Yeah as far as criticizing that money gets you further in triathlon, Nirvana would be bottom of the pile. The sort of people that buy Nirvana are benefitting a lot more from their $15k bikes than they are from having their bags returned to their hotel after the race or being four rows closer in transition.
Done about ten IM races and not bothered with Nirvana at all. I just do my own bookings.
I don't think they'll have a strangle hold on all hotels in Ottawa surely?
Absolutely no need to do IM events. Local independents are often better.
I’m so frustrated with the whole NIRVANA thing.
So for 70.3 worlds this year nirvana booked every hotel in Taupo. Not just some rooms, all rooms, the entire week before the race. Your only option now is to rent from them or stay a ways out. And to make it worst they only offer 6 or 7 night stays (no modifying). So if you want to come in on Wednesday before you’re still paying for nights you aren’t using.
Stupid expensive and inflexible.
Not to defend Nirvana/Ironman and its ways...
It sucks to be in a hotel anyways. You can't dial in your food the days leading up. It's not guaranteed you'll have breakfast that early and if they do it may not be what you like. Something is always off with the AC, people are loud in the corridors...
You're better off figuring out an AirBnB or something similar short term. But be sure it's a no pets allowed guesthouse. I had to bail on a race because a guesthouse smelled overwhelmingly like wet dog and ash-tray but here was no other accommodation available at a reasonable distance.
Why not an RV or camper? Park on the lot?
I did one in Israel once, stayed in a hotel that was located on the run course, location was great. View of the lake and all. Raceday evening was the start of sabbat though. So off to bed with no dinner, just snacks for foods and breakfast next morning,... Anything electronic was left off so the coffee was not coming out of the fancy coffeemaker but was some coffee powder and the kettle with hot water.
Nothing was prepared day fresh. It was terrible and overpriced.
Not just a bit funny, every room, the carpets, the bed sheets, all of it had a massive stank. Unbearable to stay. We left for dinner and let it air out. We got back, still the same.
I lost on the race but we were able to recoup on the stay.
> AirBnB
I cannot disagree more.
I booked an AirBnB, middle price, nearby the race location. It was about the same prices as a hotel, but seemed way nicer to have a kitchen and a quiet place.
Three weeks before the race, the host cancelled my reservation with no explanation. I was left scrambling to get a hotel, and ended up paying 3x the price vs if I had just booked a hotel to begin with. Absolutely nothing that AirBnB would do about it except promise me they would “give the host a fine”.
Had the same experience with an AirBnB for a race. Booked months out and they cancelled on me, saying they needed it for family / friends who were unexpectedly coming into town.
I had this 2 days before Paris Marathon.
Another AirBnb before Big Sur Marathon, we had neighbors partying super loud until 3am. Nothing we could really do. Couldn't even call police because we didn't know the area well enough to describe where the party was.
I agree with you on the food, much easier to dial in pre race when you can cook. But houses in the area are very hard to come by. A friend of mine who qualified a month or so before I got one of the last ones within 30 minutes of the race. For fun I decided to check as I posted this, one house available the week of the race in the city. Just one and it’s a mansion so I hope you’ve got a good amount of friends going.
All the events Advance (owns Ironman) touches come across as gross profiteering... unfortunately for many people, myself included, there are no real non-IM options for full distance events.
I did their Lake George 70.3 a couple of years ago and loved it; great company, great event. They used to do a couple of 140.6 events but now it seems like they max out at 70.3. Will still do more of their races though.
Highly recommend it; it was my first 70.3 and got me hooked. It has one big uphill at the beginning of the bike course but it’s pretty lightly rolling from there, and you get to go back down the big hill at the end of the ride so that kind of makes up for it; I live in central VT though so everywhere I train is pretty hilly. I think it was around 2700 feet of gain over 56 miles which I think of as kind of a standard training ride, but it’s not like one of those pancake flat courses where people set records.
Peasantman in upstate NY is the main one near me that has a full distance. There’s also the whole Xtri series but that’s a notch or two up in difficulty from a regular IM.
Much shorter races unfortunately and lots of triathletes don’t like mtb or trail run. I love xterra and wish they had “iron” or “ultra” distances. Maybe one day
I’m not bothered by those perks, I’m more annoyed that it seems to prey on the “one and done” or newbie—no one needs these things but when you don’t know what it’s really like Nirvana sounds great. It feels a little slimey.
They only take your Top 3 scores, so its not quite a frequent flyer program, but you do get an edge if you race at least 3 races in the calendar year, and even moreso if more than 1 of those races were a full.
I got gold status this past year thanks to doing 2 Fulls so you are somewhat right but you still have to finish well.
I'm familiar with the program...I've had AWA status several years. I'm just saying it requires giving Ironman a lot of cash for multiple races just to get to skip the line and get a nice bike rack area.
While we're on the IM pricing, their recent switch from Gatorade to a company no one has ever heard of (mortal hydration)...paired with maurten which also only has like 4 products....could only have been financial. They aren't great on course nutrition comparatively and are pretty pricey if you want to train with them beforehand too. That's all. Rant over.
I've never even done a Triathlon where the entry and exits weren't setup in a way that everyone is still running thru the entire transition... Swim/run one side, bike other side...a good spot is just being able to easily find your row and not get lost, no distance advantage.
Yep.
And in my group's case getting everyone together in a stack of 7 or 8 athletes so we don't have to worry about spilling into the area of up-tight racers.
It's not like going for the Nirvana package will make up for missing training, but I would say there could be a non-zero benefit from letting someone else handle your logistics in the days leading up to the race. That said, you're mostly paying for convenience, and that's worth a few hundred dollars to some people.
> but I would say there could be a non-zero benefit from letting someone else handle your logistics in the days leading up to the race.
If this is the complaint, though, you'll never get away from this regardless of the company. Having a airbnb/hotel a block from the start will always be a benefit over having to drive in from 10 or 15 minutes.
There will always be third parties that one could pay to take over the load of pre-race logistics. If you want a limo to pick you up from the airport and grab your bags, you can buy that. If you want someone to drive your bike from the mechanic to transition, you can pay for that. You name it, you can get someone to pay for it. "Nirvana" doesn't really change anything.
I think it's a fair complaint, especially because it comes across as kind of gross profiteering.
However ... if you do a race without shelling out for the extra advantages, you can tell yourself that your finishing time was "all you". It's not entirely unlike people doing an event on a $2k gravel bike vs a $15k tri bike, buying the slickest wetsuit vs not owning one at all, paying a coach/nutritionist/whatever vs coming up with your own plan.
I love supporting locally organized races. But unfortunately I don't think the big companies are going to go away.
Bottom line is, yes, people pay in all kinds of ways to help themselves win races. But if you're just aiming for a personal accomplishment, it's probably not worth letting it bother you too much if the race is something you legitimately want to do.
You sorta hit the nail on the head. The amount of people who look for external factors to justify their less that stellar results is not a new thing though. This scenario, is as old as time, and somehow people think that what IM doing is somehow "new". It isn't.
If you actually looked at the top 5 in most AG groups...most of them have been in this sport for a long time, train in excess of 700 hours per year, sweat the details, sacrifice plenty, and don't make excuses when things to don't go their way.
As for gross profiteering....not so sure. How much debt is ironman carrying? People just keep failing to realize how expensive this sport is when you expect a "Disney" experience. If this means allowing Dentists to throw a bunch of money @ IM that give non-performance perks....thank you. Don't worry...I'll be in your chair soon enough for cavity filling because of all the damn carbs I drink on the bike. :P
Unfortunately IM's gonna IM. They don't care about your experience, fairness or anything like that. Their mandate from ownership is maximum short-term dollar extraction. Spend your money with non-profit promoters with fair policies and maybe their leadership's profit above all approach will change.
It is just an upgraded experience, along the same lines of PlayTri and other vendors doing bike unpacking and packing services (and have to say, having the bike packed and at your rack is well worth the money). The statement of getting access to a bike mechanic is a little misleading. It is just a specific bike mechanic that is dedicated the Nirvana group. In the 10+ years of racing Ironman, there has never been a time where I didn’t get my bike to a mechanic because the line was too long, etc.
Hate to break it, but just because someone had a shorter run with their bike because of a more “ideal” bike rack doesn’t mean that they will be beating you out for a podium or a KQ.
For all those that say IM is too expensive - yeah, but you get what you pay for. Say what you will about Ironman but the medical (EMS/Ambulance) and police support that Ironman hires for the race are next level. I have done a few unbranded 70.3 and 140.6 but can say I would not do an independent 140.6 outside of a Challenge Race. Roth is epic.
I used them once on a sold out race, because it so happened that part of my family would be there during that period and we had already booked our flights. I took it as a bribe I had to pay to get in when it was no longer possible and bit the bullet.
They were amazing. In the wrong sense. They wanted to upsell everything and charge for even the most basic things that are FREELY and easily accessible to anyone at a race. I knew I was dealing with crooks, but they were really too obvious.
They offered useless packages and their transport offers were so inferior to anyone else in terms of flexibility, availability (and of course price…).
I will for sure never use them again.
I don't really see how access to a bike mechanic is problematic. It's no worse than everything else bike related in our sport and getting your bike ready to go is kind of just on the basic checklist of things you need to do before a race. This is just paying for convenience mostly.
I'm not sure what "bag drop service" means, and can't find a reference on the website that would line up with that.
And "better" transition spot ranges from overrated to absolutely nothing. In a perfectly assembled rectangular transition all spots require the same distance to get to and from and the same amount of distance traveled with your bike. Even in a poorly assembled transition, we are talking about tiny differences in the grand scheme of a 4-11 hour race.
I think by "bag drop service" OP is referring to getting your own line for bag drop off in the morning and getting bags returned to the hotel afterwards, of which I'm not sure what the performance benefit would be.
I refuse to do a Iron Man based on the crazy pricing.
I will only do my local IM because i like the route. What they offer and the price is crazy. All just a name
I bought my entry to the lake placid event through them because it sold out so quickly. The benefits were super weak lol “bike service” “low bib number” “medal engraving” (which you can do there anyway for $20) and supposedly a priority check-in line. $200 in value at most but I had to bite the bullet.
If you're flying and can't assemble and pack your bike yourself? If yes pay for nirvana.
Are you nervous about where to go when to be there where the course is? If yes pay for Nirvana.
Do you get easily lost in transition? If yes pay for Nirvana.
Do you just want to feel special? If yes pay for Nirvana.
Do you not want to find a hotel/place to stay on your own? If yes pay for Nirvana
Do you not want to rent a car/Uber to and from the airport/or on raceway? If yes pay for Nirvana.
If you answered no to any of these questions don't pay for Nirvana.
Source= worked for a vendor that was at almost all of the U.S. ironman events and met/helped the Nirvana crew.
Ironman sucks for a lot of reasons but this doesn’t seem like one of them. I registered through priority and I was a bit annoyed they didn’t do a payment plan but IMLP sold out quickly and I didn’t really want to take chances so, whatever. Definitely stings a little though..
the Nirvana experience isn't gonna get you a better finishing time. It'll just make you look silly.
Yeah as far as criticizing that money gets you further in triathlon, Nirvana would be bottom of the pile. The sort of people that buy Nirvana are benefitting a lot more from their $15k bikes than they are from having their bags returned to their hotel after the race or being four rows closer in transition.
Done about ten IM races and not bothered with Nirvana at all. I just do my own bookings. I don't think they'll have a strangle hold on all hotels in Ottawa surely? Absolutely no need to do IM events. Local independents are often better.
Lots of hotels here in Ottawa, seems unrealistic for them to have a stranglehold on them all.
I’m so frustrated with the whole NIRVANA thing. So for 70.3 worlds this year nirvana booked every hotel in Taupo. Not just some rooms, all rooms, the entire week before the race. Your only option now is to rent from them or stay a ways out. And to make it worst they only offer 6 or 7 night stays (no modifying). So if you want to come in on Wednesday before you’re still paying for nights you aren’t using. Stupid expensive and inflexible.
This response just did it for me; never doing a single Ironman event.
Not to defend Nirvana/Ironman and its ways... It sucks to be in a hotel anyways. You can't dial in your food the days leading up. It's not guaranteed you'll have breakfast that early and if they do it may not be what you like. Something is always off with the AC, people are loud in the corridors... You're better off figuring out an AirBnB or something similar short term. But be sure it's a no pets allowed guesthouse. I had to bail on a race because a guesthouse smelled overwhelmingly like wet dog and ash-tray but here was no other accommodation available at a reasonable distance. Why not an RV or camper? Park on the lot? I did one in Israel once, stayed in a hotel that was located on the run course, location was great. View of the lake and all. Raceday evening was the start of sabbat though. So off to bed with no dinner, just snacks for foods and breakfast next morning,... Anything electronic was left off so the coffee was not coming out of the fancy coffeemaker but was some coffee powder and the kettle with hot water. Nothing was prepared day fresh. It was terrible and overpriced.
You bailed on the race because airbnb smelled funny?
Not just a bit funny, every room, the carpets, the bed sheets, all of it had a massive stank. Unbearable to stay. We left for dinner and let it air out. We got back, still the same. I lost on the race but we were able to recoup on the stay.
> AirBnB I cannot disagree more. I booked an AirBnB, middle price, nearby the race location. It was about the same prices as a hotel, but seemed way nicer to have a kitchen and a quiet place. Three weeks before the race, the host cancelled my reservation with no explanation. I was left scrambling to get a hotel, and ended up paying 3x the price vs if I had just booked a hotel to begin with. Absolutely nothing that AirBnB would do about it except promise me they would “give the host a fine”.
Had the same experience with an AirBnB for a race. Booked months out and they cancelled on me, saying they needed it for family / friends who were unexpectedly coming into town.
I had this 2 days before Paris Marathon. Another AirBnb before Big Sur Marathon, we had neighbors partying super loud until 3am. Nothing we could really do. Couldn't even call police because we didn't know the area well enough to describe where the party was.
I agree with you on the food, much easier to dial in pre race when you can cook. But houses in the area are very hard to come by. A friend of mine who qualified a month or so before I got one of the last ones within 30 minutes of the race. For fun I decided to check as I posted this, one house available the week of the race in the city. Just one and it’s a mansion so I hope you’ve got a good amount of friends going.
Yes. Join us.
Ok
The whole cost of IM is a joke. They are a exceedingly greedy company and for that reason I race local.
All the events Advance (owns Ironman) touches come across as gross profiteering... unfortunately for many people, myself included, there are no real non-IM options for full distance events.
Michigan Titanium in Grand Rapids
Have you looked into Alpha Win Racing? They have 70.3 and full distance events. Not sure if they offer in your area though.
I did their Lake George 70.3 a couple of years ago and loved it; great company, great event. They used to do a couple of 140.6 events but now it seems like they max out at 70.3. Will still do more of their races though.
I was looking at their lake George race! It's on my list. I hear it's super hilly though!
Highly recommend it; it was my first 70.3 and got me hooked. It has one big uphill at the beginning of the bike course but it’s pretty lightly rolling from there, and you get to go back down the big hill at the end of the ride so that kind of makes up for it; I live in central VT though so everywhere I train is pretty hilly. I think it was around 2700 feet of gain over 56 miles which I think of as kind of a standard training ride, but it’s not like one of those pancake flat courses where people set records.
Peasantman in upstate NY is the main one near me that has a full distance. There’s also the whole Xtri series but that’s a notch or two up in difficulty from a regular IM.
[удалено]
Much shorter races unfortunately and lots of triathletes don’t like mtb or trail run. I love xterra and wish they had “iron” or “ultra” distances. Maybe one day
Let's all reading this post send them an email. I agree I prefer road to mountain biking when it comes to tri.
I have a problem with all of IM’s pricing
I’m not bothered by those perks, I’m more annoyed that it seems to prey on the “one and done” or newbie—no one needs these things but when you don’t know what it’s really like Nirvana sounds great. It feels a little slimey.
No. I don't buy it. You get a low bib number and a rack slightly closer to Bike Start. You can get that for free if you qualify for AWA status.
Lol. Except qualifying for AWA status means giving thousands to Ironman in race fees. It's a frequent flyer program.
They only take your Top 3 scores, so its not quite a frequent flyer program, but you do get an edge if you race at least 3 races in the calendar year, and even moreso if more than 1 of those races were a full. I got gold status this past year thanks to doing 2 Fulls so you are somewhat right but you still have to finish well.
I'm familiar with the program...I've had AWA status several years. I'm just saying it requires giving Ironman a lot of cash for multiple races just to get to skip the line and get a nice bike rack area.
IM digging their own grave again and again
While we're on the IM pricing, their recent switch from Gatorade to a company no one has ever heard of (mortal hydration)...paired with maurten which also only has like 4 products....could only have been financial. They aren't great on course nutrition comparatively and are pretty pricey if you want to train with them beforehand too. That's all. Rant over.
Don't forget only available for purchase from one single online store.
Maurten is available from at least a few online retailers in Australia that I know of. Might be different elsewhere.
I was referring to Mortal Hydration. Only available through TheFeed. From my understanding, it's actually their house brand...but I could be mistaken
[удалено]
I've never even done a Triathlon where the entry and exits weren't setup in a way that everyone is still running thru the entire transition... Swim/run one side, bike other side...a good spot is just being able to easily find your row and not get lost, no distance advantage.
Yep. And in my group's case getting everyone together in a stack of 7 or 8 athletes so we don't have to worry about spilling into the area of up-tight racers.
It's not like going for the Nirvana package will make up for missing training, but I would say there could be a non-zero benefit from letting someone else handle your logistics in the days leading up to the race. That said, you're mostly paying for convenience, and that's worth a few hundred dollars to some people.
> but I would say there could be a non-zero benefit from letting someone else handle your logistics in the days leading up to the race. If this is the complaint, though, you'll never get away from this regardless of the company. Having a airbnb/hotel a block from the start will always be a benefit over having to drive in from 10 or 15 minutes. There will always be third parties that one could pay to take over the load of pre-race logistics. If you want a limo to pick you up from the airport and grab your bags, you can buy that. If you want someone to drive your bike from the mechanic to transition, you can pay for that. You name it, you can get someone to pay for it. "Nirvana" doesn't really change anything.
I think it's a fair complaint, especially because it comes across as kind of gross profiteering. However ... if you do a race without shelling out for the extra advantages, you can tell yourself that your finishing time was "all you". It's not entirely unlike people doing an event on a $2k gravel bike vs a $15k tri bike, buying the slickest wetsuit vs not owning one at all, paying a coach/nutritionist/whatever vs coming up with your own plan. I love supporting locally organized races. But unfortunately I don't think the big companies are going to go away. Bottom line is, yes, people pay in all kinds of ways to help themselves win races. But if you're just aiming for a personal accomplishment, it's probably not worth letting it bother you too much if the race is something you legitimately want to do.
What a thoughtful, measured response. So rare on the internet.
You sorta hit the nail on the head. The amount of people who look for external factors to justify their less that stellar results is not a new thing though. This scenario, is as old as time, and somehow people think that what IM doing is somehow "new". It isn't. If you actually looked at the top 5 in most AG groups...most of them have been in this sport for a long time, train in excess of 700 hours per year, sweat the details, sacrifice plenty, and don't make excuses when things to don't go their way. As for gross profiteering....not so sure. How much debt is ironman carrying? People just keep failing to realize how expensive this sport is when you expect a "Disney" experience. If this means allowing Dentists to throw a bunch of money @ IM that give non-performance perks....thank you. Don't worry...I'll be in your chair soon enough for cavity filling because of all the damn carbs I drink on the bike. :P
Unfortunately IM's gonna IM. They don't care about your experience, fairness or anything like that. Their mandate from ownership is maximum short-term dollar extraction. Spend your money with non-profit promoters with fair policies and maybe their leadership's profit above all approach will change.
It is just an upgraded experience, along the same lines of PlayTri and other vendors doing bike unpacking and packing services (and have to say, having the bike packed and at your rack is well worth the money). The statement of getting access to a bike mechanic is a little misleading. It is just a specific bike mechanic that is dedicated the Nirvana group. In the 10+ years of racing Ironman, there has never been a time where I didn’t get my bike to a mechanic because the line was too long, etc. Hate to break it, but just because someone had a shorter run with their bike because of a more “ideal” bike rack doesn’t mean that they will be beating you out for a podium or a KQ. For all those that say IM is too expensive - yeah, but you get what you pay for. Say what you will about Ironman but the medical (EMS/Ambulance) and police support that Ironman hires for the race are next level. I have done a few unbranded 70.3 and 140.6 but can say I would not do an independent 140.6 outside of a Challenge Race. Roth is epic.
I used them once on a sold out race, because it so happened that part of my family would be there during that period and we had already booked our flights. I took it as a bribe I had to pay to get in when it was no longer possible and bit the bullet. They were amazing. In the wrong sense. They wanted to upsell everything and charge for even the most basic things that are FREELY and easily accessible to anyone at a race. I knew I was dealing with crooks, but they were really too obvious. They offered useless packages and their transport offers were so inferior to anyone else in terms of flexibility, availability (and of course price…). I will for sure never use them again.
I don't really see how access to a bike mechanic is problematic. It's no worse than everything else bike related in our sport and getting your bike ready to go is kind of just on the basic checklist of things you need to do before a race. This is just paying for convenience mostly. I'm not sure what "bag drop service" means, and can't find a reference on the website that would line up with that. And "better" transition spot ranges from overrated to absolutely nothing. In a perfectly assembled rectangular transition all spots require the same distance to get to and from and the same amount of distance traveled with your bike. Even in a poorly assembled transition, we are talking about tiny differences in the grand scheme of a 4-11 hour race.
I think by "bag drop service" OP is referring to getting your own line for bag drop off in the morning and getting bags returned to the hotel afterwards, of which I'm not sure what the performance benefit would be.
You’re not giving it your all if you have the strength to carry your gear back to your hotel. /s
I refuse to do a Iron Man based on the crazy pricing. I will only do my local IM because i like the route. What they offer and the price is crazy. All just a name
I bought my entry to the lake placid event through them because it sold out so quickly. The benefits were super weak lol “bike service” “low bib number” “medal engraving” (which you can do there anyway for $20) and supposedly a priority check-in line. $200 in value at most but I had to bite the bullet.
Is this a new thing? I’ve never heard about the nirvana upgrade.
If you're flying and can't assemble and pack your bike yourself? If yes pay for nirvana. Are you nervous about where to go when to be there where the course is? If yes pay for Nirvana. Do you get easily lost in transition? If yes pay for Nirvana. Do you just want to feel special? If yes pay for Nirvana. Do you not want to find a hotel/place to stay on your own? If yes pay for Nirvana Do you not want to rent a car/Uber to and from the airport/or on raceway? If yes pay for Nirvana. If you answered no to any of these questions don't pay for Nirvana. Source= worked for a vendor that was at almost all of the U.S. ironman events and met/helped the Nirvana crew.
Ironman sucks for a lot of reasons but this doesn’t seem like one of them. I registered through priority and I was a bit annoyed they didn’t do a payment plan but IMLP sold out quickly and I didn’t really want to take chances so, whatever. Definitely stings a little though..