A Chilling USAT Congress
This year's USAT Congress at Colorado Springs had to be the coldest conference I have ever attended. The conference coincided with a major cold front and the temperatures outside never went above freezing. The hotel claimed to have heating problems in the conference center area and the temperatures hovered in the 50-60's the entire time. I had to wear my heavy winter coat and sit on my hands just to stay warm in the sessions. I still find it hard to believe that a major hotel chain can go four days with minimal heat in the public areas. One of the vendors in the expo hallway had a thermometer and it registered a high of 46. I hope USAT didn't have to pay for the space.
At least the hotel rooms were nice and toasty. One advantage with the sub-freezing weather is that it is easy to keep your beer cold. All I had to do was set my brews out on the balcony for 15 minutes and they would become ice cold! The second day I realized I did not have to set them outside, all I had to do was place the beers along my sliding glass door inside my room and my beer would be kept ice cold. What a cool amenity!
I was at the congress to attend the USAT Race Director Certification Program. The USAT staff did a great job and program was run professionally. In retrospect I did not see much difference between the certification related sessions held this year and sessions covering the same topics at previous race director conferences. This could be the result of USAT using the same small pool of presenters for several consecutive years. Anyways, it was a good starting point and it laid a solid foundation for the race director certification program to build upon.