As most of my criticism was already covered I'll attempt to comment on a couple of good and bad points that Rev3 had for the race.
Good:
Volunteers and Staff were great! My number one concern is safety on the bike as for this course there were some pretty good hills and lots of turns it makes a huge difference if you can go through a turn or bomb a hill without having to worry about getting hit by one of the notoriously poor Southeastern Virginia drivers. The Police, Volunteers and Staff did an excellent job of keeping us safe, marking the course and ensuring that no one got lost or run over.
Transitions, although long they were well layed out, nicely spaced with plenty of room to maneuver around other competitors and get out on course. I liked the racks with cubbys and the slot for bike wheels, it makes it much cleaner in transition and kept others from encroaching or taking up too much space. Also the water/nutrition stop between the swim and T-1 was great!
Food and Water was great at the water stops both on the bike and run the volunteers did a great job of getting whatever we needed and the selection was excellent. As long as you called out what you wanted they had it ready for you.
I thought the bike course was awesome! I loved the rolling hills and fast descents. I had the luxury of riding the course ahead of time with CVE for the course preview but I thought they did an excellent job pointing out the one bad spot (mile 46) in both the athlete meeting and with announcements on course and markings on the potholes.
The medal was pretty awesome, very detailed and huge! Ice cold towel at the end was awesome and the finish line medics were great (had a gash on my foot from stepping on a rock in the swim).
Negative:
Schwag sucked, for an organization that is listed as the best schwag out there, this was very disappointing. I have received better goodies from a $35 5K, one power bar, a non race specific visor and cotton long sleeve t-shirt doesn't cut it for this caliber of a race. On top of that there wasn't even much gear to buy at the expo other than general Rev-3 stuff. The brown jersey would have only been better if they had offered white shorts to go with it... Overall the expo was not worth coming to, it would have been better to just pick up the packet the day of the race and not have to drop off the bikes a day ahead and spend a night in a hotel. They delivered a good local race with the hype and cost of a nationally branded race.
Communications were a little lacking as well, when we got to T2 in the morning the Info booth didn't know if it was wetsuit legal, then at T-1 there were no announcements so I had to walk around until I found an official to find out if it was wetsuit legal. This could be easily fixed by posting this info at each of the transitions and maybe the Info booth as soon as the determination is made. The website was also very tough to load and had lots of ads, but was missing useful information like hill profiles and race numbers, wave times. A better format for the Athletes Guide is either a pdf or doc, that way it requires less bandwidth to load.
The run course was boring, usually when you do an A to B bike it is to put the run course somewhere more interesting, otherwise it is not worth dealing with the hassle of two transition areas. I had hoped that the course would at least run through a scenic area or something more than a bunch of parking lots and tight circles. The run could be improved by going out through Colonial Williamsburg, or going with a single transition and running out through the Jamestown Settlement. There is a lot of history in the area and it would be nice to see some of it. The hills were a lot worse than advertised on the run, from the website and athletes brief I was expecting relatively flat with a few gradual hills rather than a bunch of hills with some flat... Shame on me for not pre-riding or running the course.
Overall:
I thought it was a good race with potential to be great. The course turned out tougher than I was expecting and is not a PR course, but it is a good test of ability and was great prep for IMLP, which is ultimately what I was hoping for. It was well supported and the race crew was working hard to make it the best race possible. There will be growing pains and there is room for improvement but this is a race that can be awesome with a little work, and maybe some better managed expectations. Thank you to all who volunteered and don't lose sight of the great race due to a couple of small mistakes.
Good:
Volunteers and Staff were great! My number one concern is safety on the bike as for this course there were some pretty good hills and lots of turns it makes a huge difference if you can go through a turn or bomb a hill without having to worry about getting hit by one of the notoriously poor Southeastern Virginia drivers. The Police, Volunteers and Staff did an excellent job of keeping us safe, marking the course and ensuring that no one got lost or run over.
Transitions, although long they were well layed out, nicely spaced with plenty of room to maneuver around other competitors and get out on course. I liked the racks with cubbys and the slot for bike wheels, it makes it much cleaner in transition and kept others from encroaching or taking up too much space. Also the water/nutrition stop between the swim and T-1 was great!
Food and Water was great at the water stops both on the bike and run the volunteers did a great job of getting whatever we needed and the selection was excellent. As long as you called out what you wanted they had it ready for you.
I thought the bike course was awesome! I loved the rolling hills and fast descents. I had the luxury of riding the course ahead of time with CVE for the course preview but I thought they did an excellent job pointing out the one bad spot (mile 46) in both the athlete meeting and with announcements on course and markings on the potholes.
The medal was pretty awesome, very detailed and huge! Ice cold towel at the end was awesome and the finish line medics were great (had a gash on my foot from stepping on a rock in the swim).
Negative:
Schwag sucked, for an organization that is listed as the best schwag out there, this was very disappointing. I have received better goodies from a $35 5K, one power bar, a non race specific visor and cotton long sleeve t-shirt doesn't cut it for this caliber of a race. On top of that there wasn't even much gear to buy at the expo other than general Rev-3 stuff. The brown jersey would have only been better if they had offered white shorts to go with it... Overall the expo was not worth coming to, it would have been better to just pick up the packet the day of the race and not have to drop off the bikes a day ahead and spend a night in a hotel. They delivered a good local race with the hype and cost of a nationally branded race.
Communications were a little lacking as well, when we got to T2 in the morning the Info booth didn't know if it was wetsuit legal, then at T-1 there were no announcements so I had to walk around until I found an official to find out if it was wetsuit legal. This could be easily fixed by posting this info at each of the transitions and maybe the Info booth as soon as the determination is made. The website was also very tough to load and had lots of ads, but was missing useful information like hill profiles and race numbers, wave times. A better format for the Athletes Guide is either a pdf or doc, that way it requires less bandwidth to load.
The run course was boring, usually when you do an A to B bike it is to put the run course somewhere more interesting, otherwise it is not worth dealing with the hassle of two transition areas. I had hoped that the course would at least run through a scenic area or something more than a bunch of parking lots and tight circles. The run could be improved by going out through Colonial Williamsburg, or going with a single transition and running out through the Jamestown Settlement. There is a lot of history in the area and it would be nice to see some of it. The hills were a lot worse than advertised on the run, from the website and athletes brief I was expecting relatively flat with a few gradual hills rather than a bunch of hills with some flat... Shame on me for not pre-riding or running the course.
Overall:
I thought it was a good race with potential to be great. The course turned out tougher than I was expecting and is not a PR course, but it is a good test of ability and was great prep for IMLP, which is ultimately what I was hoping for. It was well supported and the race crew was working hard to make it the best race possible. There will be growing pains and there is room for improvement but this is a race that can be awesome with a little work, and maybe some better managed expectations. Thank you to all who volunteered and don't lose sight of the great race due to a couple of small mistakes.