Question - Would you do this during an Ironman?
Some of my collegues and I are putting together a research study to be done during an Ironman event. We are talking about the following:
- Doing a venipuncture and taking up to three vials of blood when racers enter T1 and T2 as well as after finishing the race.
- Doing a fingerstick at Special Needs on the bike.
- Doing a fingerstick at each aid station on the run.
My question: would you participate in a study that did these things? If not, is there one thing more than the other that would keep you from participating?
Thanks!
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Comments
1) How long would each stop take?
2) How would losing 3 vials of blood affect me on race day?
We think each stop will take about 5 minutes.
It could be up to 6 vials (we are still getting details on the total ml). Once we have the total ml, we should know more about performance.
At $600 to do an ironman I find it very hard to help out with something like this, but if my race entry fee was wavied I would be much more willing to do an IM with the purpose of helping with a study.
But with that said, I think some great learning’s can occur about endurance performance with a smartly run test with this type of data. It would be good to know the hypothesis of what is being tested.
Having said that, if I were to go into the race with the specific purpose of participating in the study, more like a solid training day, I might consider it.
Also, you would need a dozen phlebotomists. Even if athletes agreed to participate, they would not be willing to stand around and wait for 5-10 minutes in a line.
SN fingerstick- no big deal.
A fingerstick at every aid station would be a HELL NO!
What about pre and post race blood work instead?
I would be willing to do a finger prick at the SNs. I would also do a finger prick at each aid station on the run provided you could guarantee it would be quick and efficient. I'm talking have a separate canopy or something that I could stick my finger our as I stop for 2 seconds as I grab a water...
Hi Penny,
I know I wouldn't do the vials.
As a diabetic, there were several places where I tested my blood sugar due to my diabetes using pin prick test strips at:
Not sure what you are measuring or testing, but these spots didn't slow me down. Less than 45 secs. for each test.
Best of luck
I would be fine with everything other than the vials of blood in T1/T2. I have to imagine that THAT would negatively impact race performance in and of itself...
The average human has 5 liters of circulting blood volume. Losing 5 mL of blood x 3, twice during the race (30 mL total) would mean nothing on performance. That's a lot of time, though. Considering that there is like 65 KQ spots for roughly 2500-2800 athletes (and maybe 150-200 true contenders for those), you could probably find more than enough research subjects. I would venture to say that there are tons of people (not necessarily on our team) that want merely to finish and check one more thing off their list. You give people an incentive, like reimbursement of part of their entry fee, and I think you could get plenty of subjects. You get enough funding to study 2000-3000 people, you could probably knock that out in 3-5 races and have plenty of data for your purposes. Better yet, you get funding to kick some cash back to WTC, and you could get their testing time credited back to their overall time (what's 6-8 more volunteers with stopwatches, especially if you provided them) with caveat that you cannot get a KQ slot if you participate. But even without that, what does the average Joe Blow care if he/she ends up 187th out of 265 in their age group vs. 184th if they didn't participate.
Incentivizing it ($$, PR, etc), would definitely push me off the fence.
I'll keep you guys posted. . .
That being said, wou'd probably want to find they type of person that does 2 - 3 a year and does IM's like a stroll in the park, and wouldn't mind "throwing one away".
What are the goals of the test? It sounds like there could be a serious "observer effecting the observed system" in play here, by having the athlete stop and give blood so often.
What about placing an IV on the forearm and using that as your "source" for the blood? I would be more concerned about initiating clotting factors during the race, plus the reduced imune response in the body post ironman could leave a person open to spepsis from multiple insertion sites. I like the idea, but adding any additional pain to an IM may be more than one could take. Good luck with your study!!!