Good to hear positive feedback for Challenge races and hope the word gets out too!!!
But I am skeptical that they can grow and scale quickly, apart from Roth/Oz races, the rest seems to be doing "ok" or struggling, few people I know would consider a challenge race? Pity

Wasn't there but the race coverage for the pro race was non existent. No twitter updates and no live timing (until the finish). For a pro race that had a bigger prize purse than IMLP, I would have expected more coverage of the race.

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I was not so impressed to be honest. I have raced Rev3 and WTC and didn't find this to be that compelling. The check in process was very lax and the just handed out packets with zero discussion or instructions. They didn't even check my USAT card or ID. Race day was fine, except is was on the bus that got lost going to the start. How does that happen? Bus driver had one job that day....

Swim venue was fine, bike was fine, but lonely. Never saw a Marshall or much drafting. I was solo for 20 miles and a buddy took a wrong turn.

Run was great but no ice or flat Pepsi to mix up water and Gatorade standard.

While I am no longer into swag as much, I do like medals for my son. NEw Challange cheaper out on them and finisher shirts. Every one got the same one whether you did the sprint olympic or half. Kind of weak.

While I am all for race options, don't know if I'd spend $225 again on this race.

Yeah, was really surprised it didn't even make the weekend box here on ST. The tracker was eh, and the coverage was non-existent, however they were putting up "pictures" on twitter. They did a good job at CAC, but that was because they had Brian Shea, BrianPBN, doing the twitter coverage on course. To have the coverage you have to hire someone or have someone on staff take care of it. Probably wasn't a focus for a first year race. I will add this to my list of "recommendations" that I am going to send to them.

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-Brad Williams
Website | Twitter: @BW_Tri |Instagram: @BW_Tri | Strava | Co-Founder & Coach at: KIS Coaching
Partnered with: Zoot Sports | Precision Fuel &Hydration | ISM

IIRC to make the box on ST you as the RD need to submit the results to ST.
I think their live tracking was pretty bad. The twitter/fb feed basically stopped after Starky won. Boom done.

If there is one place where WTC consistently falls down it's in their live updates,blog,fb stuff. Even if they just nailed twitter, or FB, or the Live feed, not even all 3, just 1, it would be a HUGE step forward.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Brian FWIW Starky didn't win :) Eric Linkemann (sp) won, and Leon was 2nd. Didn't know the RD had to submit results, but that would make some what of sense. Yeah, you would think with technology these days the live tracking stuff and updates would be getting better, still seems to just be inconsistent across the board.

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-Brad Williams
Website | Twitter: @BW_Tri |Instagram: @BW_Tri | Strava | Co-Founder & Coach at: KIS Coaching
Partnered with: Zoot Sports | Precision Fuel &Hydration | ISM

I'm with you Chris. I have raced WTC, Rev3, ITU, local races, and now Challenge. If I were to base the Challenge experience on ChallengeNA, I would put them way behind WTC, Rev3, and ITU. It just seemed like a local race, with a great pro field, and a pretty cool finish line. I may be different than most triathletes, but I like it when you get a huge race with a lot of people talking about it before and after the event and you get a lot of people coming out locally to support it. That makes it fun for me.

I only did the Olympic this weekend and the bike course was very lonely (I imagine the backside of the half was worse). I was passing a bunch of people at first, but then there were times where I saw nobody in front of me and had nobody behind me. The run course was through a golf course and I was passing people out walking their dogs and had a few people out on morning runs coming in the opposite direction. I had the Oly run at a lot more than 6.25, more like 6.8 which was deflating when I did empty the tank at mile 6.4 and had to keep going up that hill to the finish (I guess I should have known the course or accounted for GPS bounce).

It was very cool to be on the course Andrew Starykowicz, Meredith Kessler, and the other pros (which I will miss at Rev3 events, but it won't stop me from running them). It was fun to watch and get passed by the male pros on the run), I was expecting a ton more hype and coverage of this race. Although I am an AG'er, I have to admit, I do enjoy the hype of the "big race".

Think if you are a sponsor for one of the pros there, did you get your money's worth sponsoring your athlete in New Albany, or would it have been better to be up in Calgary, or even spending a weekend training/blogging while prepping for a race with a better profile.

If you do not get details, we typically do not either. Timothy Carlson added it late once he got details.

Thanks Herbert. Glad to see it on there now. Pretty great course in my opinion.

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-Brad Williams
Website | Twitter: @BW_Tri |Instagram: @BW_Tri | Strava | Co-Founder & Coach at: KIS Coaching
Partnered with: Zoot Sports | Precision Fuel &Hydration | ISM

I thought the race itself was great, as a first year race I expected more hiccups but was pleasantly surprised. The biggest complaint I heard was about having the several races going on at once, all mixed together, but on the plus side also made it seem bigger. I think they will take your feedback seriously, as did the Challenge AC crew. If we all want a viable alternative group of races here in the USA, then I think it's important that we do all we can to help Challnge help us! New Albany is a beautiful little town, and right by Columbus.

Also in the future I think it will do much better attendance wise... it was announced relatively late in the year when many people already had other races booked. Also I had a ton of people ask me where New Albany was, they had no idea there was a new race in Ohio, so didn't look into racing it. Challenge in the past has always been outside of the USA, so when people hear "New Albany" they didn't assume central Ohio. I would suggest putting OH or Columbus in the name to make more obvious

Their twitter feed didn't even mention who won or mention Eric Limkemann at all. One of their last photo's was Eric shaking hands with the RD which could have had a better caption.

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I think for Challenge to be successful and compete with WTC and REV3 they need to offer the same experience at every race. I did Challenge AC and tried to follow NA on Facebook and Twitter. Challenge AC was awesome. But NA felt more like a local HFP race than a big Challenge race from what I saw online and heard. And the fact that I didn't see results until late Sunday was typical of HFP.

With Rev3 and WTC, you know what you are getting at each race from checking in, aid stations, race experience, live tracking (good/bad), etc.

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SmartBikeTrainers.com || YouTube || My Twitter

FWIW, the athlete guide did show the run course for the OLY at 6.55. I am not positive, but I believe the USAT "rule" for a course is it has to be within 10% of the actual distance of the "race distance", not sure if that is true or just hearsay or the truth.

They did just send out a good email with issues they know needs addressing. It is a little different for the race to have HFP still around quite a bit in my opinion. It needs to be one or the other, it just gets confusing when they are still using HFP email addresses and having the HFP logo around.

Will be interesting to hear what happens next year and if the "issues" are addressed. Only time will tell. Does anyone know how long the "contract" is with New Albany / HFP & Challenge ?

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-Brad Williams
Website | Twitter: @BW_Tri |Instagram: @BW_Tri | Strava | Co-Founder & Coach at: KIS Coaching
Partnered with: Zoot Sports | Precision Fuel &Hydration | ISM

If you want cookie cutter.

I've had vastly different experiences between WTC races. Some good, some bad. Embrace local flavor...

Yes, it was advertised as 6.55 and that's what I expected and early in the run I figured out it was going to be a little longer than that.

I don't know if that 10% rule is true or not. I've heard it and always thought 10% is a lot. A marathon could be 2.6 miles long. Yikes. But myna Garmin had it at 6.82 and I imagine that was a little longer than total, but it is 110% of 6.2.

As for the rest of the race. I thought it was well run. I don't care about medals and shirts, but people were a bit upset by the genericness of them. No race location or date on either.

I didn't stick around for the banquet because I had family that would have wanted to attend the awards if it was free, but there wasn't much info on it at all so I couldn't even tell them what it might cost if it did cost something. I did think the timing printout at the end was a nice touch.

I was unfortunately unable to race because of an injury, but I will say that HFP worked extremely hard to promote the race after it was announced. I also think HFP did the best they could for being a fairly small, family owned company taking on a big name like Challenge in its first year entering the US. HFP is great at what they do, providing well-run, local races. I think if they get a bit more support from Challenge that they have he potential to provide a great racing experience for the Midwest and for Columbus. For those used to WTC branded races, this may have seemed like a let down, but know that behind the scenes a small company worked tirelessly to bring a great event to their local community. Knowing this RD, I know he will take the constructive criticism and build upon that to bring a quality event in the years to come. If we truly want to see a quality alternative to WTC races, we need to continue to support the little guys who are trying to make that happen.

By the way, I don't work for or am I in any way affiliated with HFP. I'm just a local Columbus guy who has done a ton of their races and know how hard they work to provide a good, athlete-focused experience.

I don't mind local and I do a lot of them but when I sign up for a big brand race like this, the expectations are higher. I don't want a Microsoft experience if I spent the money on an Apple product :)

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SmartBikeTrainers.com || YouTube || My Twitter

Completely agree with you on that point. Shannon and team do a phenomenal job with limited staff. This race also creates so many logistical challenges being point to point that I am impressed with the race-day execution and that everything ran on time. And living in Ohio, I was pumped to have a big-name race in town, I had a good time, enjoyed myself, but just left the race with a ho-hum feeling.

My thoughts are that the entry fee is on par with a WTC event, but the experience and the ancillary add-ons (medals, swag, athlete tracking) were not at the level of those organizations. I will race it again due to the convenience to where I live and also support HFP. Hopefully they take feedback and make it better next year.

The communication before the race was excellent, the event was on time, the bike course was nice, they nailed the logistics of a point to point race, and I could go on about other great things that are standard with the HFP experience. It also appears as if HFP does take the feedback. For example, last year, we had to wait until mid Monday to get results. Since they started using racepenguin, it has gotten a lot better. I guess I was expecting the "Challenge" experience and not the HFP experience.

Agree that the fee was too high for what you got. Finish medals were cheap, no coke on the run course (which was an awesome course, BTW), post race food was almost non existent (oranges, cookies and watermelon).

For the $$$ should have got a lot more. The positives were the run course, a decent bike course and the point to point race format is fun/unique.

I remember doing the WV Morgantown race in 2007 and it seemed like a much bigger production. It steadily seemed to go downhill from then and I was hoping the Challenge name would bring more extras to this race also. Not that all the extras are needed but when paying that much for an event it should be there. It could be a great event with just a little more added in.

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To be honest, I was pretty let down by this race. I did the Olympic aquabike, so didn't run, but I wasn't as impressed as I hoped to be.

I tried several times beforehand to get questions answered about the aquabike logistics, but nobody ever responded. All I wanted to know was how to turn in my chip, whether I just go into t2 like everyone else or if they had a separate finish line, and whether I needed to walk over to the run finish line to get my medal and shirt. A short statement in the athletes guide explaining the logistics would have been perfect, or a response when I asked would have worked too!

I was also on a bus that got lost (I know the area and alum creek is really easy to get to...that shouldn't have happened). The swim was fine, but I hated the bike course. Poorly marked and very lonely - as someone said up thread, there were times when i couldn't see anyone either ahead of or behind me...and I did pass a couple people at one point so I wasn't very last! The farmland and country roads meant nobody was out watching, and I got buzzed closely by cars a couple times. At a couple intersections I had to ask the police officer to verify which way to go.

I did walk over to the finish line after my bike and got my medal and shirt, and watched for awhile. It was cool to see the pros finish. The finish area didn't seem very organized though - I put my shirt on and then had a whole bunch of people ask me where to get theirs because they couldn't find it - I wouldn't have known either except I just happened to see them bringing in more shirts so I saw where they went.

I really missed the old giant eagle race (Challenge NA replaced that race) - it was a much better atmosphere. I'm honestly not sure if I'll do it again.

  I am not positive, but I believe the USAT "rule" for a course is it has to be within 10% of the actual distance of the "race distance", not sure if that is true or just hearsay or the truth.

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Yes there is a 10% allowance rule with usat races.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

so would all the people complaining of a lonely bike course rather be complaining about drafting?

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Fruit snacks are for winners

i was with a few other riders when i went off course into a cornfield because i over shot a corner. I then rode about 20 miles by myself before i hit the headwind and a couple of groups of guys in draft packs /pacelines caught me as i was struggling to maintain some speed. I only saw one lady on the bike course and not a single official.

It was just lonely because it was a smaller race, participant wise. I didn't mind it all, helped me focus on running my race, my way, instead of trying to keep up with guys.

Aid stations needed coke, and ice/sponges (thank god it was a cool day), and it needed more than 2 porta-johns

Overall it wasn't bad.

Make sure you take the time to email Shannon and voice your concerns and your thoughts, as well as give him your praises about the race. If we want an alternative to Ironman events, Challenge is our best bet, and helping them learn/grow is only going to help us in return.

WTC, for the USofA at least, has figured out that subcontracting (or licensing) races is not the way to go. Without running the races yourself, there is no way to maintain consistency. If Challenge continues the practice of licensing the name to other RDs, they will never succeed in this market (IMHO).

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Pink? Maybe. Maybe not. You decide.