Driving into work today, I heard reports on the radio what I hoped would not happen.  BP Oil has now reached Panama City Beach.  See the following articles at The News Herald and News8 wtnh.com.

So instead of ignoring the elephant in the room, I’ll go ahead and put it out there.  What does this mean for Ironman Florida in Panama City Beach, in November?

Photo by peterrieke

I sent the following to the folks at Ironman.com

Dear Ironman.com,

Regarding the Oil spill, I won’t bore you with all self-centered details about my training and how it has affected families etc. Simply, we’ve all worked hard, and made sacrifices, so there’s a lot of chatter about what will happen in Nov. This is a huge situation and is much larger than any single race.

I suggest the following: Please, please keep the participants informed. Please provide more information other than to say we are monitoring the situation.

• Are there any contingency plans?
• What plans are being discussed?
• What can participants do to help?

There are all kinds of rumors floating around out there about what ironmanusa should do. You will find the most support with the following contingency plan:

Best contingency plans:

1. Move the swim to a nearby lake, or bay. It is not ideal, but everyone will respect the effort to try and move the swim to another location. We will make it work.
2. Some kind of voucher for 1 of any of the other mdot races in 2011(Except Kona, you have to earn it). This is a distant 2nd option but would allow those participants to get over the first hurdle of just getting registered. It would not be too hard to spread out 2000 participants among all the other races.

Worst contingency plans:

• Participants do not want an iron distance duathlon. We’ve signed up for a 140.6. This is a lifetime type accomplishment for many folks, and doing less just isn’t the same.
• Participants do not want a refund. It’s not about the money. It’s about training for something for an entire year making many sacrifices along the way to see if you can put everything together and finish 140.6.

What can we do to help? There’s no need for this race to bail on Panama City. Let’s make it happen, and make it great! There’s plenty of time to come up with a solid contingency.

Regards,

–Jeff

If you would like to contact Ironmanusa.com to voice your opinion, go here: http://www.ironmanusa.com/contact/index.php or call IMFL–813-868-5940

What does everyone else think?  I would love to hear your comments.