September 01, 2005
Six down, two more to go...
It was great to have a successful and almost flawless race in St. Paul last week. For once the weather gods were on our side. While severe storms moved in on Friday morning, they quickly moved east and left beautiful weather in their wake. This was our third year in the Twin Cities with TriAmerica, but it was our first year at the Lake Phalen venue. Lake Phalen is a great triathlon venue. It has a crystal clear lake that just happens to have a 3.1 mile mostly shaded jogging path around it. If it just had more parking nearby it would be perfect.
Things were a bit shaky leading up tot the race. It was an uphill battle to get local approval. For starters we had mucked-up an earlier attempt to hold the race at Lake Phalen back in 2003. My ops team did not stay on top of the permitting process so we ended up missing a deadline and had to scramble to find another venue in the St. Paul market with less than 30 days to go before race day. Somehow everything fell into place and we managed to pull the race off at nearby Tanner's Lake Park in Oakdale. Much to my amazement even received top honors as the Midwest Events Magazine's Athlete's Choice Race of the Year. The Lake Phalen venue was not an option last year because of a scheduling conflict, so we returned to Oakdale. This year we fought hard to bring the race to Lake Phalen. Our first obstacle was that our race weekend would be the last weekend the swimming beach is open. We were informed that the park staff and lifeguards would be busy closing everything down for the season and would not have time to deal with us. Once we convinced them that were a turn-key operation, things started moving forward.
The next hurdle was the state fair. We were told it would be a challenge to find police officers and volunteers to work the race because of the fair. All of our conversations with key people involved the state fair. All I kept hearing was state fair this and state fair that…if it wasn't for the state fair….any weekend but state fair weekend, etc.. I thought to myself, good grief, does this entire town shut down for the fair? It lasts for two whole weeks and certainly not everyone in town has funnel cakes and stuffed animals on their minds.
The bike course also turned out to be another challenge for us. Our original proposed bike course was shot down because a previous running event used a similar course and had a major impact on the bus routes. Mr. Bus Manager was not about to have that happen again so a new course was in order. The police did a great job coming up with a course option that was workable.
We also were fortunate to have Mary Anderson on board as our local event coordinator to tie up all the loose ends before we arrived in town.
The most challenging part of the entire weekend was that my entire staff was sick with some sort flue-type bug and I was walking around like a cripple with my bad back. Thank goodness we were surrounded by a bunch of fit, healthy people!
Posted by Fred at 08:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | More in: Tri America
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!
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June 08, 2005
What was I thinking?
That's what jumped through my mind when we left Clermont at 5:00am Monday morning for another trip to my home away from home, Orlando International Airport. What made it so tough was that we just wrapped up race #1 of our Central Florida Tri Series. With several consecutive days with very little sleep, followed by an almost all-nighter Sunday night to prepare for the trip, I knew it was going to be a tough site visit. I opted to let Brian drive to the airport so I could squeeze in a 30 minute power nap. There was going to be no sleeping on the plane because I had an exit row seat lined up, allowing me to use my laptop. I'm running at least a week behind on my emails and I needed this quiet time to make some headway in my always bloated in-box.
Soon we were on our way to MSP to work on our TriAmerica St. Paul event. While this will be our third year in St. Paul, we are moving to a new venue this year so it is almost as if we were starting from scratch. The main objective of this visit was to finalize the bike course. The course that we had received preliminary approval for had recently been axed by the higher-ups. It seems a running event that used a portion of our proposed course earlier this year disrupted commuter bus traffic. This was enough to raise the blood pressure of one of the management types and as a result, this course was now off limits to us. Our job was to identify and sign-off on a bus route friendly alternative bike course. Because most of the vehicle traffic was going to be restricted from the route, we opted for a 20K course that the sprint distance athletes would complete twice, and long course cyclists twice. For this stop of the series this would work great. Typically a TriAmerica race will have twice as many athletes in the long course race as the sprint. For St. Paul, we experience the opposite. For the past two years we've had twice as many sprint athletes in the race as long course athletes. I'm not sure why that is because there are not many international distance triathlons up this way.
We hired a great local event director to assist us with our St. Paul race. When we met with her first thing in the morning she informs us the police have mapped out a 4.2 mile course they would like us to consider. Sprint athletes would bike three laps, and international distance athletes, six laps. Maybe if we were only expecting a couple hundred athletes we could attempt to pull this off, but with an expected field of over 1,000, no way. Some athletes have all to do to keep track of a one lap course and are totally challenged when we make it two laps. Three or six laps would be a nightmare for the athletes and for us. I remember at Worlds several years back when participants used the sticky dots on the handle bar routine to try and keep track of their laps. It worked for most, but for some they either set a PR for the bike or had the worst bike of their life, depending on how many laps they actually biked.
The run course here will be awesome. It will utilize a trail that travels around Lake Phalen. What's cool is that a good portion of it is semi-shaded…and it just happens to be a 5K loop.
Next on the agenda for St. Paul will be a return trip on July 6 to go before the St. Paul Special Events Council to hopefully receive the official formal blessing for our event.
Posted by Fred at 09:10 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | More in: Tri America
May 31, 2005
Zion revisited
Today was an interesting day in Zion. Our first scheduled meeting was not until lunch time so I decided to stay at the hotel and work my way through some emails while Brian went out to work on the bike course. There is never a dull moment in our travels so as luck would have it, a fire broke out in a marsh here at the park. It soon was out of control and the emergency services folks decided to close down access to and from the park. With less than 30 minutes to go until our lunch meeting, Brian was trapped outside the park and I was trapped inside. This is not a small park, about two miles separated us so walking out to meet him with my luggage was not an option. A quick call to the city got us the clearance we needed to escape. When we left town 4 hours later the fire was still raging away. It reminded me of a fire in the marsh between Clermont and Groveland a few years back. All the firefighters could do was stay on dry ground and wait for the fire to get close enough to them so they could put it out.
On Monday we measured out a run course that is going to be awesome. The first half of the 5K loop is in the shaded forest. The second half follows the sand dunes along the Lake Michigan shoreline. Most of the run will be on a gravel-clay path with only a small portion on the pavement. While running the course yesterday we where confronted by a couple of large deer. They didn't even dash away when we ran by them, they just watched us in awe, or was it in disbelief that two old out of shape guys were running in the woods.
The Zion bike course will be somewhat technical because of the numerous turns. The roads are in good shape so it should be a fast course. We are going to stage the race adjacent to the Illinois Beach Resort over looking the lake.
For some strange reason we always seem to attract bad weather during our site visits. Not this time, the weather was perfect. Even Lake Michigan was flat as glass. I hope it acts the same way on race weekend.
We just found out our TriAmerica Zion race is on the same day as the Pleasant Valley Triathlon 20 minutes to the north. We selected our date based on their date last year. This year they moved their date back a week so now we are going head to head. Oh well, the market is certainly big enough to support both races. With the increase in the number of triathlons each year, it makes it tough to find a weekend that is clear of other events in the same market.
Posted by Fred at 05:21 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | More in: Tri America, Triathlon
May 30, 2005
Rocky Mountain High
The only thing better than Vail in the winter is Vail in the Summer....at least that's what we are banking on. What a great way to spend Labor Day weekend, hanging out in the Vail Valley and doing a triathlon. We just performed an operational site to Vail to map out the courses. During our previous visits everything was buried in snow so all I could do was just imagine that there were roads below all the snow. You really have to have a creative imagination when you try to visualize a triathlon venue in the heart of winter, especially when the ground is buried under five feet of snow.
When we arrived in Vail the weather was awesome. The temperature was in the upper 60's with only small piles of snow still hanging out in the shady areas at ground level. The second day was a completely different story; we woke up to snow fluries and temperatures in the 30's. At least the snow did not last long enough to impact our venue work.
Our TriAmerica Avon to Vail is unique in several ways. First it will be a point to point race. If you are familiar with the area you know that Vail is water challenged when it comes to lakes. That's why the race has been designed as a point to point race. We start in Nottingham Lake in the town of Avon, just west of Vail. This will be the first time that open water swimming has been allowed in the crystal clear, brisk waters of Lake Nottingham. While Avon has hosted a triathlon for several years now, the swim has always been a pool swim. Another unique feature of the race will be that both the sprint and international distance races will utilize a time trial start. Because the lake is only large enough for us to design a .75K swim course, the international distance athletes will have to swim two laps. With lap two swimmers merging with the starters, I figured the only safe way to start swimmers is in a time trial format.
The bike course will travel up to the Vail Pass and back for the international distance cyclists. Sprint cyclists will just bike from Avon to Vail. The bike course is not as tough as you would expect. The 1,500 foot climb from Avon to Vail is gradual. The run course will be an out and back style course finishing right in the heart of Vail Village. This has to be one of the most beautiful courses ever!
The only downside to the TriAmerica Vail race is that we can't stay longer. The race takes place right in the middle of nine consecutive event weekends for us. I'm going to make sure my mountain bike is on the truck so I can at least take advantage of the few hours of down time I may have while there.
I'm certain this race will reach capacity, now I just have to calculate what our capacity will be.
Posted by Fred at 10:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | More in: Tri America
Off to the beach!
I must admit, I've been a total slacker with my blog this month. Well that's going to change! I'm currently flying to Zion to work on our upcoming TriAmerica race. If someone asked me what I did for Memorial Day, I can tell them I went to the beach. They don't need to know that it was the beach at Illinois Beach State Park on Lake Michigan. With water temps in the 40's and the air temperature in the low 60's, it's not quite the beach experience I was hoping for. Zion is a new stop for the TriAmerica Series this year and it is going to be a great one. It is located in the northern burbs of Chicago, just south of the Wisconsin state line. We are being brought here by the City of Zion. They want to enhance their image and hang their hat on a high-profile family oriented athletic event. Unfortunately Zion made national news a few weeks ago when a couple of young girls disappeared while riding their bikes in their neighborhood. A sicko murdered them and tossed their bodies in the woods.
Our goal during this visit is to finalize the run course and race site venue layout. I already plotted out a course with my mapping program so now it is time to see if it will work. With my trusty GPS on my wrist, I'll head out to run the course and see if the distance is right. If not, a golf cart is on standby. My marathon training is not quite far enough along to work in a mega run. It may take all afternoon to get the course right.
I’ll update you on our visit when I return home Tuesday night.
Posted by Fred at 11:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | More in: Tri America
April 27, 2005
Talking the talk...
Last week I journeyed to Portland to attend the Event Marketplace at the National Association of Sports Commissions Conference. It is annual event where Sports Commissions, Convention and Tourism Bureaus, and the like get together to network and discuss what is going on in the industry. The Event Marketplace is where rights holders pitch their event to prospective communities and organizations. A four hour block was set aside on both Thursday and Friday for one on one meetings between rights holders and prospective cities. The prospective communities could shop for everything from pro bowling, senior softball, golf, and assorted AAU championships, to of course the best product there, the TriAmerica Series.
Appointments are booked every 15 minutes during the four hour block. That means 16 consecutive meetings without a break. There was plenty of interest towards our sport, so all my available appointments were booked. It was certainly a challenge to pitch the series non stop for 4 hours straight. I was excited to have the opportunity to meet representatives from so many cities. Some did their homework before we met, coming to the meeting with a list of questions and a printout from our website. A couple were completely clueless and one even looked surprised to find out we would need a swimable body of water capable of holding a one mile swim.
I left the meeting with several strong leads for potential future stops for the series. Now it is time for the prospective cities to really do their homework before submitting their bid proposals by our June 1 deadline.
Posted by Fred at 10:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | More in: Tri America
April 15, 2005
Miision Accomplished!
I just completed successful site visits to two of our TriAmerica Host Venues, Hampton, VA., and Louisville, KY. Both cities have been part of the series since the beginning. Brian, our director of operations, accompanied me on the trips. He was amazed at the level of support we receive from these cities. Brian joined our team last summer so he was not part of the pre-event planning meetings that took place with the host communities last year. His only exposure to the pre-planning meetings were those we have for our local Clermont events. He was totally surprised by the outcome of the meetings. The "can do" attitude is quite a change from feeling of just "tolerance" that we seem to encounter here in Lake County and Clermont. It is always refreshing to visit a city that wants you to be there. The nuetral reception we encounter locally is most likely the result of our being here for so long. Our Clermont events have been here for 22 years with very little support from the county and city. Maybe if we left the area they would have a greater appreciation for what we bring to the community. They seem to get excited about new events, even though the events have a fraction of the economic impact our events have. Fortunately for local triathletes and businesses, my roots are very deep here in Clermont and I have no plans to leave anytime soon.
Posted by Fred at 05:20 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | More in: Tri America
April 10, 2005
The first race is always the toughest...
It is amazing how fast our TriAmerica Clermont race crept up on us. It was our first triathlon of the season, but it was not our first event of the year. We already worked a half dozen races before April rolled around. Most of them were just timing and event support, a piece of cake compared to one of our own events where we do everything. As race weeks go, the week leading up to TriAmerica Clermont was a tough one. To me it almost felt as if it was Great Floridian week, the type of week you do not want to experience more than once a year.
Why was it so tough? To begin with we had some weak links on our team. Tasks that should have been done over the winter went unfinished. The weak links are no longer there, but our office is under-staffed as a result. We also lost one of our key team members last fall (we miss you Barb).
Fortunately we have a strong team, so everyone just multi-tasked and pulled everything together.
To be continued.....
Posted by Fred at 10:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | More in: Tri America
February 24, 2005
Crisis, what crisis?
For all of our TriAmerica events, we partner with an organization that wants us to be there. They are the driving force behind the event in that market. Our partners vary in each market and usually include at least one of the following: Chamber of Commerce, Convention & Tourism Bureau, Sports Commission, City Rec Department, and Economic Development Agency.
In the cae of Vail, it was a private agency that was hired by the city to bring special events to the city. Potential events then go before the town's Special Event Committee to see if they make the cut. Once approved, the Tourism Bureau joins the mix.
Our Vail race will be unique within the series in that it will be a point to point race. If you have been to the Vail Valley you know there are not many options for open water swimming. Hence our swim will take place in Avon, a town located about 10 miles west of Vail.
My first visit to Vail was last Labor Day, the same time of year the race will be held. The weather was picture perfect. My host showed me the area and the many course options available. I had plenty of questions for him, including several concerning the lake we will use for the swim. I noticed there was no public swim access on the lake so my first question was if the town let us swim in the lake. The answer was yes, the Town of Avon is behind the race and and has signed off on allowing us to use the lake for the triathlon.
In December our event came before the Vail Special Events Committee and it was approved by the Town of Vail.
Now it was time for me to me to head to Vail and finalize the details and meet with various folks that will be associated with the promotion of the race. In advance of my trip, Vail's special event person, Sybill, was busy lining up meetings with the key players. One of those would be representatives from the Town of Avon. On Thursday of last week she contacts Avon and hears some surprising news; nobody knows anything about the TriAmerica triathlon or about the use of the lake for the swim. We learn they have their own triathlon planned the week before our race and they are deeply concerned aout how our race will impact their event. Both Sybill and I frantically try to track down where the breakdown in communication occured. We had to get things back on track or there would be no TriAmerica Vail. By now it was Friday with a legal holiday approaching on Monday. Time was not on our side a we made very little headway in advance of my departure to Vail. I would just have to pick-up where we left off when I arrive in Vail on Monday.
To be continued...
Posted by Fred at 02:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | More in: Random Thoughts, Tri America
February 18, 2005
TriAmerica Chicago
With the exception of missing the city council meeting, our TriAmerica Chicago site visit went well. We are marketing the race as Chicago, but the race actually takes place in Zion, Illinois. Zion is located about 40 minutes north of Chicago, on Lake Michigan about half way between Chicago and Milwaukee.
While touring the city I learned Zion was one of the first planned cities in the United States and was platted to imitate the layout of the British Union Jack flag. It also boasts more park space per capita than any city in the region. The actual race site is the Illinois Beach State Park. It is a beautiful 4,160-acre park with nearly 7 miles of shoreline on Lake Michigan. Wildlife is everywhere and we must have spotted over 50 deer in just one day. A couple of giant skunks patrolled the resort, but don’t fret, we learned they have never sprayed humans.
The swim will be in Lake Michigan and will be wetsuit legal. The bike course is flat and a good portion of it will be shaded. I’m still not sure if we will just design a 5K loop run course with the 10k runners completing two loops, or a combo 5K-10K loop course. Most of the run will be on scenic paved or gravel trails.
Everyone we met with up there was great. It is always refreshing to meet with police and city government folks that all share a "can do" and "we'll make it work" attitude. I wish I could bring some our local political types with us on our site visits so they can see how other cities welcome our events.
While our race is the week before the albatross of a triathlon, the Chicago Triathlon in Downtown Chicago, I still expect at least 800 athletes in our first year.
Posted by Fred at 12:40 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | More in: Random Thoughts, Tri America
February 17, 2005
We can't swim here....
While scouting out the shoreline of Lake Michigan looking for a suitable place to start and finish the swim, I notice something peculiar. There are huge slabs of broken concrete lining the beach as far as the eye can see. They are giant slabs about a foot thick and they resemble chunks of an old road bed. We can't swim here, there is no way they can be moved and no easy way to get over them. I figure they must have been placed there for erosion control.
I think to myself, "what other surprises are waiting for us down at the shoreline?" I proceed to head down the beach to the shoreline. As I climb over the concrete slabs I become enlightened. The slabs are actually ice and with the sand coating, appear to be concrete from a distance.
I really do need to have my eyes checked...
Posted by Fred at 11:07 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | More in: Random Thoughts, Tri America
If at first you do not succeed....
So much for making the City Council meeting, however I did manage to call in to the USAT Conference call while in transit to my hotel.
Man does it get cold up north. It was a nice balmy 28 out when we where scouting out the venue. I learned a valuable lesson, do not walk out on the beaches of Lake Michigan in the winter dressed like a Floridian.
I just booked a return trip to attend their next city council meeting on March 1. This time I'm flying direct to avoid Atlanta!
Posted by Fred at 01:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | More in: Random Thoughts, Travel, Tri America
February 15, 2005
Lost in the fog
Today was an early day for me. Alarm rings at 2:30am and it's time to head to the office to do a few tasks before driving to the airport for our trip to Chicago. Usually I fly out of Orlando but this time I opted for Tampa to take advantage of a better flight. It's 40 minutes further but I had already decided to let Brian, my ops guy, drive so I could work on emails during the trip. It worked out great for me and I was able to send about 30 messages out before we arrived in Tampa.
I knew when we left Clermont the day was not going to go as planned. I saw on the Weather Channel that the Atlanta airport was already fogged in. As luck would have it our flight involves a plane change in Atlanta. We finally receive the official word form the airline, our flight will be delayed at least 1-2 hours, perhaps even longer. Thank god for my wireless connection, I can tackle more emails from my endless email pit in outlook.
Today we meet with the various city and county folks associated with our TriAmerica Chicago race. At 7:00pm we go before the City Council for what I hope will be a rubber stamp of approval. The race will actually take place about 40 minutes north of Downtown Chicago, just south of the Wisconsin State line. The venue will be a beautiful state park located on the shores of Lake Michigan.
The weather forcast for the area is snow and freezing rain, perfect weather for a site visit!
Posted by Fred at 06:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | More in: Random Thoughts, Travel, Tri America
