I usually reserve feedback for any post-race surveys that might come to me through email, but since I now know that Charlie will be reading this thread, I figured I would chime in. This was my first Rev3, but not my first half iron and not my first double transition event. I think Rev3 did many things very well, actually some things were outstanding compared to other races that I've done (WTC, Set Up events, and a myriad of events in the state of Florida such as St. Anthony's, Nautica, etc...).

I was blown away by the following:

1. Check in process. My husband and I were pretty much the first people to arrive on Friday for packet pickup. The Rev3 folks weren't quite set up yet, but regardless, pick-up was super smooth. I loved that we received our chip right then and there and taking a photo for the jumbotron was a fun surprise. I was also really excited about the rear wheel transition racks with our names on them. I have never experienced this type of transition set up before and I loved it!

2. Announcer. I don't know who he is, but he was awesome. Keep him, Rev3!

3. Signage and road markings. By far, the best I've ever seen. I understand the need for changing colors since some of the bike course (near the end) overlapped the run course. There were a lot of twists and turns out there on both the bike course and the run course and I was near delirious during the run (wracked with GI issues), but the markings helped keep things crystal clear for me.

4. The volunteers were AWESOME!!

Things that could be improved:

1. I agree 100% with looking at tidal charts and then selecting the route the swim should take. Had the swim direction been reversed, Rev3 could have just set up longer chutes to corral exiting swimmers through the little park and back over to the grassy run up to T1. I don't see this as being a problem at all, especially if it had been thought out prior to race morning... via the use of tidal charts. The current was very strong yesterday and I really felt for the weaker swimmers out there. I've been swimming to some degree all of my life, am very comfortable in open water and I still felt like I was in an endless pool after I rounded that first red buoy. Making it to the second red buoy was one of the more difficult challenges I've ever faced in triathlon. I'm not sure weaker swimmers would have even been able to put up a good fight against the current, so I'm not at all surprised by the course cutting. In addition, I agree that more kayaks, etc... were needed out there. With the two swims going on at the same time and athletes spread out all over there place, there's no way the few kayaks that were out there were sufficient.

2. Double transitions. I didn't have a problem yesterday morning, but I also arrived early. However, since I've done a race that has separate T1/T2 before (Beach to Battleship 2010, so things might be slightly different now) and that particular race was done so well, I know that Rev3 CAN improve here. At B2B there was no visiting T2 on race morning. All of our run gear had to be bagged and checked in the day before the race and when we got to T2, it was hanging there waiting for us. Now there is still the issue of actually getting all athletes to T1 and for most, driving there and parking at Jamestown Settlement is not an option b/c how do you get back to your vehicle after the fact? Possible solutions: Run more busses, begin bus service earlier and stop it sooner (this will force tardy athletes to arrive earlier), make busses for athletes only (no spectators), use Jamestown Settlement parking lot and have athletes find their own way there to begin with... then run bus service AFTER the event? I'm not sure what the ultimate solution is here.

3. Ok, this flatlander from Southwest Florida is begging to know... what sort of bike and run elevation did you all pick up for the event? My Garmin 910XT captured 2690' climbing on the bike and over 800' on the run. I know that bike/run courses can change and we should be prepared for anything, but this is a massive difference from what was advertised and if the profile I got holds true, I'm not sure I would have signed up for this event in the first place. Perhaps my Garmin is completely broken or I don't know how to read Rev3 elevation charts? However, it was indeed a beautiful course from stem to stern.

Note: I think someone asked about swim distance. I managed to hold buoy line for the half and got 1.26. My husband had 1.27 and he also held the buoy line. I captured the run to T1 entry at 1/4 mile.

I would like to see one Transition if possible . There has to be a way to work it out. That would also relieve some traffic on town for at least part of the day. Talked to some resident that were late for church and a little upset. Got to keep the residents on board. Also let people no there is a hill in the run course that damn winding hill KILLED me :0). Other then that I thought they did a pretty good job as a first time race. Swim is what it is, other then cutting and there is not much you can do about that. Everyone else in wave has same conditions. Yes sighting was tough as there was small swells. But that could account for some people swimming longer. Lol I know I did :0)
Overall good experience and one question are most of the hotels near the railroad???? DAMN I thought I was in the movie My Cousin Vinnie.

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HI Billabong, I think I met you in T1 yesterday morning. We were setting up bikes and a guy showed me a small can of pepsi that he called his "secret weapon." I started to say, "Hey there's this guy on an internet forum...."

I enjoyed the race too, though I melted down on the run. Maybe it was because of the gorilla thread but I noticed some pacing too. Some guy positioned himself on that last hill before the finish/2nd loop start and was pacing friends of his up the hill. Because of the course setup I came by him doing this at least three different times. At one point I yelled at him, "Hey, you have to wear a gorilla suit to do that."

Yeah but they started 15-20min late.

That was me, and it worked as planned.

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All I Wanted Was A Pepsi, Just One Pepsi

Team Zoot, Team Zoot Mid-Atlantic

swim waves though started late apparently were on time or early

Does anyone know the number of entrants vs the finishers? Thanks.

Has anyone noted that their split/total times where not correct? They have my bike to run T2 time as 25 minutes! I think 3-4 minutes tops, most of my splits are way off. Just curious if anyone has had these issues as well.

Yup. My swim to bike t1 was 1 hr LOL.

While I didn't have a great race on the day I thought this was an amazing course for a race. I didn't know what to expect and I thought it was a very challenging and scenic course to race on.

This was a first year race and as Charlie mentioned and owned up to I think there were some logistical things that could have been better. The main issue seemed to be with the multiple transitions; which isn't exactly a problem in itself. The areas around both transitions were very small as far as the roads were concerned so that in combination with the course being blocked for the race made traffic really bad. I noticed while riding the bike course that traffic was just stopped for miles while we were out racing. Which was nice because there weren't cars in our way. I know a lot of people were upset with how long it took to get their wet clothes bag from T1. These things happen. I was disappointed to see how many people were yelling at the volunteers about this. At this point they couldn't do anything about it because the truck was stuck in that traffic not moving. They were just there to help.

The swim course changed a lot on race day compared to the previous two days. I swam there on Friday and Saturday and it was much deeper and calmer. Somehow with the rain that came through in the morning the river beame shallower. We could dolphin dive a significant portion of the swim out and swim in. It was also a lot choppier than compared to previous days. Probably because the whole river wasn't as deep.

Overall I thought this was a really cool race. I've never been to Williamsburg and have enjoyed my time here. Was hoping for a better race but I'll definitely be back next year for it.

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yup my bike to run they have as 28 minutes Garmin 2:11

Same here

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All I Wanted Was A Pepsi, Just One Pepsi

Team Zoot, Team Zoot Mid-Atlantic

One note on the tides for yesterday. slack tide was around 7:12ish. Assuming the race had started as planned, most people should have been swimming into a negligible *tidal* flow. Slower swimmers in later waves would have been getting incoming tides. However, I heard that the rain in Richmond had been much heavier than what we had in Williamsburg. My guess is that the current had more to do with just the body of water moving downriver from the rain than what the tide was doing in the estuary. Furthermore, it seemed quite windy on the river which was kicking up the inconsistent chop. Unfortunate, but nothing the organizers could have planned for.

It's a tidal current - it flows both directions depending on whether the tide is coming in or going out. Tides are controlled by position of the moon. Tide tables will tell you exactly when the tide will be coming in, going out, or slack (high or low tide with virtually no current). They should have known what direction the current would be going at 7am on race morning many months out. They could have put the start up where the swim warm-up was and push everyone to that end of the beach to avoid a lot of crossing foot traffic with the swim to T1 route. This is a common location for triathlons so the logistics have been sorted out previously by others.

When a multiple transistion race is done right, you don't even notice. Examples: B2B and IM 70.3 Raleigh (and that was an inaugural race).

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Congrats on the #4. Much health, happiness and joy to you and your growing family!

Congratulations, Charlie! One thing I'll say about logistics is that an awful lot of people showed up too late at T2. I was on a shuttle at 5:15 and there was a massive inflow of cars just coming in at that point. You don't have to think much about logistics to realize that that is really too late to drive to an area with closed roads, find parking, setup T2, get on shuttle, ride shuttle to Jamestown, setup T1, and warmup. So sorry all you late sleepers, it's not completely Rev3's fault. On the other hand, yeah it probably was predictable that a lot of people would flood in late and that this would create gridlock and delay the shuttles. One possible (if perhaps impractical) help for the shuttles would be to create dedicated lanes for them. Another would be to cut off the shuttles earlier (as was suggested upthread). Another possibility is to require T2 setup the night before and secure some big ass parking lot somewhere between T1 and T2. People drive there and then get shuttled to T1. Shuttles then start running back to the parking lot once racers start finishing. This adds a bit of complexity but avoids the downtown crush and would free up more space for the expo (since you won't have cars parked in that lot).

Threads like this are all about criticism so it's easy to lose sight of the good stuff. What fantastic volunteers! And you know what, I like the shirt. I've got dozens and dozens of short-sleeve race shirts. This is only the second I've gotten that's long sleeve. I'll probably end up wearing it a lot in the fall and winter.

That's a very valid point and something that I didn't think about. I had heard the day before that low tide was supposed to be around 7am on race morning which meant that there shouldn't have been much current for early waves and even some push current for later waves. It just didn't make sense to me that when I swam Sat at 9:30am there was a significant tide pushing in the good direction along the back straight but race morning it was reversed. Tides aren't random like that. Judging by how hard it was raining locally @ 4am and if Richmond had been getting similar rain through the weekend this very well could have been heavy eriver flow. In which case the race organizers had no way to predict it in advance.

But...as a lesson for next year I hope that have a contingency plan knowing what could happen and are prepared to do a quick revers on race morning if necessary. If there has been heavy rain recently up river send a kayak out on race morning to see what the current is doing.

Some great points.

Rev3 volunteers really try and are friendly. Your mileage may vary, but a lot of the staff are at every race, so you see a lot of familiar faces.

Sean English is the announcer. A real hoot, and full of fun, energy and humor all day long.

I generally would like a little bigger road markings, but signs get stolen or moved often

For course elevation, was not doing the race, but if you are referring to stats off of MapMyRide, it is pretty consistent... what ever they post, DOUBLE. so if they say 400 on the run, it will be 800, if they say 2500 on the bike, it will be closer to 5000.

Garmin 910XTs have a A TON of elevation issues (I am going on my 3rd Garmin in 16 months for bad barometer/altimeter) but you will see 30K + elevation gain on bad units... (Did 76,000 feet of climbing according top Garmin on my 80 mile weekend ride)

I was really annoyed by that pacer. Did we see the same guy? The racer was very pale, but the guy pacing him was ripped and wearing a skin tight short-sleeved short. I walked through the aid stations and ducked into a portajohn, and I think I had to pass them 4 times. Grrr.

The other pacer I saw was wearing a "Positive Mental Attitude" T-shirt, but he didn't seem to be helping anyone in particular--just cheering and running with whoever was going by as far as I could tell.

My Garmin told me 1.23 miles. I was careful to swim from bouy to bouy because I knew there was a tough current. I suspect the person you overheard complaining about 1.5mi got dragged out by the current and swam long and off-course

I did the half. For the first turn buoy, I only saw the red one. Was there a different one for the olympic? I saw both at the second turn. I was about 12 minutes slower than I expected.

Overnight rain + super moon = ridiculously strong tide? http://www.foxnews.com/...nd-night-sky-sunday/

I don't know... yes, it was a tougher than anticipated swim but the current really wasn't the issue, it was just a bit of chop. Everyone at the start kept saying to start left to avoid getting pushed to the right by the current but I didn't feel any dramatic pull. Reminded me a bit of an ocean swim with the waves!

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Anyone else thinking the times are messed up? Hopefully they'll get it worked out, but right now its showing the winner of the of the oly doing it in 1:09.

Personally i think there needed to be an aid station at the top of hill turn around. There were 2 really close together, then a long run with nothing.

The swim was rough, and choppy. I literally got sick to my stomach from the up and down, had to side stroke for a moment thinking i was going to puke, fortunately i didn't.

The bike course was awesome, i loved it, but there was a lot of drafting. I know I'm just a amateur, and not even a fast one, but i didn't see a single race offical and had people drafting off me for 10 miles before i finally managed to drop them.

Get the logistics fixed, and this can be a top notch race in my opinion.

There was a yellow bouy, followed by an orange/yellow bouy and a red. The orange/yellow was the turn for the Oly, and the Red for the Half.

I too was about 12 minutes slower in the water than I expected to be. I recall arriving at the first red bouy, and being unable to make any progress against it for a while. I would look at it, see it about 15 yards away, swim 10 strokes, look again, still 15 yards, 10 strokes... still 15 yards away. Eventually I blew out wide from the pack, and found a section of river that seemed to have less current and I was able to get around. But then the current picked up again and the long stretch between red bouys took forever!