JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The City of Jacksonville is gearing up to host the IRONMAN competition for the first time, a nationally recognized elite endurance race expected to draw nearly 2,000 participants.<\/p>\n
The race will begin in the St. Johns River, where competitors will swim 4,000 yards before moving on to a 112-mile bike and a 26-mile marathon. The city\u2019s Sports and Entertainment Director, Alex Alston, says competitors are from all over the United States and 39 different countries.<\/p>\n
But with more people, there\u2019s more traffic.<\/p>\n
IRONMAN\u2019s traffic impact list shows that over fifty roads will be impacted throughout the city at different times of the day. To get ahead of potential gridlocks and other traffic disruptions, Alston says that the Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office is working closely with IRONMAN\u2019s traffic engineers and the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cNobody does major events better than our folks here in Jacksonville,\u201d Alston said. \u201cWhen you talk about our sheriff\u2019s office and our fire department, they are, they are top-notch professionals when it comes to executing these things, and when you pair that with the folks at IRONMAN who do these things all over the world, there\u2019s no doubt in my mind that everything will go smoothly.\u201d<\/p>\n Alston says extensive collaboration was needed to secure Jacksonville as Ironman\u2019s newest host city.<\/p>\n \u201cPartnership with Visit Jacksonville was key, but then also bringing it to our local partners here, like JSO and JFRD, to get all of our public safety partners on board,\u201d Alston said. \u201cOnce we did that, it was a no-brainer.\u201d<\/p>\n Alston says the race is expected to bring roughly eight million dollars in economic benefit to the city. He says no contracts have been finalized yet, but he\u2019s optimistic that the city will come to an agreement with IRONMAN to bring the event back over the next several years.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n Kip and Ann Strasma, two volunteers of the race and residents of Riverside, say they\u2019ve competed in IRONMAN races all over the country, and they\u2019re ecstatic to now be in the race so close to home.<\/p>\n \u201cIRONMAN really draws people from all over the country, even internationally, [and] everybody likes to come to Florida,\u201d Ann said. \u201cSo we\u2019re excited, and we think the city and our mayor and city officials have done a great job to bring this type of international event to Jacksonville.\u201d<\/p>\n For anyone unfamiliar with IRONMAN\u2019s impact, Kip recommends a little patience and grace.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve worked with different groups to make sure that they are aware of what\u2019s happening, but until you experience it, you really don\u2019t know the scale of what\u2019s going to happen,\u201d Kip said. \u201cNext year will be great, everybody will know what it is, and they\u2019ll be prepared. And they\u2019ll say, either \u2018I\u2019m going to stay because it\u2019s going to be good for my business,\u2019 or \u2018I\u2019m going to rent it out and get out of town.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n A full list of roads impacted by the IRONMAN can be found below:<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The City of Jacksonville is gearing up to host the IRONMAN competition for the first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[982,116577,88568,116575,112818,116574,969,116,118,117,116576,634,7909,7296],"class_list":["post-272504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action_news","tag-anne_strassma","tag-casey_stone","tag-iron_man","tag-ironman","tag-ironman_race","tag-jack","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-kipp","tag-local","tag-riverside","tag-saint_johns_river"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}