Time Trial Swim Start Planning
With the Swim Safe Initiative, more and more US Ironman events are moving towards Wave and/or Time Trial swim starts.
A wave start is just like your local race; everyone in M35-39 starts together. Usually the men are divided up and the women are in one, maybe two groups given the demographic split.
But the Time Trial start, first used at Ironman Louisville, is self seeded. First come, first served.
Question One...So my strategy question first...I assume that cleanest water is the best, and so my plan is to be there on the early side to get into line (which brings me to Question Two below). But I am curious to hear what you would do. I expect to do a non-wetsuit swim of about 1:04, and contact in a non-wetsuit swim really messes things up (no floating!). So...what would you do?
Question Two...Transition opens at 5:30am according to the Athlete Guide (seems about 30 minutes later than normal!) and the AG race starts at 6:40. So assuming you are at Transition at 5:30 to get in, check your bike / food / computers / bags (call it 20'), you then need to walk a mile (25') to the start, change into your swim kit (5'), drop your Special Needs Bags (5'), at best you are "ready" to get in line by 6:25. But the race starts in 15 minutes. That won't work.
I can hope the AG has an error and transition opens at 5, but my guess is there is some ordinance / permit that won't let them open the area until 5:30 due to the residences nearby. So...my plan is as follows:
- Be at transition by 5:15a (drop off), pump in hand.
- Doors open and go straight to bike, drop fluid, computer, pump tires, set crank / gearing, add "crack pipe" inflator to tool kit, done.
- Go to T2 bag to add a banana (or do that day before...hope it lasts?)
- Head back out, text sherpa wife for pick up (5:45a)
- Drive to swim start and get dropped (5:55a, assuming traffic).
- Drop off SN bags, get dressed and in line.
Best case I could see a 6:05 arrival...maybe 6:15 at the latest. But I assume the line will start building around 5:45...I guess I can rely on the "late" transition opening to keep that list down.
Any thoughts?
Comments
Rolling Starts (like the one described for IMTX encouraging self-seeding) should be different... They will most likely have corrals with expected times (similar to Marathon starts).... This should put you swimming with people your own speed and it would also eliminate the need to get to the start extra early etc... Of course in the swim for IMTX it said encouraged but not enforced so there will be plenty of people in the wrong place, mostly out of paranoia about finishing on time!
I like the idea of a seeded rolling start the best, it seems to make sense just like the Marathon corrals ...
Maybe when you get to IMTX you can find out a bit more how they are going to "encourage" that self-seeding proces.... Personally I'd hit transition in time to allow for the walk to the swim (not far and nice easy warm up) , Hope IMTX swim start goes nice and smooth...
Have a fellow Soldier here who went pro this year...swims around 55 or so; his solution as an AG was just to walk to the front of the line and seed himself where he thought appropriate ~ imagine that required a bit of swagger to "cut" to the front, but maybe it's not that big of deal ~ on the other hand, it could lead to some unneeded anxiety and elevated HR prior to the swim ~ maybe a polite swagger works best. If I was in line, I would not have an issue with someone clearly faster than me "cutting" ahead. At first rolling start at CDA two years ago; i completed warm up about 5 minutes prior to race, moved up to back of 1:10 corral, and was off and in the water in under two minutes.
Will be less crowding in t1 and early on the bike course. Getting out of T1 ahead of the masses that swim 1:13:1:15 pays dividends. Need to work on my race plan and post it. Plan to do that on my 4 hr flight back from Seattle.
Coach P - a 1:04 makes you a better swimmer than most and if you start behind many of the others you will spend a lot of time dodging the wayward bunch. I woud prefer to start ahead of most of them and avoid having to swim around them. As mentioned above it will also give you a less crowded T1. I think you should get there as early as possible. Good luck.
@Tom, agreed...I got the route!
@Tim, interesting...hadn't thought of the walk as a warm up...I think my HR will be high enough just thinking about the race. And thanks for actually parsing the AG to catch the self seeded wave dealio.
@everyoneelse, thanks! I agree an early start is best. And will work on the logistics...if it's truly a corral system, then I can do whatever I need and just hope in there before 6:40 by any means possible.
So for example, if I am reading it right, in IMChoo for instance, you get 2:20 for the swim regardless of when you start, but you still only have until 12:15 to finish so if you don't get in the water until 8:00 for example, you lose that hour somewhere. (Actually, everyone loses a 1/2 hour @ IMChoo because of a 7:30 start)
My point being, does a time trial start "force" slower swimmers to try to gain some much needed time by getting in the water earlier, and thereby causing a potential "swimming roadblock" for the faster swimmers?
Or is my "Ironmath" off?
On the other hand, you may lose that advantage on the bike because you lose the benefit of a legal draft by getting onto the bike early. So long as the road is wide enough to permit passing (that may be a big "if"), the more cyclists on the road ahead of you, the better: you catch a small draft on each of them during your pass. I don't have numbers, but my guess is that since the bike is 5x as long as the swim, you more than make up for the swim deficit by passing hundreds of people on the bike (but in a two-loop or three-loop course the advantage is less).
If it were me, I would prefer to have a nice calm, fast swim and not waste energy dodging slower swimmers. So I would start as early as I could.
That said, IMCHOO has a current and folks appeared to be 15' faster across the board.
I think Kim is right in that folks will "want" to game the system to be earlier, but honestly, I don't think it's required...Everyone gets 2:20 after the last swimmer, so the slowest folks still get 2:20, like they would in a regular Ironman.
If you need MORE THAN 2:20 do to the swim, such that you want to be in the water 20' earlier to get say 2:40 to do the swim, then I am not sure you are safe to be competing? Or that you'll be able to complete the day after surviving the water as that's a hella long time to be in the water.
Hoping I haven't offended anyone...