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Vitruvian 2012 - Open now

... and already half full after 3 hours!

http://www.pacesetterevents.com/vitruvian-triathlon.php

Comments

  • shadowone1shadowone1 Posts: 1,408
    oh look... I'm in next year.,

    Going to smash it up. Hopefully stay injury free. Get a good base training in and then go onto smash it.

    This is a prep race for me as I have Miami 70.3 6 weeks after it!
  • nivaghnivagh Posts: 595
    Sold out!

    Keep an eye on the website and the twitter feed @pacesetterevents for places that may become available...
  • As this'll be my first half-IM it'll be the main focus of next season. Have also signed up for the Dambuster earlier in the year to get some experience on the course.

    Will be looking at a few TTs and half marathons as we move towards September. This moves things up another gear for me, and I can't wait.

    Am still going to head to Dorney lake to see if I can beat my Sprint PB though.
  • I'm in too
    By accident really, but there you go! Somebody says - entries open and probably close today it tends to focus the decision making process!
  • ZacniciZacnici Posts: 1,385
    Well done Andy, you will enjoy the Vit; the Ripple is a toughy but doable as is a 2k section at the 30K mark

    http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/43388722
  • Nothing will ever be as bad as wales ;-)
  • The Ripple???? It must be tough, if they've put a name to it.
  • Just looked at the profile 50m ascent or so in a around about a mile, thats not a climb thats a pimple/zit.

    Joking aside I saw the first post and started to think about entering as one of my first races back from a long lay off for next year. Lesson learn't no time to think just do it, will remember for next time. For all those who got in well done and have a great race, am now thinking about voluntering at the event to get a feel for it and partly to teach myself a lesson that I should have been more decisive.
  • LancsRider wrote:
    Just looked at the profile 50m ascent or so in a around about a mile, thats not a climb thats a pimple/zit.

    Joking aside I saw the first post and started to think about entering as one of my first races back from a long lay off for next year. Lesson learn't no time to think just do it, will remember for next time. For all those who got in well done and have a great race, am now thinking about voluntering at the event to get a feel for it and partly to teach myself a lesson that I should have been more decisive.
    Keep an eye out on their twitter and fb pages for withdrawls and u may still get a place...
    Or there's the charity place option?
  • Thanks I will keep that thought in mind,

    I have limited resources as I am wanting to buy a tribike in the next year or so, I also want to be competitive in my age group and I know I am not there yet with my training, and it is a difficult equation to balance this far out. I think my gut reaction is to focus on Olympic events for a year and get back to racing, and then try and take some of the pace into half and eventualy full long course events. I currently cover the distances of a half IM on a hard training day in three seperate sessions, though not at race pace, I am just wary of handing over cash to get a PB which is not that relevant in the long run at the same time experience is something I need to develop. What I am learning is that like popular sportives these events sell out so quickly which is something which did not happen 15 years or so ago pre internet.

    As a thought on giving climbs nicknames, I know this is relative to what the terrain is like in the area but up ere int' North teeth marks in yer andle bar tape tis good indication if its ard and wurth a name.
  • Team Laws is thinking about an assault on the Vit....... just need to make a decision, speak to Mark about the course and then sort out accomodation for the IK and the family.

    Could be a laugh
  • ZacniciZacnici Posts: 1,385
    LancsRider, as before if you monitor the PS website and Twitter they had places become available up to a week or so before so keep fingers crossed.

    The bike course is good, the Ripple is a short sharp challenge as is the 2km climb at 30km
    http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/43388722
  • Thanks,

    I will see where I am up to in my training closer to the time and take it from there. I might have a really good winter and build period, and wish I was racing. Last year I had a serious crash which put me back a month or two in such a scenario I would be feeling any entries this early in the year would be money badly spent. I suspect you are right in that there will always be a few who through injury or because they have speculated and havn't put the work in who will drop out, and as such there is a good chance of getting a place close to the event .

    To be honest I think the internet really suits promoters in that if they can build a bit of speculation that their event might sell out, and a few lines here and there on a forum help this then very quickly they have a pretty full bank balance a long way out. 220 by post questions such as what events are you racing next year fuels this scenario. This is fine if you can speculate and afford to drop out of an event or two, but if finance is restricted and you want to peak for certain races it does entail making a lot of decisions a long way out.

    On the issue of bike courses for triathlon I think it is a really difficult proposition for many course directors. In the early days without standardisation of distances the most important thing was the route had a meaning, they were either natural loops away from traffic, or they were what I consider challenge routes which would attract individuals who had come from a cycling background.

    Having been to a few tris this year including Ironman UK and having watched the Britsh races on TV I think that some of the popular events have elements in the bike design which are simply destructive to a lot of people in these large fields, Bolton was like this. The top age groupers will be able to race on anything. The average competitor wants to get into a rhythm and find their place on the circuit. I think a potential of a lot of routes with sections of short climbs is that the heavier more powerful athletes move up through the field, only to go backwards when they hit the climbs to be overtaken. I saw this a lot on the hill at Bolton add into that multiple laps and you have a road covered with cyclists weaving all over the place, the consequence is it is difficult to enforce drafting violations.
  • shadowone1shadowone1 Posts: 1,408
    I saw this a lot on the hill at Bolton
    Ah sheephouse lane - that hill is brilliant. The descent is even better when you notch up silly speeds and overtake all the people who simply cannot descend. The amount of people who sit on their breaks is frightening.

    LR - drafting will always be difficult to police. It was rife in a few tris this year - The Vit is really bad for it in my opinion. Its even worse for people who pass you then slow down which in turn drops you out of the rythmn.

    The amount of times some silly tosser would go past me then after a minute or two, slow down then forcing me to pick up the pace or drop back was silly. In the end I got fed up and had to drop one or two of them which meant coming out my target pace
  • The Bolton course is pretty local to me and I was out training on the days preceeding the event. It was obvious to me that on courses such as this a lot of people are well out of their comfort zone. There is a big psychological difference in taking a down hill bend at 40mph amongst a group of experienced club cyclists and trying the same manouver in an event like Bolton. In many ways this is not their fault it is like lifting me out of the hills around here and dropping me into the Alps I might be ok on the constant gradients of well engineered roads going up but comming down it would take me a while to adjust to the speeds of others around me. Dropping me into the Pyrenees well thats another matter altogether, you are talking about having high order bike skills there.

    The point I was trying to make is that a consistent profiles leads to fairer racing. A flat course will string out the field so will a constantly undulating course as any advantage is multiplied. It is the courses which are highly mixed and multi lap which seem to me to be an issue.

    As my first 70.3 distance race I looked at Wimball on the tv and my initial reaction is how do you have a good race on a course like that it looked like more of and obstacle course. In some ways this sort of course does suit large fields who are there for the experience and are to an extent reliant on the energies of packs of individuals around them to get them through. I guess that is the price to pay for having a choice of races. Back in the eighties there were only one or two races at longer distances. What i have seen so far is that in this time standards have not really increased, nor have the number of weekend club warriors which make up the top end of the age groups, what has change is the size of fields of people there for the challenge. I do not think this helps the quality of the racing, but it does make more events viable. Whilst i suspect it is easy to find good clean open races, simply look for hard events, mind you Keswick Long sold out fast possibly for this reason, finding this type of event on a fast (easy) course will now be I suspect be impossible.
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