Why is Ironman Like This?
A Morro Bay 70.3 Recap and Frustrations with Ironman
On May 19th, I competed in my second Ironman 70.3 (Half Ironman) triathlon race in Morro Bay, California. The race itself went really well and I ended up placing sixth female overall, and fourth woman in my age group, which meant I qualified for the Ironman 70.3 World Championships! I am so happy and proud, but a lot of the details surrounding worlds left a bitter feeling in my mouth. So read on for a race recap and summary of the bizarre and frankly unfair process Ironman uses for qualifying and accepting a worlds slot, as well as their monopolistic practices regarding accommodations.
Race Recap
The race started bright and early at 6 am, meaning we (my support crew of Natalia and Marco and I!) were up at 3:15 am. The 1.2 mile swim started off well and I was happy with my positioning, right behind the lead swimmer, until we got to the turnaround buoy where a man slammed into me. He glued himself to my side and while trying to stay right next to me, proceeded to whack me in the head multiple times, knocking my goggles off in the process. I stopped, looked around, and they were lost. I had a moment of panic, but did my best to calm myself down and just swim, mostly with my eyes closed. Certainly not ideal and I was internally raging at the man who knocked them off, but I just wanted to get to the end.
Getting out of the swim as a strong swimmer and at the front of the pack is always fun because the spectators go crazy seeing women at the front. I got through the transition and was off on the 56 mile bike course. Fog settled in, keeping my shoes nice and wet, but the ride itself wasn’t too bad. The course was an out and back along Highway 1, right along the coast. As a strong swimmer, the bike portion of a Half Ironman is essentially me getting passed by the top men and top women. But I did my best to focus on my race and tried not to let my fingers get too chilly.
I made it through the bike and back into the town of Morro Bay to get ready for the 13.1 mile run. Transition two went well, though I accidentally started running with my helmet on – oopsies! Luckily some nice relay participants who were waiting for their biker to finish told me and offered to take my helmet back for me – truly so kind! While the bike can sometimes feel a bit desolate, especially on this course where we were just straight out and back, the run is the opposite. The course was almost fully lined with spectators cheering, clapping, and playing music. I got to see my sister and Marco multiple times on the course, which gave me a boost, along with seeing friends in the race go by. The run went really well for me! I stuck to my race plan and am really happy with how I executed it. I was pleasantly very surprised with the time and my new “supershoes” felt great, minus the heel blisters and a couple black and blue toes.
Finishing felt like a relief and my body was happy to be done. Then I found out my overall placings and was excited about that! Going into the race, I had race plans for each segment and overall wanted to race hard and beat my run time from my first Ironman 70.3 last May in Spain, which I did! So finding out I might have earned a slot for Worlds was a huge nice surprise! However, the process to find out and accept the slot was much less of a nice surprise…
Worlds Qualifying Process
While I am very grateful to have qualified, I think the process left a lot to be desired and honestly plays into some less-than-stellar stereotypes with the sport of triathlon. How qualifying works is that each Ironman 70.3 event in the qualifying period leading up to the World Championship has a certain number of slots available to give to athletes, depending on the number of people competing. At Morro Bay, there were 45 total slots available, with an additional 15 for women to help increase women participation in the sport.
Qualifying is all place-based. Each age group was allocated a certain number of slots; for example, the 25-29 women age group had two slots. So far, so good in terms of okay yeah that makes sense for how to qualify. Here’s where things get… unfair.
The slots announcements for Worlds happen at each race, either before or after the awards ceremony, and an athlete must be present at that time and accept their slot or it is given to someone else. At Morro Bay, it was after the awards, which were at 2:30 pm (so eight hours after the race started, and about 3.5 hours after I finished). We went to the awards ceremony because I got an award (yay!) and to see if I qualified for Worlds.
Right before the Worlds slots were announced, the guy running the show made an announcement that totally caught me off guard. He shared that he would go through each age group and name and if he called your name, you had to come up to the stage immediately or he would move on to the next person. And! You had to have your credit card ready and right then and there to pay the race fee (a fee of $780, though he didn’t even announce it!). Sorry what!? We had to ask around just to find out how much it would cost.
Luckily, he started from oldest to youngest which gave my indecisive self ample time to call my parents, freak out, and wobble back and forth on my decision. The man started going through each age group and would say, “Okay men 45-59 we have three slots” and then would read the first place name, see if they accept. If yes, great. Move on to person two. If not, he would pretty immediately move on to the next place person and so on until the three slots were claimed. The process moved extremely quickly and you had to be listening closely or you would miss your name and be skipped over.
In the end, I did decide to go for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and accept my slot. And I am really proud of myself. But I am also upset with the sport and Ironman as an organization. Triathlon already (probably rightfully so) has a reputation for being a money sport. You can literally buy speed in the form of fancy bikes and fancy running shoes. So the fact that you are required on the spot, after competing for at least four hours, to commit to flying across the world and paying your $780 entry free right then and there certainly adds to that reputation.
Money aside, the way the process works really makes no sense to me. I understand the need for some urgency to ensure that people don’t take slots and end up not going. But why not let people know they have qualified and give them two weeks to decide or else they lose their spot? Or even one week! And I know they could do this. Because although I accepted my slot and paid on the spot, I got an email the following day alerting me that I (in all bold) WAS NOT DONE REGISTERING!! I had to finish the registration process online in the next three weeks or I would lose my spot (and get a measly $75 refund). So if the registration process gives me that three week buffer, why can’t the whole process work that way?
Accommodation Hoarding
Unfortunately, that isn’t the only way Ironman uses World Championships as a cash grab. Once I had accepted my slot, my family and I started looking into accommodations nearby the race and were finding almost nothing nearby, and what was close by was excessively expensive.
I listened to one of my favorite podcasts (That Triathlon Life) hosted by two professional triathletes and their amateur triathlete/musician friend and learned what my mom would soon confirm. Basically, hotels open up their bookings a year in advance. Ironman and their travel partner go in right when they open and buy up most or all of the hotel rooms. They then try to force you to go through their travel partner to book, cranking up the prices and requiring longer bookings. My mom pretty much confirmed this by getting in touch with hotels who put her in touch with brokers holding entire hotels and resorts, requiring people to book for a whole week for at least $4,000. One motel that regularly changes $170/night would be $700/night for the race.
Final Thoughts
I had a great time at this race and am really proud of myself. I am so excited to go to New Zealand and compete at Worlds in December. But I really wish they would change the process. Changing the process for athletes to go to Ironman World Championships would not change the high entry fee, let alone the travel, accommodations, etc. But it would give people a little more breathing room to take the time to decide, to figure out if they can afford it, give them time to plan, give more people the chance at going by not requiring they stay hours after the race ends, and honestly make it seem less like Ironman is just trying to make as much money off athletes as possible at once.
As for the accommodations, it really just feels like a cash grab by Ironman. They know athletes work so hard to qualify and most will qualify in the year leading up to the race, not knowing if they will make it or not when reservations open a year prior. So buying up all of the hotels and charging exorbitant prices is a shame. Luckily, my mom’s persistence with finding something paid off and we found somewhere (though certainly not cheap) relatively close. But it shouldn’t have to be this way. Ironman, you need to change.