Florida 1/2 Ironman (Page 2)

Given the number of people staying in Ft. Wilderness, this may be the best place to meet. I stayed there about 10 years ago and we got a home which would have been a good place for this.

Any Ft. Wilderness people willing to host?

This might interest you guys.....

http://www.floridahalfironman.com/course.php

1.2 mile swim (1 loop), 2 mile transition run

Bay Lake located at Walt Disney World, Fort Wilderness.

Beach age group wave start, swim counter clock wise, buoys on your left, around a 1.2 mile rectangular course with 2 turns and returning to the shore 705 yards to the west of the start line and entering into the shoe transition area. The shoe transition will be in a grassy field 30 yards from the beach.

After putting on shoes in the shoe transition, athletes will run 2 miles to the bike transition.

• Go right on mulch path in next to the petting Zoo
• Left onto a pathway next to Frontier Hall
• Right on pathway in front of the Outpost
• Go behind the 300 Loop Campground along Bonnet Creek Canal
• Go to Big Pine Rd to right to Wilderness Trail
• Go left through Cast Services area to the bike transition

***************************************

Now that's crazy fun (but glad I'm not doing it)!  On the bright side the old transition had some issues so they are trying to make things better.

Here's the reasoning -

Reasons for the change to the course.

#1. Many athletes that sent back the survey after the event last year mentioned that the sand/grass transition was not very good - the black carpet was hot and hard to run on - spectators could see the transition.

#2 - Registration/Expo was hard to find and spead out at the site. Moving out to a large parking lot will allow everything to be in one place for the event. You will notice that the finish line is right next to the transition and also the Expo/Village area. Spectators will see much more of the race.

#3 - Run course improvement - Almost all of the run will now be in shade! We took out the hot open trail run along the canal.

#4 - Bike course improvement - Took out the bike section inside the campground and the short out and back on World Drive. Alot less turns and better roads on this course.

#5 - Swim course improvment - Much larger area for the swim finish - lots of room for spectators to watch.

#6 - Heat factor - athletes will only have to run 11.1 miles in the heat of the day - the first 2 miles will be right after the swim at the start of the race.

We know that some people will not like this new course, but we felt that these changes really improved the race. We made these changes so that athletes would have a better experience and a safe course.

We have lots of wonderful volunteers signed up to help out at the race and they are looking forward to providing you with a great experience.

Most likely won't be a wetsuit swim so you won't need to worry about that. 

You are going to have to ease into the run but you should be able to get your HR under control once you get on the bike.  The first 10-15 miles are pretty flat from what I remember.  On the bright side when you get off the bike you only have 11.1 miles to go!

Tyler,

I'm headed there this weekend.  What can i do to help you?  ...and anyone else, as far as checking out the area.  We will be with friends on Saturday who are cast members and I can snoop around and check out what they are talking about.  Having been there the last 2 years for the race I can picture in my head what they are talking about.  Guess I could take some pictures if that is something yall are interested in!?

(Editted once I realized that the 2 miles are to be subtracted from the run at the end. )

Ok, I pondered the potential 2 mile transition run during my swim today and I'm writing this while burning a CD to run to on the treadmill.

I'm trying to look at this not from the point of view of someone who doesn't want to have to do a "swim, dinky little run, bike, not-quite-a-half-marathon" for my first half IM but from a brand management/ marketing point of view. I have no formal education in either but I'm a red blooded American consumer which gives me some credibility. Having said that, here are my thoughts.

The RD is a man so experienced, so steeped in triathlon, so active and respected in our sport, he's forgotten more about tiathlons than I could possibly ever know. He's known as a very intelligent man and as someone who cares deeply about the sport and the people who engage in it. I'm sure that the reasoning behind the proposed changes make perfect sense and that the rationale seems solid, but this is an absolutely terrible idea.

The whole point of the Ironman 70.3 race series is to expand the Ironman brand to include half IM distance races without pairing it with the wussy qualifier 'half'. It's not 'half' of anything it's 70.3! is the whole point they're trying to get across. Now there are some bad decisions being made, some of which are based on changing the race to be consistent with the name. Cart before the horse anyone? This marketing campaign is off to a very rocky start. It may be good, or at least creative, race management in some respects, but it's definitely bad marketing.

It's also being very irresponsible with the one major asset that IMNA has: the IronMan brand. It's that brand that sells out the races. Not great course support, not the well setup and run transition areas, not the corporate logos, not the cool web site, not the after party. It's the name "IronMan". Without it these are just another race.

In order for a brand to build and retain customer loyalty it needs to provide good value, which IMNA obviously does, but it also needs to be consistent with its product. No one goes to McDonalds in a new city to see what they might have on the menu that they don't at the McDonalds back home. The same applies to Sears, Coca Cola, Cheetos, Trader Joes, ExxonMobil etc. A brand means nothing if the products and/or services are a crapshoot. The whole idea of selling a brand is selling consistency and reliability. Take those away and the brand means nothing. Moving some running miles from the end of the race to between the swim and bike is taking those things away. The value of the name IronMan on watches, exercise bikes et al just became worth a little bit less.

I'm really surprised that the WTC would let IMNA even consider this. If I were a marketing or brand management exec at WTC, I'd be screaming into a speaker phone threatening bodily harm to every IMNA exec for screwing with my brand like that.

And if I sold Seiko watches or were an RD of a non-Ironman 70.3 half Iron distance race, I'd be praying that IMNA actually makes this a "swim, dinky little run, bike, not-quite-a-half-marathon". What a great marketing opportunity: "Sign up for our Half IM and we guarantee that we won't unneccesarily screw with the distances" "Half the price and 10 times the reliability".

And I really don't want to have to run those two miles out of the water, but it might be a good opportunity to ask Mike Ricci to come up with some good run-bike-run bricks.

Here's the thread about the course change on SlowTwitch.  The RD is answering questions there.

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=691077;page=1;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=25;guest=6411608

Another marketing type thought:

This will probably be ok with the "i've done 17 half irons and Ironman races so this is a nice change" crowd.

It's probably not as ok with the people doing their first IM brand race, first half IM distance, or even their first triathlon.

Does IMNA really think the first group is where their growth and future is?

I don't want to beat this into the ground, but the first triathlons were (I believe) a run, swim, run, bike, swim, run. So to have a race that is a swim, run, bike, run is actually closer to the true essence of triathlons than the race we now know

My .01

http://home.san.rr.com/johnstone/