I watched the Lake Tahoe Live Stream for a while last night and that’s when it really hit me how brutal this race must have been. The time was around 13 hours and the flow of competitors (not to mention spectators) was sparse. It was dark, and frankly, felt lonely. But this is exactly why the finishers of this race will have a bond like no other. I would love to hear from anyone who did this race. Please contact me if and when you do a race report and I will gladly link to or post it here.
I found this excellent breakdown of IMLT and it confirms everything we thought. A couple of stats from the article.
– Nearly 25% of racers who started didn’t finish (average IM DNF rate is about 5%).
– Only one M 40-44 age grouper broke the 10 hour mark.
– 385 people on the bib list did not even show up to race.
I really do commend those who jumped in that frigid water. I did the Rev3 Olympic in May of this year and the conditions were similar, but I can’t imagine doing a race four times as long with mountain climbs and weather so cold the downhills hurt as much as the climbs. It’s likely no consolation at this point, but I really feel like my Rev3 experience made me a much better and tougher racer. Congrats on being a part of the race that will go down in history as one of the toughest Ironman’s of all time.
Edit: I just found this great video and would like to adapt my early observation of the IM Lake Tahoe finish line. On the stream, the spectator support looked very thin, but this clearly shows that a lot of people were out there toward the end cheering for these athletes as they completed their epic journeys: