half hour before the pros do so they have to deal with congestion . And pros can only pass you going uphill including the run.

Really I have been worried about the mass start since all of mine have been wave starts but I had a plan to stay back some anyways. I rather be a little slower on the swim but swim with confidence rather than constant worry of being kicked or swam over. 

How will you know what your finishing time is?

If you start at 6:43 but the clock starts at 6:35 with the first group...blah blah blah go through your day. As you approach the finish you'll have to have kept really good track of your times swim, T1, bike, T2 etc...and be able to do quick math to figure out your actual time because the time that will be show won't be your finishing time. Right?

I don't care. I was going to be the last off the beach to be safe, but this will work fine.  I swam just over a mile Monday in a low 60s high 50s degree lake and it took me 36:48.  I stopped twice on shore to turn around, but I plan to seat myself with the 1:20 crowd on the swim.  It has been my planned swim time since the start of training.  

Since I don't get them here I'm more worried about the large downhills and weather. 

On a random note.  I at 6 hotdogs yesterday at a cookout.  That can't be good for training, but they tasted soooo good with that fresh fruit. 

Have a great day everyone.   

I love the mass start. First year I learned that what I thought was back a little was not the case and was pushed around a bit. The second year I was more cautious and knew to stand WAY back if I did not want the same feeling.

I will have to see how this rolling start works. Might be ok might not be. I like the idea of everyone starting on the same clock. I like the rush of the start. No big deal still have to execute the day and have fun.

On another note to this start. How do you all think it will affect the bike? I am thinking that if a slower person thinks they swim fast and they do OK, but bike slower. Do you think the rolling swim will hurt the bike at all for some of us. Not sure if this is very clear or not. I am thinking of how some people in a marathon or other run put themselves in the front when clearly they should be in the back. They walk or are slow for the spot they started. I am thinking that this might hose the bike in a way. Might not but I see the bike as more of an issue. Also there are a lot of people who can swim very quick but can not bike very well. On this course there are some tight spots where they will now be in front of you. Just brainstorming I guess. I am sure it will all work out.

Here is the first official post I've seen. 

SwimSmartInitiative 

That's a very important distinction. Why didn't they put that in the official statement today? The official statement strongly implies people who start before 7 am will have more time to swim. If they will get a DNF, they really need to emphasize that point both out of fairness and to discourage anybody from seeding themselves too high in order to get more time for the swim.

The announcement for CDA specifically said  "This will ensure that all participants have at least the full 17 hours (subject to intermediate cutoffs) to complete the event."

Soooo is midnight the finish time or is it 17 hrs from when we cross the first mat?  Classic WTC confusion due to poor writing in their guidance.  Awesome.

I've already had one woman in a fb group I'm in admit that she's going to self-seed herself significantly faster to give her more time to make the swim cutoff.  She's a 2+ hr swimmer. 

Wave starts would have made things much simpler and kept things more honest.  Then I could figure out my 17 hr time instead of trying to figure out what midnight minus 14 min and 20 seconds is.  I guess I'm going to have to figure out how to use the multisport function on my garmin and start it a few minutes early as a buffer.

I wonder what the time increment will be between swim start times, 1 minute, 2 minutes, 5 minutes.

The first one will be 6:35, what is the next time? 6:36, 6:37, 6:40?

Honestly for me, it might make sense to start in the group in front of your projected time. It's not a bad thing to get dropped by them and have a little clear water to swim in. If you have done it correctly few of the people in your real projected group will catch you. Now the really fast swimmers may catch you and on the second loop all bets are off. 

It won't be separate start times, it will be a continuous stream - just like the start of a big running race.

For CdA, it's not waves or corrals, it's one continuous stream, at least that's how it sounds to me. As I read it, there aren't any breaks in there. It sounds like it's essentially still a mass start, but with everyone funneled through a smaller bottleneck so fewer people are hitting the water at the same time.

She won't have more time.  It won't matter when she starts, her time starts when she crosses the mat going into the water and stops when she gets out.  If it's longer than 2:20, she'll be a DNF at the end of the day.

The plan is to have roughly 100 swimmers hit the water on each 1 minute interval according to the race director.  I'm going to be really interested to see how this works.

One thing I do believe this year is that there will be an area you can get in the water and warm up vs last year no one was allowed in the water until the start. I heard a few unhappy people say they wanted to warm up before starting.  

There is no real good way to do this. There will always be someone who doesn't like how something is. They are also doing this as a test to see if it will work or not for future events.  

But in their wording there is some clarity needed and some of it is misleading. Reminds me of looking at technet articles on MS site .