Ironman Canada weekend is here!!! Before I start sharing stories about my race weekend experience I have to tell you about something that happened yesterday. After registering for the race Hubby and I decided to check out the packed merchandise tent. There is a lot of really nice stuff for sale and I quite like the bike jerseys this year. 
The plaid accent is a really nice touch! They have the jersey for sale in black, plus pink ones for the ladies and a powder blue one that I only saw in men’s sizes.
After picking out the swag that I wanted to buy Hubby and I stood in the long winding line to the cash register. A few folks back was a fellow clutching an armful of the blue men’s jerseys. He was wearing his triathlon team t-shirt and loudly proclaiming that he picked up all of the size large blue jerseys so that he could sell them on eBay for a profit. After all, with this now being the final year for Ironman Canada surely the demand for the $100 jerseys would be high.
This didn’t sit with me very well. I turned around and told him that he wasn’t being fair to all the people that are participating in the race and maybe couldn’t get to the merchandise tent right away. If you were doing this race and found out that all of the merchandise was gone to eBay hoarders before you were able to buy any it would be really disappointing. In response he mumbled that he planned to offer them to his teammates first if they wanted any…at cost. How generous of him.
As we slowly shuffled along toward the cash registers our favourite eBay hoarder decided to talk about the bike portion of Ironman Canada. In his opinion with so many people doing the race it was nearly impossible to not draft on the bike. He made it sound like you would be silly to not draft on the bike and why not take advantage?
If there is one thing my coach prides herself on, it is racing a clean race. She expects us as her athletes to do the same and many of us have called out drafters in races. For this guy to be wearing his team shirt and to be talking like this is shameful for his team and his coach.
If there is one thing that I love about triathlons it is how friendly and wonderful so many people in the sport are. Conversations in line ups start up as you ask where they are from and how come they decided to race Ironman Canada. To me this fellow was the epitome of unsportsmanlike conduct.
What a jerk. I admit my position on this is very situational. I think it’s perfectly fine to resell something you don’t need or want anymore, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a car, a book, a CD or DVD, a concert ticket, or a bike jersey. Essentially a retail sale between two individuals. However, buying up available stock so as to resell based on a limited product run like this guy was doing is wrong. That’s the same as people buying many concert tickets with no intention to attend, but rather to resell for a profit. Wholesale in other words. Maybe the vendor there should be enforcing a max 2 per person rule.
And drafting. Again, what a jerk. Yes, technically, if there are 3000 people on bikes, and let’s just say that each bike occupies a space 10 m long (even if it is 7, let’s keep the math easy.)That means if the first and last bike are any closer than 30 K apart someone is drafting. Of course it’s more complicated than that since we can have the whole road for the first part of the ride. But still, technically, he’s right, it is nearly impossible to not be drafting near the beginning of the ride. That said, I watched most people space themselves out as much as possible, both sideways and lengthwise. Even in a pack out of T2, you can tell who is making an effort to ride clean, and who is tucked in trying to cheat.
Hope you’re having fun!
Good luck to you in the Ironman! I can’t wait to hear all about it.
He does sound like quite the tool. Good luck in it!
May his unsportsmanlike conduct come back to haunt him on race day! Best wishes Leana!
I hope you have a great race!!!! And I’m glad you said something. At least maybe he will think about his decision and perhaps change his plan.
Hmm, sounds like the gear at Seawheeze! That was just a half marathon but if I trained my butt for frickin IRONMAN I’d be super upset if I couldn’t even buy myself the shirt I wanted because scalpers scooped them up for ebay. Grr.
Good luck this weekend! I’ll be thinking of you!
Good luck tomorrow Leana! I’ll be thinking of you 🙂
Unfortunately – guys like him are why I sometimes associate the word “douche” with the M-dot…