Ironman Florida : Official Thread (Page 78)

I think the snorkels are allowed.  There was guy with ALS they allowed fins and paddles I think. 

Saw lots of drafting.  There was one chick I dubbed Soledad the cheater because she was drafting almost constantly.  WHen she was NOT cheating I could pass her.  Eventually it thinned out enough I could pass her cheating drafting butt for good!!!

Unfortunately I saw a lot of blatant drafting.  A guy actually had cameras on his bike and is posting videos of some of the pelotons http://www.youtube.com/user/gbobholmes

Some of it was unavoidable because of the number of bikes, nature of the course and mass start, but when people are sitting up and coasting on HWY 20 into that headwind I think it looked more like a big group ride than an Ironman bike.  I actually had one guy on my wheel that wouldnt get off.  I finally slowed down to about 15mph and he passed me and then I passed him while he was drafting off of someone else.  

Hey, it is an individual sport no one is getting paid but the pros, and if that is how these people want to 'remember' their Ironman experience oh well.  I know that my time was legit and was all because of me, not sucking off of someone else's wheel.

Regarding the swim... On the second loop were you supposed to swim to the first buoy or did you only have to go around the red turn buoys?

I agree. If you look at the swim times or even just video or pics, we all come into transition in a bell curve, with masses of joe-average swimmers getting out of the water and onto the bikes at the same time. That's going to lead to large groups of riders on the road at the same time and it takes a long time for the varying rider speeds to spread out.

I am only an average swimmer but a very strong rider. So I passed over 400 people on the bike, even though I was riding a standard road bike with no aero equipment. And most of those 400 were in the first 50 miles into the wind. In a lot of cases, there were so many bikes in my way I didn't have much of a choice but to come up behind someones wheels and squeeze through. I got into a lot of places where there simply wasn't enough room to follow the rules to the strictest. I did my best to stay as far as I safely could.

From my point of view, most of the riders did the same as me... spread out as much as they could. But there were definitely quite a few blatant drafters, including two by the names of Ricardo and Eduardo. They looked like they could be brothers and definitely knew each other. I'd pass them, making sure I was going fast enough they couldn't hop my wheel. And then a few minutes later they'd come cruising up, drafting each other, or both behind somebody else, and pass me again. Then they'd fall off for one reason or another and I'd have to go around them again, only to see them once more draft back ahead again. This pattern repeated literally dozens of times. At one point there was a group of about seven others along with these two jokers and I was once again trying to get around all of them, practically across the yellow line and into the oncoming lane. The 'group' (including me) got warned as we passed one of the Penalty Box tents. I was getting pretty irritated because I was doing my best to stay away.

I did see one of those two later on the run, and he was quite far behind me and walking, so I felt better about it. LOL

I just remind myself that Karma gets us all in the end.

 I passed the guy swimming with the snorkel. I'm a slow swimmer who usually places in the bottom of the swim ranks. The waves probably made it difficult for the swimmer who was using the snorkel.  It would be more of a hinderance for me than a help. Plus I can't even imagine what sighting would be like using a snorkel.

At the end of the day we all have to live with the decisions we made on the course. I can proudly say I earned my Ironman status during the race alone.

Thats what I thought, and I did go around the 1st buoy on the second lap.  People were saying it didnt matter, but I rembember a little bit about geometry and that cutting a corner out is definately a shorter distance than going around it. So how would it be a 2.4 mile swim 'either way'?  They should have covered that better in the mandatory meeting.  Oh wait they covered drafting pretty thoroughly and that didn't help

Regardless, it was an amazing day and one that I will never forget.

Thanks for volunteering! 

What a great day!!!! It was great to meet up with many of you - I would love to see the finish line video when they get it up  but I havn't been able to find it yet. Hey, does anyone know what would've happened if the race was Sunday? The town of PCB closed all the beaches so who over rules who? Just curious...We had a Mon. night flight out but were afraid of being stranded b/c of Ida. Decided to rent a car and drive to Atlanta to make sure we got out. Not fun and as far as I know, all the flights were still on out of PC airport.

oh, bracelet is still on.

Funny, I ran into Soledad early in the bike; was able to drop her and later I had her come by when she was hugging the wheels of two riders. I was able to drop her again only to see her again later, drafting someone new. There were more of those out there including two husband wife "teams" where it was obvious the husband was a strong rider and the wife was not. Both were pulling their wives at over 20 mph. As for the swim, you were supposed to go outside the first yellow bouy on the 2nd lap but many didn't. Nice thread, too bad I just found it now. Fun race, I'm not thrilled with the cheaters but anymore you run into that no matter the race, no matter the distance.