Post From Race Director Re: Swim Start/Bike Course
Hey Team, this post is from the unofficial "social" Facebook page for IMChoo. It is a post from the RD from Beginner Triathlete and he talks about the swim start and provides a little insight to the "controversial" decision regarding the start time and bike course changes. It also contains some info on how exactly the start will be handled.
"From the RD on Beginner Triathlete:
A lot going on recently! The office should send out an email in the coming days but I thought I might offer some insight and dispel a few rumors.
So lets talk about the swim course for a second!
We have a few interesting/challenging factors to deal with regarding the swim that have caused a lot questions to come our way. I will try and shed a little light on what’s going to happen on race day.
We have published a 7:30am start time for the pros, and a 7:40am age group start. The later start time is due to the later sunrise. Last year I drove to Chattanooga the day after 70.3 Augusta and stood at the swim start location to see what it actually looked like from 6:30am to 8:30am. I determined we couldn’t safely start the race until 7:30am because of lack of daylight. I am optimistic that we can start the race earlier than that but we wont know until race week when we stand on the shore and decide as a group what is safe for everyone involved. We will let you know at the athlete briefings the exact start time.
Now onto the actual start! We will start the age groupers in a rolling start. Athletes will line up first-come, first-serve. As soon as the pros are in the water, we will bring bringing athletes down the gangway to the large floating dock. There will be two starting areas, one on the left, one on the right. 60 feet will separate these areas. The goal with the two different areas is to have swimmers with a projected swim time greater than 1:20 start from the left side, and those with a projected swim time less than 1:20 start from the right side. This should allow athletes a chance to get in the water with swimmers of similar ability and get on their way down the river with a little less chaos. When you walk onto the swim start platform volunteers will help direct you to the start area of your choice. A timing wire will be placed right before the edge of the dock so your time wont start until just before you jump in the water (feet first, no diving). Once in the water, swimmers will have a wide area to swim in, a couple hundred feet. This should help everyone have as smooth of a swim as possible.
The swim course will close 2 hours and 20 minutes after the last age group athlete starts the swim. Each athlete will get the full 2 hours and 20 minutes to complete the 2.4 mile swim regardless of what time they enter the water. Athletes who take longer than 2 hours and 20 minutes to complete the swim will receive a DNF. IRONMAN official’s reserve the right to pull athletes off the course who exceed any established course time cut-offs. I am optimistic that we can get everyone in the water in 25 minutes, but being a first year event I wont make any promises!
We are looking forward to a great race in a few weeks.
Brian
bhmyrick
2014-08-29 10:58 PM
in reply to: bhmyrick
30
25
Subject: RE: Ironman Chattanooga : Official Thread
And as far as the bike course goes, yes, it is long. By my calculations 116.08 miles. Its pretty simple actually.... I had signed permits a year ago, and they were revoked for reasons outside of our control. In order to ensure long term success in the market, we had to roll with it and figure it out. We are working on that. I had 24 hours to come up with something, and that something is the course you see online today. I have a 112 mile route in the works but am not sure if I can get approvals from the state level in a few weeks. It will be a fairly large change which obviously creates issues of its own. Athletes have trained on the course for months, and we throw a new course at them now... I get it! We will keep everyone posted."
Comments
Just so much crazy, stupid talk on the IMChat and IMWI pages right now. Just stay away from those places and you'll be fine :-)
Hey now, you can hate all you want on FB but don't go hatin' on poor Lil Debbie!