"Feels like temp: 109F" for WC Women's marathon start

which part about all of the predictions about death and winning times in the 2:40s do you not understand as being way off? there were 28 DNFs of 68. you obviously struggle with math because that's not 46%. if the conditions were that dire, then please give us a list of all the women currently admitted to the local hospital and their current state. again, the conditions were no worse than what kona offers every year and there isn't constant whining about how kona is going to kill people because of how irresponsible the race organizers are.

it was very hot, not particularly humid and had zero sun. terrible conditions to run a marathon in but everyone ran in the same conditions and everyone had ample time to prepare for them. this wasn't like boston or chicago having record highs and catching everyone off guard. it's also not like results were a random mess (like boston last year). a 2:17 woman won and the reigning champ was 2nd.

1782 Elvan ABEYLEGESSE TUR TUR DNF

713 Ruti AGA ETH ETH DNF

552 Bojana BJELJAC CRO CRO DNF

1360 Monika BYTAUTIENĖ LTU LTU DNF

1784 Fadime ÇELIK TUR TUR DNF

628 Rosa CHACHA ECU ECU DNF

1804 Linet Toroitich CHEBET UGA UGA DNF

717 Shure DEMISE ETH ETH DNF

718 Roza DEREJE ETH ETH DNF

1122 Sara DOSSENA ITA ITA DNF

1123 Giovanna EPIS ITA ITA DNF

371 Shitaye ESHETE BRN BRN DNF

433 Sasha GOLLISH CAN CAN DNF

581 Dagmara HANDZLIK CYP CYP DNF

1247 Ayano IKEMITSU JPN JPN DNF

2025 Sitora KHAMIDOVA UZB UZB DNF

1327 Mariya KOROBITSKAYA KGZ KGZ DNF

489 Dan LI CHN CHN DNF

1735 Failuna MATANGA TAN TAN DNF

1652 Clementine MUKANDANGA RWA RWA DNF

238 Elvanie NIMBONA BDI BDI DNF

1727 Cecilia NORRBOM SWE SWE DNF

554 Matea PARLOV KOŠTRO CRO CRO DNF

888 Charlotte PURDUE GBR GBR DNF

1079 Lonah Chemtai SALPETER ISR ISR DNF

1844 Oleksandra SHAFAR UKR UKR DNF

264 Hanna VANDENBUSSCHE BEL BEL DNF

1673 Hiruni Kesara WIJAYARATNE SRI SRI DNF

877 Tish JONES GBR GBR DNS

558 Nikolina ŠUSTIĆ CRO CRO DNS

ex-runner wrote:

nervous nellies wrote:

it looks like most of these carnage predictions were wildly off. 2:32, 2:33 and 2:34 for the podium with 27 dnfs. with no sun, it wasn't THAT bad. the top women in kona run in the low 2:50s and that's WITH the sun beating down on you in a lava field after biking 112 miles with more humidity.

Are you joking? 40% of the field didn't finish the race. That's absolute carnage. These are professional athletes not amateurs they run marathons for fun.

Apparently, like a lot of experts, they make the mistake of supposing that conditions are always the close to optimal ones they are accustomed to, and train in. Collapsing in the heat means you went too hard for the conditions. Not knowing how to modulate in reaction to the conditions is not knowing part of how to race.

This all reminds me of Yuki winning the Boston Marathon. Some athletes are ready for the imperfect conditions, some aren't.

I predict that an even higher percentage of the men's field won't finish - because I think men who are even less likely to run conservatively

Not particularly humid!? If an 80+ dew point isn’t particularly humid, then what do you count as humid?

Heat affects different people differently.

Of course, some are more apt to quit than others. I’m somehow not surprised that the Ethiopians all DNFd. But one of the Japanese runners also DNFd, and that tells me something.

Sir Bastion Newbold wrote:

I predict that an even higher percentage of the men's field won't finish - because I think men who are even less likely to run conservatively

The conditions won't be as bad for the men's race.

Usually the temperature in Kona is around 80 degrees and rarely does the wet bulb get above 70. Under those conditions a person can cool about twice as well as under conditions similar to those the runners experienced in Doha (its not quite that due to radiative heat transfer from the sun). Go through past ironman results and you will find some years with high DNFs as well (and it varies almost linearly with weather conditions). In 2015 the DNF rate was 35%, other years is was as low as 11%. A 41% DNF rate in a race is extremely high (highest ever at the WCs and about double the 21% average). These were miserable conditions. And yes, there is whining about the conditions in Kona in the Ironman community as well.