Ironman 70.3 Raleigh : Official Thread (Page 3)

dang Ball State folks are fast!

If anyone's interested in running the course Monday, 5/12, early-early, let me know. I will run it one more time before the race. I ran it last Sunday (5/4) and it was fun, but can't do so this week due to Mother's Day.

Planning a 5:30am start from T2 exit, pace anything between 7:30 and 8 minute miles.

Post back here or send me a PM if interested.

Any updates on water temp? I guess we will have a somewhat official reading this Saturday at the FS Series open water swim.

ETA: OK, so Army Corps of Engineers is reporting 70 degrees today. Any chance this thing is wetsuit legal? I don't think so, but stranger things have happened!!

Edited by japarker24 2014-05-07 9:13 AM

We had been tracking along about even with last year, but recently have started to see more of an upward departure from last year's curve. With warm temps expected the latter part of the week, we will see continued increase. I've attached a smaller subset of my graph, showing the trend from March 18-June 22 from 2012, 2013, and 2013 as of yesterday. The vertical red line marks race day 2013, when USACE actually measured 77F at their site for both 6/2 and 6/3, but Ironman got below that. In 2012 we were above 76.1 by a week earlier. The horizontal purple line is 76.1 F.

I'm still taking my wetsuit. Even if I start in the last wave!



Edited by fgump 2014-05-07 3:17 PM




Attachments
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march-june 2012-2014.pdf (170KB - 23 downloads)

So I got my coveted worlds slot at NOLA and not sure if I want to race for the sake of it. Still love the venue and may have a go. the next series to go to austria worlds doesnt start until aug 10 at steelhead.

I wouldn def bring wetsuit if I was y'all. practice swims in lakes without wetsuit though. also, train runs in heat. ride some rolling hills!

My wife got her worlds slot at NO too, so i'll see ya there! (although i'll be on the sideline unless something miraculous happens at Raleigh).

I've been traveling pretty much every week since New Orleans so I'm definitely not in shape for this. I only get to ride on the weekends and I've only swam 2-3 times in the last month.

Running is good, since that's easy to do on the road. It's hard to do, but I have to throw my goals out the window and just go out and enjoy the day. I paid the money, I have enough base fitness to get through with a decent time, I just have to convince myself not to race hard!!

Good luck with everyone's final training...only 3 weeks out from this weekend.

Bib list is posted.

http://www.ironman.com/~/media/03dc6ed387584c488662102d303f85dc/ral...

Water temp was 73F as of 0800 on 5/12/14.

74F as of 0800 on 5/13/14.

Thanks fgump. You realize of course that the official number is all make-believe if last year is anything to go by. I still don't know how 79 degree water on a 90 degree day suddenly became 76.1 or whatever it was overnight, after a warm night :-) Bring your wetsuit though for sure!

Oh you know I will

Mine will definitely not be sitting in the car like it was last year, regardless of the water temp the night before!

Fgump, did it really read that warm last weekend? As you know I did the FS open water swim and I can tell you with my sleeveless wetsuit I was pretty chilled before the start. I would have guessed it was in the 60s?

According to the Army Corps of Engineers' readings, but I have NO idea where they pull those from...still taking my 'suit

Hey folks-I reached out to Corps of Engineers about where they take their reading. Here's the reply:
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

Bill,

Thanks for your question. The lake temperature is collected at Cary's water intake structure, 3 ft below the lake surface level.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Then I dug a little deeper to find out where the water intake structure is relative to Vista Point:

http://www.co.orange.nc.us/occlerks/0803312.pdf

By my map-reading, that's almost 3 miles away. I used Google Maps and did a linear measurement from the beach at the swim start to the point where the water intake structure is reported on the attachment. I believe it is a bit shallower up there than down at Vista Point, but not sure.

So, the takeaway is...there is no way to reliably predict the raceday temp based on USACE's measurement.

fgumps posts are awesome. I am fairly new to these forums, but I have to assume they fgump works at SAS or something. At a minimum is some sort of statistical analysis consultant.
I swam in Jordan this past weekend.....it was chilly, but you could have gotten away without a wetsuit. But, then again, it was overcast and cool when I swam on Sunday.
I didnt race Raleigh last year, but did hear they made it wetsuit legal at the last minute. Seems like it has been much cooler than last year, at least so far this year, so it would be interesting if it was wetsuit legal last year but not this year, but I guess we'll see. At this point, I would assume that it wont be a wetsuit race.
Fgump, can we get some sort of regression analysis.....water temperature vs max/min air temp?

Hmm me thinks it has something to do with how the air temp + the water temp + the WTC wanting as many 1st timers to hand over money = legal/easier wetsuit water temps.

I of course also think that is about the same equation that got the run course changed.

Regardless. It was a great race last year, and I am sure it will be a great race this year.

Wow! Has it really been a year since I rode my bike?

Good luck to all on June 1.

Here is an interesting graph. Water temp, max air temp, and min air temp since 1/1/14. I might have some time later go go back and input more months' data (air temp data courtesy of NOAA from RDU airport).



Attachments
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water temps.pdf (145KB - 21 downloads)

So is Jordan lake open to swimming when we go to check our bikes? I am guessing it would be, right?

No, it will not be open at that location. Swimming beaches are at Ebenezer and Seaforth Access, but not at Vista Point. Last year I swam at Ebenezer the Saturday before the race on Sunday. Tomorrow I am meeting friends to swim at Seaforth.

Yikes! The 10 day forecast calls for 89 degrees and 70% of PM showers on 5/31 (as far out as it goes right now).

Lets hope those showers bring 70 degree highs the next day :-) Going to put my head back in the sand now!

Hey, no worries!! I did IMFL 2013 and the 2 days before the race had the worst weather possible. Race day was as beautiful as they come.

Ok, I'll jump on the denial / optimism band wagon. But I think I am still going to try to get some hot workouts in to try to acclimate as much as is possible at this point.