Power to the People! (er, Age Groupers...)

By cascading the swim starts and offering triathletes optional start times, Ironman has decided to deal with its growing swim safety issue, and growing PR headache, by treating the symptom rather than attacking the disease.  WTC is packaging this newest change as "greater choice" for its ironmen and ironwomen, but in reality the privately held company that holds exclusive rights to Ironman worldwide is hoping that by allowing triathletes to self-seed according to expected swim times, many of their overcrowded triathlons will become safer, at least during the swim.
I've been fortunate enough to have toed the starting line with some of the best athletes in the world.  Starting at the same time as the best, while potentially humbling, is also a great gauge of personal performance, a chance to say you've rubbed shoulders (or perhaps wetsuits, bike handlebars, or Nordic skis) albeit briefly before the gun, with some of the best.
2:29 may have been a very satisfying PR marathon at New York City, but it paled in comparison with Juma Ikanga's blazing 2:07 performance that same day.  A 9:43 performance at Kona back in '84 may have been good enough for 7th place overall, but it was a far cry from Dave Scott's record-breaking, first-ever, sub-9-hour performance at Kona that same October day.
WTC has already removed the pros from the mass-start Kona field, thereby insulating the putative professionals in the sport from potential challenges of the faster age-group swimmers.  In so doing, it has allowed the pros, and in particular the media, to better isolate and focus on the "real show" of the generally faster pro competitors - no matter that 95% of the day's competitors aren't professionals.  Throughout the day, the pros know where they are relative to their competition, and WTC makes them feel extra special by providing them their own feed zones, where they can place their own drinks and foods.
The age-groupers, meanwhile, who, let's remind ourselves, pretty much bankroll the whole operation at Ironman Inc., compete in obscurity, wholly lacking any helpful information about their age-group standings throughout, and even after, the race.  After finishing my Kona qualifier at Ironman South Africa in 2011, for more than an hour post-finish repeated queries to race officials and volunteers at the finish line, in the massage tent, and at the refreshment tables turned up nothing in the way of helpful information about how I'd done.  Only after collecting my pre-race bag of personal affects and turning on my phone did a call from my father-in-law - in Colorado of all places, who had been following the race via internet and calls to friends and family - confirm my standing at the top of the age group.  It was the only time in the previous 11 hours that I had any idea where I was in relation to my age-group competition!  Given the multiplicity of technological applications for all sorts of things these days, it doesn't take a great deal of imagination to conjure a world in which all triathletes can have a better sense of how they're doing relative to the competition, in real time, pretty much throughout the race.  Why has Ironman not allowed this?
Competitive sorts want to be in the exact same race under the exact same conditions as the next guy.  With WTC's current thinking, a slow swimmer could presumably self-seed for a later swim start, thereby experiencing potentially different race conditions than the faster swimmer who may have started three or four waves earlier.  A 6:30 swim start (pros) may not seem all that different than a 7:30 swim start (slower fish), but I'll trade an hour of early-morning-Kona Cool relative for a late-afternoon hour of Energy Lab Meltdown any day, and my guess is so would others.
The wave starts make me nervous for a few other reasons as well.  By hosting a processional of athletes, rather than one specific, self-contained race, lifeguards will need to be stationed throughout the swim course for a very long time, especially given that the later swimmers to start will presumably be many of your slowest.  And that's just the swim.  How about the marathon?  By stretching out the start times, WTC is indirectly asking its volunteers, who already put in amazingly grueling hours race day, to hang in there just a bit longer.  If I'm a volunteer at Kona, I'm potentially seeing runners from just before noon until midnight (or more, if WTC sticks with the 17 hour rule and goes to wave starts on the swim).  By any measure, that's a long day - a good deal longer than many of the competitors' days, particularly in Kona.
Apart from lengthening the days of those who already give so much so that we can compete in this crazy sport of ours, the wave swim starts make me nervous for another reason as well.  Ironman wants us to think the wave starts are for our own good, and that they'll make the race safer and more manageable for all.  Yet WTC is clearly in this business to make a ton of money.  By dividing a field of 2,000 by four and creating groups of roughly 500 in the water, my hunch is that Ironman executives will be tempted to allow those groups to grow.  After all, they've been in the business of sending off waves of more than 1,000 swimmers at a time for a few decades now; putting groups of 600 or 700 in the drink will seem paltry in comparison - and readily defensible.
Yet, given the current information blackout for age-groupers, wave starts will only add further dissonance to those there to race against the best, no matter their age.  Did that guy up ahead on the bike start before me, with me, or after me?  Given the prevalence of varied transitions, potty breaks, penalty time-outs and such, it'll be anyone's guess with the new wave starts.

So here are my suggestions:

• Nix the wave starts and get back to one race, and that includes the separate pro start.  So what if the pros think they're special?  Dave Scott and Mark Allen are legends of the sport, right? They seemed to survive starting with the entire field again and again okay, and I don't ever recall either of them complaining about the mass swim start...
• Mandate an open water swim test for any first-timers to any 70.3 or full Ironman.  Given that WTC has marketed Ironman as the be all, end all of triathlon, it's hardly a surprise that there are increasing numbers of inexperienced triathletes competing at 1.2 and 2.4 mile swims.  The swim is your insurance underwriter's nightmare, so as part of the application process, put in place a swim-qualifying procedure.  You shouldn't just get to pay your money and sign up for a 70.3 or full.  I didn't.  In fact, it was a number of years, and more than a dozen triathlons later, before I did my first Ironman.  The Ironman distances daunted me, as they should anyone, and in my gut I knew that I wasn't ready in '82, or '83, years when I entered most any triathlon and bike race I could find in the midwest, winning most of them.  By the time I'd competed in my first Ironman distance triathlon in July of '84, I'd been a triathlete for three years, swum a season in college, competed in more than a dozen triathlons, and worked on my modest swimming for four years.  Beyond a fat payment for entry, is Ironman demanding enough of its entrants?
• Forget about differentiating age groups during the swim, but beginning with the bike have each age group competitor easily identifiable by race officials and fellow athletes.  All kinds of systems could be tested, but as a competitive age group triathlete I should be able to scan the field around or in front of me and be reasonably able to tell which ones are in my age group.
• Chip technology should allow for age-group standings to be constantly updated, making it possible to have large monitors around Kona, at Havi, at the Energy Lab, and at the finish (for examples) posting the positions in each age group.  Technology has meant that all folks (and not just athletes) want accurate information in real time.  WTC risks comparison to the Catholic Church unless it comes out of the Dark Ages and lets people have access to the information they want, when they want it. 
• Now comes perhaps the most controversial suggestion.  Kona bills itself as a World Championship.  Yet hundreds of triathletes compete each October who actually didn't qualify.  They may be there because they've done dozens of Ironman competitions and therefore get in on sheer volume and determination (and a lot of money).  Or they may be there because they've paid more and increased their odds of getting in by lottery.  Or they may be there just through the long, long odds of lottery.  Or they may be there by special invitation from WTC.  Yet what other athletic world championship does this?  So, my suggestion: only allow folks who have actually, verifiably qualified to compete at Kona; not doing so just depreciates the experience for the majority who got there the hard way.  Limiting Kona fields to 1500, and qualifier fields to verifiable swimmers, and getting rid of all the hangers on will allow for safer mass swim starts.  Rather than more money to WTC, isn't that what we really should be after right now?

That first triathlon

The race posters greeted me every day as I walked by and headed down to the lake. 1/2 mile and 1 mile open water swims tantalized the open water swimmer in me.  The weather was a balmy 80, with negligible wind - a perfect day for a swim.  The lake - Green Lake in north Seattle - was one I knew probably more than any other, had even swum in many times and run around more times then just about anyone alive.
Yet I'd never swum across it, and frankly, with memories of lake weeds tugging at my shoulders and visibility anything but Kona's, I'd honestly never even thought about swimming across it.  The poster, however, promised those who entered the race(s) the possibility of swimming across the lake once for the 1/2 mile, and twice for the just-after 1 mile; gluttons could do both events and crisscross to their hearts' content.
Race morning broke, Logan kindly offered to walk down to the lake and take in the excitement with me.  Soon, cuddled together and chatting away while looking out at the far-off swim start half-way around the lake, I realized that holding my 8 year-old son and talking about whatever floated through our minds was way more fun than suiting up and doing another race.  So, we took the morning's races in, cheering on various folks finishing up the swim as they strode up the concrete steps to the finish line banner.
Like all 8 year-olds, Logan eventually grew bored watching anonymous swimmers repeatedly exiting the water, and asked to play at the nearby playground.  That is when I engaged in conversation the man who'd been next to us for a few minutes, obviously a competitor in the 1/2 mile swim recently completed.  Perhaps a father like me, he'd apparently noticed my Kona Ironman visor and soon told me that he was looking forward to his first triathlon, in August, in Victoria, B.C., a sprint tri that would involve a 800m swim like the one he'd just completed in the morning's race. I could hear the excitement in his voice as we began talking about his expectations for his first triathlon race, his preparations and training, and pretty soon he was asking me for pointers on improving his just-completed 26 minute 800m swim time.  Like many beginning triathletes, he was having a hard time keeping his head in the water while breathing and was therefore wasting a good deal of energy.  As we talked, memories of my first triathlon, now incredibly more than 32 years ago, filtered back through my conscious, helping me appreciate this man's excitement and anxiety.  Elemental, triathlon combines transcendent sports all athletes can appreciate, and this man was looking forward to that first time of being able to combine activities he'd probably done off and on since early on in his life into a single race.  Perhaps because it harkens back to that first bike ride, swim lesson or game of tag, triathlon inspires us all, again and again.
I don't remember the man's name or the race he's entered, but the tingle of nerves associated with his frank assessment of his impending mass swim start is something all triathletes feel.  I explained how Kona's swim felt and prayed that he'd have a gentler go of it in Victoria!  :)

50+ and Faster than ever!

Like so many things these days, the article was forwarded by a friend.  The interview with cyclist Kevin Metcalfe in Slowtwitch, a website dedicated to triathletes, reminded me of an article I've been ruminating on, the gist of which goes like this: if you take care of yourself and play your cards right, vast improvements in technology can allow for continued improvements as a competitive athlete, particularly on the bike.  I know I've expressed thoughts on this idea before in another posting. However, recent personal events, and now Kevin's story, have conspired to prompt a postscript.
Kevin is a 50-54 inspiration, a paragon of fast cycling who happens to be the age of many a competitive cyclist's fathers.  Since he's probably 53 and I'm certainly 52, I'd like to call him a peer, but he recently went 49:29 for 40K on a bike, and I'm fairly certain I can't do that - at least not this week (this latter bit being the thesis of Kevin's larger message to each of us, not braggadocio).  By setting a national record (while breaking his own!), Kevin continues to show what might be possible for others, like Kevin, with more than a half century on the odometer.  And that's particularly why I like his bio.
What makes Kevin's story so fascinating is that he has stayed active and fit over the years but has continued to fine-tune his training protocols, leading to some astonishing accomplishments.  During Kevin's competitive life, which is to say during mine and countless others', the cycling world has seen unparalleled changes in technology, leading to faster and faster bikes.  For at least a few, this has opened the door to unprecedented feats.
Over the past four years, and by luck, not design, I've run an informal personal experiment: I've gotten older (whew!) but have continued to do the same KAUST bike race on the same course with pretty much the same group of folks.  Picture a small compound in Saudi Arabia, replete with many inactive folks and a few sundry diehards on bikes and you have a sense of what our motley group was like.  In 2010 the campus was completely brand new yet lacking a culture of activity, so a group of us sat down with the powers that were then and organized a bike race, an event which has since become a regular on the KAUST activity calendar.  This being the Arabian peninsula, our February date still had to answer to possible temps approaching 100F, so for the adults we decided to make the race about 10 miles on a closed loop.
In 2010 I'd not yet caught the Kona Reprise bug, so cycling three times a week with friends, or alone, comprised the lead-up to the race.  I'd never raced any of the guys I was training with, so it came as some relief that I was able to break away from the pack with about a mile to go and gain about 10 seconds on the field.
In 2011 things were vastly different.  I now had the idea of returning to Kona to compete at a top level again in my sights, was only a month out of the tune-up Abu Dhabi Triathlon and two months out of my qualifier at Ironman South Africa.  Although I was cycling more, I was also running and swimming a fair amount, and the cycling I was largely doing was attempting to get me ready for a 112-mile TT and not a 25 minute road race.  Still, being in the best shape of my middle-age life must've helped, and I again  broke away from the pack, this time a bit earlier, allowing me to gain maybe 20 seconds on the peleton by the finish.
2012 was different yet again.  Though I didn't know it,  thyroid cancer had already walked in my body's front door, uninvited, and was making itself right at home.  A lack of motivation and general lethargy was explained away on a protracted Kona recovery and the general demands of being a father, husband, and full-time teacher.  For the first time I was scared, unsure of what to expect.  I hadn't ridden nearly as much as 2010 and certainly not as much as 2011, and my legs just didn't have that feeling that all prepared cyclists generally possess as they go into competition.  I had begun having increasing, unexplained cramping, mostly in my legs, and this, combined with a paucity of mileage, made me nervous about my ability to defend my consecutive titles.  So, like any aging cyclist who knows he can't break away due to the lack of an aerobic base, I relied on my racing experience and attacked on the penultimate turn, gaining just enough anaerobically and tactically before that last stretch to avoid a final sprint I knew I couldn't possibly win.  It was a victory, but by the narrowest of margins to date.
In January 2013 Jennifer and I flew to London to interview for jobs and came away with positions at the International School of Stuttgart, so going in I knew the 2013 edition of the annual KAUST bike race was going to be my last. Although I'd ridden my '86 Nobilette road bike for each of the previous editions of the race, this time I decided to run an informal experiment and ride my 2009 Scott Plasma, the same one I'd ridden in Port Elizabeth and Kona, the one I'd gotten from my buddy Scott Tucker, who in turn had purchased it from a guy who'd had it a year.  Every other KAUST cyclist of repute was on a carbon fiber steed of some variety, so rather than trot out the same steel bike once again, I decided to somewhat meet them on their own technological terrain and for a change ride a bike that was made in the same century as theirs.  And, just to add spice to the race and get a good workout, I decided before the gun to attack early on and let the chips fall where they may.  Nine laps and 25 or so minutes later I found myself lapping the field and still going strong, ahead by 3 minutes.  The extra calcium I'd taken the previous 24 hours had staved off the dreaded cramping, now a regular feature of my life, and the modest miles of training had proved just enough to hold the 42 - 44 kph pace. Although I was older than I'd ever been, had just battled cancer, had only ridden a few times a week and never pedaled longer than an hour at a go, being on a carbon fiber bike made all the difference and emphasized once again what a huge difference this technology has meant for the sport of triathlon (not to mention all cycling sports).  Instead of gaining seconds over the course of the race on a steel bike, I was gaining minutes, or the equivalent of about 20 seconds per lap, or around 18 seconds per mile.  Looking at the differential between steel and carbon fiber, this time gap would grow to 25 or 30 minutes over the course of an Ironman-distance bike leg, underscoring once again the predominant time savings over the course of the race for most triathletes.
Apart from being more crowded than it was in the '80s, the swim at Kona hasn't changed much.  Same for the run; apart from a different course, triathletes still have to slog through 42+ km of the marathon.  The cycling leg, on the other hand, is vastly different than it once was, delivering many riders a half hour or more faster to the run than it would have two or more decades ago - all thanks to cycling technology.  I'll write more about this evolution in pedaling revolutions shortly and what, in part, this means for the sport.  For now, suffice it to say that the bike allows guys like Kevin and me to compete as well as, if not better than, the guys we were a generation ago.