« June 2005 | Main | August 2005 »
July 25, 2005
Seventy point what???
That's what most athletes say when you ask them about the WTC's new half iron series. If you are a non triathlete, or are mathematically challenged, 70.3 is the traditional distance in miles of a half ironman distance race. WTC is using the term "70.3" to brand its half ironman events and their new half series.
Well I don't get it, 70.3 is about as exciting as watching new homes pop up in Clermont. The name does absolutely nothing for me, and I think I have a fairly good marketing sense. I was wondering if it was just me, so I performed a random survey at one of our recent events to see if athletes knew what 70.3 was as it pertains to triathlons.
Here are just a few of the responses I received:
"The average water temperature at an Ironman race"
"WTC's net worth in millions"
"The IQ of the marketing genius that came up with the 70.3 name"
"The number of people out of 1,000 surveyed that may embrace the name"
"The distance from Clermont to the WTC offices in Tarpon Springs"
Seeing how we are a family oriented website, I cannot print the best ones.
If you live outside the USA, you are really going to be confused. With the USA being the only major country that still uses miles for measurement, the name is going to have to be converted to meters. If my math is correct, the international events will be called 113.14. That's the length of a half Ironman in kilometers.
Hey if I'm wrong and this number game really works, I'll have to rename our TriAmerica International Distance Series races to "32.0". That's the distance in miles of a traditional international distance race.
My gut feeling is that this will go down as the biggest marketing blunder in triathlon history. Now if only had a "New" Coke right now....
Posted by Fred at 04:09 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | More in: Triathlon
July 24, 2005
Marriage is imminent...
Now that you have just pulled yourself up off of the floor, rest assured, I'm not talking about me.... I know that day will never come. We are talking about the marriage between the South Lake Trail and Orange County's West Orange Trail. This on again, off again marriage has been in the works for years. Lake County has been like the runaway bride. Every time the state proposes, Lake County either shows no interest or runs away from the project. Had the county not drug its feet in the early days, the trail would already be built and it would be on the original railroad bed, much of which was tree-lined. With Lake County not being aggressive and supportive when it comes to trail projects, the state passed the funding on to other trail projects. I just learned we recently lost funding for the design phase on the western extension that will take the trail towards Groveland, and eventually all the way to the Van Fleet Trail. Again, this was a result of lack of action by our county. You do not have to travel far out of Lake County to access the successful trail systems of Orange and Seminole Counties. Hopefully one day Lake County will wake up and maybe learn something from our neighboring counties.
Clermont is not much better when it comes to support of the trail system. While we have a beautiful trail in Clermont, there is no city wide plan to direct residents to the trail. Even one of the widest roads in town, East Avenue, that connects to the trail and passes by two schools, does not have designated bike lanes. I pushed for the establishment of designated routes directing residents from various parts of town to the trail years ago, but with no luck. There are no trail maps available locally and there is not even a display board at Waterfront Park with information on the trail.
If I had a real job that allowed me more free time, I would be more active in pushing for more community and governmental support. I have been very active in the past serving at the state level on the Recreational Trail Task Force and locally on the Lake County Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Council and the City of Clermont Parks and Recreation Council. One thing you learn quickly by serving on these volunteer boards, you can advise all you want, but if you do not have someone at the top that cares, it really does not matter. This is one time when some turnover in a few key governmental and staff positions would be the best thing that could happen to the City and the County.
Now back to the trail connection. The official ground breaking is scheduled for August 10. The construction contract has already been awarded and the build out is scheduled to take 270 days. The section along Old HWY 50 will not be that great, it just parallels the road. When it crosses over to 455, it more closely follows the old rail bed so it should be more shaded and scenic. Hopefully when it is open, the county will take notice to its success and usage, and become more aggressive in pursuing other trail projects.
Posted by Fred at 03:14 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | More in: Random Thoughts
July 23, 2005
Oh yeah, what about those wasps?
Several people have asked what the outcome was with my battle with my not so friendly neighborhood yellow jacket nest. Well I finally won, but my victory did not come easy. I engaged several more battles, and they won most. My main weapon was water, and lots of it. Seeing how the nest was underground, and one of my previous battles created a nice crater over the nest, I just knew I could drown them out. I underestimated the percolation of our sugar sand. I ran a water hose for 48 hours non stop and all I ended up with was a small puddle over the nest. The water was disappearing as fast as it was coming out of the hose and the wasps were still coming and going through several side holes along the rim of the crater. I would move the hose so the water would flow into their entrance, and then a new entrance would appear a few hours later on the other side.
As with most of my battles, every time I would engage them, I would have to leave right afterwards for one of our out of town events. Fortunately we have had one of the wettest July's on record. With all the rain, the ground finally became saturated enough so that when I started my next water attack, the water was able to rise to the rim of the crater. I let it flood for 12 hours and then took off for another road trip.
When I returned, the wasps were still there! Their numbers had dwindled though, so I was making progress. I soon realized they had created a nest under the slight berm surrounding the crater. I grabbed a 10 foot pipe I had been using earlier to probe the nest and punched a few holes in their new nest....and then did a 100 yard dash to the house. It is amazing how many wasps can fly out of a small hole in a short period of time. A few hours later I head back down to the nest with hose in hand. I placed it near the nest and the stream of water quickly found its way into the heart of the nest. About 8 hours later I shut the water off and let things settle down for a few hours. When I return to the nest, I'm pleased to see there is no traffic in and out of the nest. A few confused wasps are still buzzing around, but not enough to be a threat. I then drenched the area with a pesticide as a precaution and hopefully a deterrent to a future nest.
Now, two weeks later the area is officially wasp free! I have a strange feeling they are still around, in another location, and will soon be seeking revenge. This time I will be ready....
Posted by Fred at 06:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | More in: Random Thoughts
July 15, 2005
Dennis was a menace, and a pain in the butt too!
For months now the media has been hyping up the fact that this year's hurricane season is predicted to be as bad, or even worse than last year's season. Unfortunately it appears to have started out that way.
Entering race week for our July 10 race I knew we were going to have problems. All the various weather predictions placed Dennis on our doorstep at the start of the weekend. Then you have all the unknowns...will it stall, will it turn and change direction, will it grow larger, or will it just fizzle out? The storm being in the Gulf meant that we would be on the bad weather side of it. Regardless where it was going, feeder bands would be coming across the state.
Before the storm gets anywhere even close to us I already have various scenarios and contingency plans worked out. That's the way my mind always works, I'm a "what if?" type of guy. We postpone the printing our race shirts and awards as long as possible so we can adjust the quantities or even cancel if conditions merit. We also contact our food vendors to let them know our order will be reduced or perhaps cancelled.
Most triathletes are a tough bunch, the race must go on unless conditions are just too dangerous for the athletes and volunteers. Safety always comes first. Naturally our phones are going crazy as athletes call to check on the status of the race. I try to keep our website updated and even send an email blast out to all participants to inform them of our plans. We decide to meet with our local officials Friday afternoon to make the call on the race. Even though the storm was not predicted to hit Central Florida, we still have to worry that the county will raise its alert level and all the police officers we use for the course will be called out to other duties, leaving us no choice but to cancel the race. Friday we decide the race will be a go and we'll just deal with the weather that will be dealt us.
Setting up for the race we decide to limit some of the fluff, signs and banners, stuff that could blow away or become a hazard if conditions are bad. We also make sure everything is double and triple anchored to keep things in place.
Everything is a go for Saturday morning! The 5K goes off without a glitch. I'm watching the radar on my laptop and I know the kids race will not be as lucky. The rain has already started and several bands of storms are heading our way. First I delay the start as a rain band passes over. I see what appears to be a 30 minute window on the radar screen so I decide to combine the two kids races into one, with shorter distances. Off the kids go and naturally the weather starts to look bad. My 30 minute window was cut in half and the rain starts up again. While all the kids are out on the bike I decide to shorten the run to just 200 yards. I want to get all the kids in and off the course before the bad weather rolls in. All the kids finish without problems and fortunately the storm builds off to the east and we escape the worse.
Late Saturday afternoon the fun really begins. A major squall line, the worst we will get over the weekend, rolls through Clermont. The wind gusts to over 40mph and several inches of rain fall in less than a hour. In the aftermath our venue looks like a war zone. Several tents are crumbled, the event fencing was ripped off the poles, empty bike racks were tossed around, and everything is flooded. We call in the troops and try to make the best of the situation. We know this should be the worst of the weather we will encounter over the weekend so we try to correct as much of the damage as possible. It is still quite windy so we decide to regroup at 3:00am to put the fencing back-up and try to make the venue race ready.
During the night I drive the bike course to make sure it will be OK for the race. The wooded trail section is littered with branches and debris. It would be nearly impossible to clean it up in time for the race. As I make my way through Clermont I find out that a section of Desoto Street that was under construction has washed out and is not passable. I decide we have no choice but to shorten the bike course for safety reasons. The course will now be 8 miles instead of 12. Changing the bike course required me to shorten the run course to two miles. The new bike course forced us to keep the run on the western end of the trail to avoid crossovers. The shorter course also had another advantage, it lessened the window that athletes would be out on the course. We had no idea if storms would develop once the sun came up and started to heat things up. We knew we had light rain over the area, but no major weather was close by in the morning.
The weather cooperates and we are able to start the race fairly close to our 7:30 start time. The severe weather stays to our north and the race goes off without a glitch.
Monday I am greeted by several emails from athletes that were appreciative of the fact that we allowed the race to happen and did not cancel. I also got a couple from athletes that opted to stay home and were pissed off at us for not canceling the race because of the hurricane. Perhaps they did not realize that Central Florida was never under a hurricane or tropical storm alert, so there was no reason to cancel solely because of the hurricane. Our regular afternoon thunderstorms can cause as much trouble as Dennis did.
I think this was our fourth or fifth wet event weekend so far this year. I think we have reached our limit so the weather gods better be nice to us for the rest of the season. We'll see what happens at our TriAmerica race in Louisville in two weeks...
Our new motto is "Bring it on!"
Posted by Fred at 02:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | More in: Central Florida Triathlon Series
July 07, 2005
The Texas Sizzler
If I wasn't for the TriAmerica brand, our recent event in Irving, Texas would be renamed to the "Texas Sizzler". This was our fourth year in Irving and our second year on the 4th of July weekend. The first year the race took place in mid-April. The weather was cool and wet. We had a major storm roll in on Saturday forcing us to cancel the Kids Tri and turning our venue into a mud bath. I had no idea Texas could generate what could only be called Super Mud! It dries as hard as concrete and I think we still have some of it stuck to our equipment.
Last year we had a 45 minute delay in the kids race because lightning was close by. Driving to the kids venue on race morning I thought for sure we would face the same dilema this year. For a brief second I thought I was driving in Florida the way the lightning was streaking across the sky. Luck was on our side as the storms were quickly moving away from us. Irving is one of only two stops on the tour where the kids swim in a pool. When possible we prefer to have the kids swim in the same body of water as the adults. In Irving it was just not possible to close the same roads down for two days in a row, especially on a Saturday morning. Avon-Vail is the other venue we will use a pool for the kids tri. The lake water may just bee too cold for the kids. With over 100 kids racing, it was the largest kids field we have had in Irving.
Sunday was the adult race and man was it a scorcher. I think the official high for the day was 104 and the "real feel" temperature in the shade was around 115. One thing you notice when you are in Texas is that all the roads are made out of concrete and now I know why. AS hot as it gets in the summer, tires would just sink down in the asphalt.
Of all the Irving races, this one was by far the smoothest, thanks to my great staff. Both Brian, my director of operations, and Ryan, our new event manager were not on board for last year's Irving race. Our traveling event team is also new this year, but you would never guess that when you see them in action.
Our overall participation in Irving was up 38% over last year. I hope that trend continues as the series progresses this summer.
Three down, five more stops to go!
Posted by Fred at 12:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | More in: Tri America
