During the past week, I had the opportunity to take a bittersweet trip to Kentucky for Ironman Louisville. The journey left me with a mixture of pride and sadness because it marked the end of my stint as a coach for Team in Training’s Ironteam group. I was extremely proud of our athletes at Vineman 140.6, Ironman Canada and Ironman Louisville, and it was difficult to step away from my role as one of their leaders.

I have now attended four 140.6-mile triathlons, twice as a participant (once completing the full distance and once as a member of a relay) and twice as a coach. Seeing these events from every angle brings an interesting perspective to the accomplishment of becoming an Ironman. Each race is unique, and it is almost impossible to compare one with another. A person’s finishing time at Ironman Florida is, in no way, a predictor of how he/she might perform at Ironman St. George. The courses, logistics and weather conditions make each long course triathlon its own adventure.

Although Ironman Louisville is the most popular event of its kind (there were more than 2,900 registrants this year), I was unimpressed with its logistics. Registration for 2011 opened this morning, and I’m sure it will sell out soon, but I would not recommend IM Louisville to any triathletes looking for an A-race. Here were some issues I noticed:

• Many of the Ironman courses have unpredictable weather conditions, but Kentucky in late August (except for an anomaly year in 2009) is fairly consistently hot and humid. The heat index took its toll, not just on the amateur athletes hoping to complete the race, but on most of the professional triathletes as well. This year, the high temperature was 96 degrees and the humidity peaked at 65% . There were thousands of people doing long, unplanned walks on the marathon course and 388 people (15% of those who began the swim) had to drop out. If I’m going to do 140.6 miles, I’d rather do it when I’m not in danger of heat stroke.
• The time-trial swim start is problematic for various reasons. First, there are people haphazardly jumping off of docks into the Ohio River , practically on top of each other. Second, the clock starts at 7:00am, and only those athletes who are toward the front of the mile-long swim line are able to begin their swim at that time. This means that everybody else gets less than the full 17 hours to complete the race before the 12:00am cutoff, and the people at the front of the line have to get down to the swim start around 3:00am to reserve their spot.
• The bathroom situation before the race was problematic. In a non-wetsuit swim that begins on shore, almost every athlete will have the need to make a pitstop before 7:00am. Add 2,500 people, a long wait in line, and lots of hydration, and the 15-20 port-a-potties near the beginning of the line were too meager for the demand. With gross revenues from this race in the millions, it would seem like a simple gesture for the race director to alleviate this problem with more port-a-potty rentals.
• The swim course itself has issues. The cleanliness of the Ohio River is certainly questionable (as one local person said to us this morning: “Um, we don’t swim in the Ohio River, you know…) and, with water temperatures in the mid-80’s, the heat can be an issue for some people. The course also converges through a narrow channel where more than 2,500 people are trying to pass each other, which can make the non-wetsuit swim more brutal than a mass start through that section. Furthermore, the swim start is three-quarters of a mile from the transition area, which means that everybody has to walk down there after tending to their bikes at 5:00am.
• The bike course begins with a short, 200-foot stretch of path from the mount line to a sharp left turn onto River Road. The turn is well-marked, but not necessarily wide, and there is a significant lip between the path and the road. What this means is there are packs of people all trying to negotiate the turn at the same time, and when they encounter the lip, many seat-mounted bottle cages were launching water bottles onto the road. Although the volunteers were doing their best to pick up these projectiles as they rolled onto the street, I watched at least 30 bottles cause near-collisions during the 45 minutes in which I was there. It would seem like something could be done about the lip, if not the width of the turn.
• This year, there were mishaps on the bike course. A large truck blocked a narrow road in which cyclists were riding in both directions. There was a shortage of water, leading to a complete outage at some aid stations. There is also automobile traffic in both directions on a lot of the course, causing a potentially scary situation for the participants.
• The run course is heralded as being historic and scenic because it passes by Churchill Downs, but really it cuts through a sketchy part of town which requires an army of police officers to ensure the safety of the racers. I appreciated the fact that it didn’t have the elevation gains I faced at St. George and I thought the sections on the bridge and through Fourth Street Live were remarkable, but the overall impression of the run course that I got was anything but scenic.
• The finish line is roughly a mile away from the transition area , and there is a stipulation that bikes must be picked up by 12:30am. This prohibits a 16-17 hour participant from reaching his/her bike in time without having a friend or family member to help him/her. That last thing someone wants to do after finishing an Ironman is walking to take care of his/her bike, but when the journey is more than a mile each way (including a few flights of stairs), that is simply tortuous.
• We had a few people on our team who needed medical support, and those that arrived after 12:15am were turned away. I had two participants that were unable to receive the IV’s that they needed (they were told to find a local hospital). I am not a race director and I don’t have any statistics to support this statement, but I would assume that there were a lot of people who finished later at night who needed more medical attention than their faster counterparts. Wouldn’t it make sense to stay open later to ensure the safety of the participants?

Overall, I appreciated the event and I believe that the Ironman brand stands for a high-quality experience, but I was unimpressed with Ironman Louisville as compared to the other races I have experienced and heard about. Perhaps it would make sense to move the race to a nearby lake where a cleaner swim, closer transition area, and safer run course could be laid out? As long as people still fly into Louisville and stay in Louisville hotels, I’m sure the race could retain its name and the city’s tourism bureau could still benefit. That said, I certainly don’t plan to sign up for Ironman Louisville and I will advise my friends to avoid it as well.