Dun Laoghaire Ironman 70.3 2018

Diego Murphy

jester1980 wrote: »

what ive heard is the current was so strong the last buoy drifted, now ive no idea if that's what it was but that's what I heard.

Yes apparently it was the current and the westerly wind that caused it. I was Talking to two guys from the area and they said there's a particular section of that swim that always takes them 12 minutes. This time it took them 17 minutes because the current changed dramatically. The change seemed to happen midway through athletes getting into the water because the earlier swimmers didn't seem to have any problems initially but you could see ppl getting pushed out to sea.

EDit

nok2008 wrote: »

Overall i thought i was a great day out and was very happy with most things. But i do feel sorry for the poorer swimmers at the back and how the moving buoy increased their swim time / swim length. Whilst the extra swim may be bad in itself for some people it had a bad knock on effect for those people as Ironman kept the same road cut off times.

So basically from what i read / heard the bike cut off was 5hr 45 mins after the first person entered the water not when a person entered the water and they pulled a lot of people off the road. At lot of those people giving out that they were told in briefing that if poor swimmer start at back and would make no difference / disadvantage. Would be very annoyed if i was one of those.

As people have said there was a few bad crashed. I was behind a group that crashed at the 90 degree right turn before Enniskerry. There was a good few warnings about the corner but basically bad cycling caused the crash. 1 fellow tried to get in front from back by going up inside and the person in front of group turned into him basically. The innocent fellow had a very bad impact so hope all okay there.

I know some people have said it was too dangerous but we all know what we signed up for especially in the rain. Got passed by a good few people bombing it downhill at speeds that i definitely would not feel comfortable at and cutting corners etc etc so i hope they glad of the 30s that they picked up!!! So not too sure whether you can say the route is dangerous or bad cyclists.

The DJ on the pier was a great idea, id say the pier run would have been a lot harder without him there.
The only other bad thing is people throwing fecking rubbish everywhere. I saw one lad just throw his bike to side of road like he was in the Tour de France. Was very tempted to report him. There was plenty of official places to throw the bottels / gels etc so cant see. There is a post of ironman facebook from some local who said the route is destroyed in red Enverit bottles!!!! I thought for all that money we pay ironman that they would at least do some kind of rubbish collection and not just the designated areas.

The way it was explained to me (in briefing) was that the cut-off was 5hr 45m after YOU crossed the swim start line....if what you say is correct, then that is really unfair. I must admit, I did get a bit confused when the cut-offs appeared to be both personal (ie, based on when you personally crossed the swim start line) and general (they gave an absolute time of day for when parts of the cycle and run route would close)

nok2008

EDit wrote: »

The way it was explained to me (in briefing) was that the cut-off was 5hr 45m after YOU crossed the swim start line....if what you say is correct, then that is really unfair. I must admit, I did get a bit confused when the cut-offs appeared to be both personal (ie, based on when you personally crossed the swim start line) and general (they gave an absolute time of day for when parts of the cycle and run route would close)

that seems to be part of the confusion alright. I read a lot of the comments on Ironman Ireland Facebook. As per usual though ironman only replying to positive comments and ignoring negative comments.

TriFirst

nok2008 wrote: »

that seems to be part of the confusion alright. I read a lot of the comments on Ironman Ireland Facebook. As per usual though ironman only replying to positive comments and ignoring negative comments.

Whats the lag time between the first and last entrant into the water ?

jester1980

people every 6 seconds so you could say roughly 40 a minute, equating to 1200 after 30 mins so at least that

TriFirst

The slowest finisher was a female in the 60-64 age category with a swim time of 1 hr 2 mins, followed by 13 minute T1, and a 4 hour 26 minute bike. Now to put it into perspective thats a swim pace of 3 min 14 per 100 m and a bike pace of 20km ph ... I dont think it unreasonable that if you are slower thank this regardless of 'when' you entered the water that you should be a DNF.

Grassey

Almost 1 in 8 was a DNF (167 / (1207 Finishers + 167 DNF + 3DQ)

Seems pretty high even going by a quick google of other ironman DNF stats (generally seem go be about 6%)

PWEI

TriFirst wrote: »

The slowest finisher was a female in the 60-64 age category with a swim time of 1 hr 2 mins, followed by 13 minute T1, and a 4 hour 26 minute bike. Now to put it into perspective thats a swim pace of 3 min 14 per 100 m and a bike pace of 20km ph ... I dont think it unreasonable that if you are slower thank this regardless of 'when' you entered the water that you should be a DNF.

But there were people who just missed the cut off but swam an extra 300 to 400 meters because of the red buoy moving.
A lot of swimmers also stopped at the turning buoy when the red buoy was been brought back as they didn't know what was going on.
They should have extended the cut off times because of this.

Grassey

PWEI wrote:

But there were people who just missed the cut off but swam an extra 300 to 400 meters because of the red buoy moving. A lot of swimmers also stopped at the turning buoy when the red buoy was been brought back as they didn't know what was going on. They should have extended the cut off times because of this.

And the first year of the race people couldn't see a turning bouy and the announcer incorrectly states the amount of bouys so a load did a weird dog leg of another few hundred meters in the race. **** happens.

mloc123

PWEI wrote: »

But there were people who just missed the cut off but swam an extra 300 to 400 meters because of the red buoy moving.
A lot of swimmers also stopped at the turning buoy when the red buoy was been brought back as they didn't know what was going on.
They should have extended the cut off times because of this.

If you cannot swim 2200-2300m in 70 mins...

The cutoff times are generous IMO. If you cannot easily make them, maybe HIM race is not for you

tunney

mloc123 wrote: »

If you cannot swim 2200-2300m in 70 mins...

The cutoff times are generous IMO. If you cannot easily make them, maybe HIM race is not for you

And this is coming from Colm. aka "the Brick"
(that is he is not a fish being snobby)

mloc123

tunney wrote: »

And this is coming from Colm. aka "the Brick"
(that is he is not a fish being snobby)

:pac:

I couldn't swim for **** and still managed to knock out 35ish 1900... based on that, it must be possible to doggy paddle 70mins?

PWEI

Grassey wrote: »

And the first year of the race people couldn't see a turning bouy and the announcer incorrectly states the amount of bouys so a load did a weird dog leg of another few hundred meters in the race. **** happens.

Saying "s*** happens" is not much consolation to those who just missed the cut off especially after investing so much time & money in it.

I was reading one girls story last night & my heart went out to her as she was completely devastated when she wasn't allowed finish.

PWEI

mloc123 wrote: »

If you cannot swim 2200-2300m in 70 mins...

The cutoff times are generous IMO. If you cannot easily make them, maybe HIM race is not for you

Read my post again, I wasn't talking about me.

mloc123

PWEI wrote: »

Saying "s*** happens" is not much consolation to those who just missed the cut off especially after investing so much time & money in it.

I was reading one girls story last night & my heart went out to her as she was completely devastated when she wasn't allowed finish.

Maybe she will be better prepped for next year and make the cutoffs. If you cannot swim 3min/100m (which would have you out of the 2200-2300m with time to spare)

Issues happen in races, adapting is part of it.

mloc123

PWEI wrote: »

Read my post again, I wasn't talking about me.

I am not saying you are, I am using "you" in a general way

Statler

mloc123 wrote: »

If you cannot swim 2200-2300m in 70 mins...

The cutoff times are generous IMO. If you cannot easily make them, maybe HIM race is not for you

I think the issue is that the athlete guide (and apparently race briefing?) stated that the cut off times were from your chip start time, but on the day they were applied to gun time? If that's the case I can understand people being pissed off, although there seems to have been a lot of people unprepared for the course/distance/weather and unforeseen issues like a longer swim. That said if people think they can make it around just under the cut off time then fair play to them for giving it a crack, but they have to allow for things going wrong on the day.

EDit

Statler wrote: »

I think the issue is that the athlete guide (and apparently race briefing?) stated that the cut off times were from your chip start time, but on the day they were applied to gun time? If that's the case I can understand people being pissed off, although there seems to have been a lot of people unprepared for the course/distance/weather and unforeseen issues like a longer swim. That said if people think they can make it around just under the cut off time then fair play to them for giving it a crack, but they have to allow for things going wrong on the day.

Agreed. I do have sympathy for folks who didn’t quite make it, especially with the whole “floating buoy” scenario. That said, I’ve seen a few comments on FB about it being unfair for people who only swam a max of 1900m in training or for whom 1900m was at the extent of their swimming ability, and I think that points to a lack of preparation. TBH, even with a beautiful, calm millpond, unless you swim in a perfect straight line, you’ll probably end up doing more than 1900m

RacoonQueen

PWEI wrote: »

Saying "s*** happens" is not much consolation to those who just missed the cut off especially after investing so much time & money in it.

I was reading one girls story last night & my heart went out to her as she was completely devastated when she wasn't allowed finish.

Girl I know went to Barca last year, crashed on the bike and missed bike cutoff by seconds. She wasn't allowed out on the run. Heart went out to her but cutoffs are cutoffs. They need to be strictly enforced.

That final finisher by the way. Savage lady. Was looking at photos last night and when I saw her cycling up hill while all around her were off pushing their bikes up :rolleyes: I looked her up. 59 years old and cycling uphill past people half her age. Must have been a great feeling.

EDit

RacoonQueen wrote: »

Girl I know went to Barca last year, crashed on the bike and missed bike cutoff by seconds. She wasn't allowed out on the run. Heart went out to her but cutoffs are cutoffs. They need to be strictly enforced.

That final finisher by the way. Savage lady. Was looking at photos last night and when I saw her cycling up hill while all around her were off pushing their bikes up :rolleyes: I looked her up. 59 years old and cycling uphill past people half her age. Must have been a great feeling.

Where are you seeing photos out of interest...I can’t find any online yet

Inspector Coptoor

That’s the one thing I couldn’t believe on the bike route.

People walking the bike up the hills and some of them had €15-20k bikes!

I’m 103kg and never got off the bike.

mossym

Inspector Coptoor wrote: »

some of them had €15-20k bikes!

i bet they didn't....

RacoonQueen

Statler wrote: »

I think the issue is that the athlete guide (and apparently race briefing?) stated that the cut off times were from your chip start time, but on the day they were applied to gun time? If that's the case I can understand people being pissed off, although there seems to have been a lot of people unprepared for the course/distance/weather and unforeseen issues like a longer swim. That said if people think they can make it around just under the cut off time then fair play to them for giving it a crack, but they have to allow for things going wrong on the day.

Any proof of this or is it just what people are saying?

The last cyclist btw was only hitting Kiltiernan while the leader was already on military road. So I'm really not buying this people being taken off before cutoff thing. That's a 40k or so difference in distance and about 40 mins difference between when pros got into water and last swimmer?


This person for example would have been just outside cutoff by the time they got into T2, which the FAQ's say are 5:30 from crossing swim start mat, these times have them at 5:35 or so.
00:54:16 00:08:14 04:33:28 00:06:58 02:22:05


While last official finisher (there are a few others who came in over 8:30 with slower times who weren't pulled off the bike course.

01:02:33 00:13:03 04:26:54 00:08:05 02:39:54


Lots of other examples of people in the results with swim + bike times who all finished so I seriously doubt they ALL got in with the first swimmers.


So yeah, really not buying this story of people being pulled off the course early. There were cut off times released for certain parts of the course I think so they have to be strictly enforced to stick with road closures. The race had a sea swim there is a risk with ANY swim that it could be slower than you'd expect because of weather conditions, so you need to weigh that in when you are considering if you are able to make cutoffs...

RacoonQueen

EDit wrote: »

Where are you seeing photos out of interest...I can’t find any online yet

Saw some last night by Seán Rowe I think, but wasn't able to find them when posting. I was going to post a pic of that nice final lady who was smiling on her hill climb.

Edit: found them in my browsing history
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10217693899363799&set=a.10217691752790136&type=3&theater

edit: look at this amazing lady then look at a few photos on each side of her. I couldn't help but feel serious respect for her.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10217693463032891&set=a.10217691752790136&type=3&theater

mloc123

mossym wrote: »

i bet they didn't....

They make 20k bikes now? :eek: Even a di2 p5 must top out at 10k?

jester1980

My only complaint for those DNF would be the GUN time and their start time, the rules said each persons start time so they should have kept with that, But do we know this is 100% accurate.

People who cant swim over 1900 m like stated above really shouldn't be doing this race, ive raced 5 Tri this year and 6 sea swims and every race I think I was long ha, so was the norm for me on Sunday. But you need to prepare for stuff like this.

RacoonQueen

jester1980 wrote: »

My only complaint for those DNF would be the GUN time and their start time, the rules said each persons start time so they should have kept with that, But do we know this is 100% accurate.

There is no 'gun time' and 'start time' in IM. It's all based on your start time.


Athlete guide was pretty clear (bike cut off was already given an extra 15 mins to 5:45)

griffin100

You need to train and train properly for races like this, especially for the swim. You can’t train to swim 1,900 in a pool or in calm conditions and then rock up to a sea swim where conditions are always variable. You need to be comfortable swimming 3km for a HIM in my opinion. Too many people use a wetsuit as a crux in my experience (as I did myself many moons ago).

I’ve done a couple of full IMs off minimal training, and one in particular off a laughable amount of bike and run training, but I never skimped on the swimming. I suffered like a dog on that one but cut off times were never a consideration. If you are worried about cut off times train more. Those photos of people walking a hill scream lack of training. I say this as a fat slow plodder.

jester1980

nok2008 wrote: »

So basically from what i read / heard the bike cut off was 5hr 45 mins after the first person entered the water not when a person entered the water and they pulled a lot of people off the road. At lot of those people giving out that they were told in briefing that if poor swimmer start at back and would make no difference / disadvantage. Would be very annoyed if i was one of those.

RQ I was just basing my comment on this, otherwise the cut offs of 5.45 from personal start time were very fair.

jester1980

griffin100 wrote: »

You need to be comfortable swimming 3km for a HIM in my opinion. .

Agree completely on this