TOUGHMAN wrote:
Hi everyone. I want to thank everyone who came out and raced last weekend. It was great weekend of racing from hosting the USAT NE Regional Championship at our TOUGHKids NY Championship to the TOUGHMAN half iron 2019 Championship. We appreciate all your positive and constructive feedback as it helps us to make a better race every year. Since I and all of our race staff are retired racers we look at the events from that point of view and try hard to address every detail that makes for a great race experience.
This year we had over 350 kids race- please see the video at our TOUGHKids FB page- it will blow you away. And for TOUGHMAN we had a BLAST hosting 60 Chilean athletes from our 5 TOUGHMAN Chile races who flew 8000 miles to race (including 12 kids). and 12 athletes from TOUGHMAN Puerto Rico (coming up on Oct 13th- shameless plug).
The weather was amazing, the venue hard but fair and we had over 700 volunteers on the race course. Our staff is top notch and always on top of things which makes me look good.
I was back in my office early Monday morning doing my "real job" as a sports doctor but we are turning things around quickly and will be open for 2020 on Thurs. And we have 4 more TOUGHMAN races before the end of the year all over N and S America.
Last thoughts- it was great to be able to talk with athletes all weekend long and interact with them- makes me feel like I am still part of racing-which is the lifestyle I LOVE.. We do this bc we love it. It is very hard to organize a long course race that is safe, is done with precision, and offers bells and whistles. I started in triathlon in 1988 so I have seen the ups and downs. We started TOUGHMAN in 2008 (on this date). So we have seen them come and go. My perspective is that change is coming to the sport very shortly. When it ceases to be fun on this side of the line we will call it a day. But for now we have a long view of things. IM took 25-30 yrs to make their brand popular and we are very young in the game. We own the brand and building a new brand is not easy. But that is the "challenge" (whoops) and fun of it. Heck in the 80's no one wanted a spot to Kona. Friends of mine who raced there at that time went every yr.
Again for those who raced thank you for coming- it really makes US on this side of the line feel good. For those who raced elsewhere and are looking for a competitive field, the male winner James Capperell did a 4:07 and female winner Rebeccah Wassner did a 4:42. Plus for those elite age groupers we offer a 4.9 K CASH purse to the top 5 overall male/females and over 25k worth of age group awards.
see you next year on Sept 19/20.
Rich
Watching Rebeccah Wassner come back and shred that race this year was really cool to follow on social.
Sanuk wrote:
Most people want to be seen as supporting Indies but the reality, is they want the established races because of their higher publicity. People don't want to do relatively anonymous races.
I think this stuff is an interesting discussion overall. I have some contentions with some promotions out there. Mountain Man is a great event in Flagstaff. But my one complaint is that the post-race food vendor packed up before all the racers were done at the Short Course Weekend in July. My girlfriend happened to be on the course and when she arrived there was no hot dogs and beer waiting for her. That is highly depressing and I should probably send them a note about that one.
But if I look at this holistically and where events fit in my season and if I'm going to patronize indies with my time or time and money. It needs to fit within my own periodization. So, say my 'A' Race is IMAZ. Doing Deuces Wild long course in early June works for me, doing Mountain Man long course in August works for me.
I will say, on my bucket list is St Croix Long Course, sucks that Ironman has left USVI, but I love the Virgin Islands and that race would get me back. Knowing where that fits, if I want to do an Ironman it can't be IMAZ. Etc etc.
Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.
Last edited by:
TheStroBro: Sep 17, 19 8:20