Halifax -- the part you probably don't know

Triathlon Forum
21

“I, for one, would not even consider enetering one of their races until they a.) show that they can get it done…well!”

they did that 2 weeks ago. we had eagleman, a 70.3, and clear lake all on that weekend. based on the eyewitness reviews that came back from those races, which organization do you think did the best job? they do not have the ability to make everyone enter their races – rather, it is their job to put on the race that everyone wants to enter. you typically have to do that before you can rightfully expect entries.

i don’t mean to cast aspersions on any other race. organizations make mistakes. north american sports makes mistakes. that organization has taken terrific beatings on this forum, as has WTC. in each case, i routinely defend the organization (and i’m typically accused of being on the take, which ought to make me a wealthy man if i’m on the take from everybody).

these 101 guys have made mistakes, as every organization does. but so far they’ve put in a pretty good race (bradenton) and an exceptionally good race (clear lake). next is the woodlands, and we’ll see how they do. but, for whatever else you want to say about them, you can’t take away their A+ execution at their A+ venue choice at clear lake. and… they’ve paid every single bill, and they’ve paid them all on time, including every pro athlete getting his or her check, in full, on the same day he or she raced.

22

“With their track record, it should be a small field. Good luck.”

That may turn out to be true. But after Steelhead and Accenture Chicago this summer I’ll probably appreciate the elbow room.

And, FWIW the field size won’t be the number one factor determining my overall satisfaction with the race.

23

I just don’t understand why they were so hasty in announcing this race series. Its a great idea for a race distance. Why not plan it for 2008, start advertising for it and creating buzz for it in December of 2006, and then spend 2007 getting the courses set before accepting registrations for the 2008 race? Accepting applications for a 2007 race in December of 2006 when the course was not even set was a terrible, terrible idea. I stupidly signed up for Halifax the week the series was announced. Who in their right mind is going to make plans to attend one of these races now or train for one of these? Unless I lived within 10-miles of the Texas race there is no way I would plan on that one. Even living that close there is no way I would spend time training for it unless I had a really solid plan b.

Hea Jon i did the samet thing as IM florida was full…

what can we do??? ahhhhh…

24

How is there going to be an expansion for 2008? Why would anyone put enough trust into this organization to plan a vacation around one of these events, train for one of these events, or miss out on the opportunity to sign up for other races because of plans to do a 101, when they are not confident the race will actually happen? I still don’t understand how they could accept applications when they were not 100% confident that the course was set, permits obtained, etc.
The only way I would consider doing one of these is if it was close by (Harriman State Park 101?) or if a 2008 race went off okay, I could see myself signing up in 2009. But who the heck is going to sign up for a 2008 race?

25

“It would seem that you would get more interest in the series and hype by having it prominently displayed on the main board.”

at the expense of seeming like a heartless bastard, it is not my job to hype the series. that is their job. and i’m not going to use the main forum to hype the series. my job is to keep the main forum as free as possible from hype, and to provide an environment where people can express their views, ask and answer questions, and add value.

my job – in the case of the 101 forum – is simply to host it, and aid in the increased functionality. accordingly, it seems the best way to accomplish all these things is to let the threads run their course on the main forum (if that is their point of generation) and then move them over to the 101 forum. i think the 101 forum will itself pick up steam as the series picks up steam.

26

I would be curious to know how many athletes have booked plan tickets, hotel, car rental etc… Personnaly I was thinking doing a 101 race next year and take a vacation at the same time with the familly, but I can tell that the 101 people will need to really impress me next year in order for me to do one. On the other hand, I know that mistake happen and I hope that they will learn from it.

27

Yes, they seemed to make ClearLake come of ok, although for a very small group, which doesn’t test them much. My understanding was that Bradenton was a mess. I know they have done very good races under other names. That’s what baffles me as to why this is such a mess, from an ill conceived name to poor venues from a consumer and community acceptance standpoint. These guys know better. And if paying the pros is what it’s about, then that’s a very small standard to be held to. So, they’ve put on 1 good race out of 3 so far…would you use a supplier when you owned QR with that track record? Seems the paying customer is coming to that very same realization. I reiterate that the sport needs many more players, but come on, this is a F’d up mess from the word go.

28

I’ve been doing HFP Racing events since the company began nearly 20 years ago and Dan’s thoughts seem pretty accurate to me. I’m sure the RD didn’t want to upset his fellow triathletes by cancelling the race at this date.

As for their ability to handle three races at The Woodlands, HFP racing has as much experience as probably anyone in producing simultaneous multiple races at a venue. They do it at nearly every one of their events, albeit most of those events have 500 or fewer participants. The Woodlands local RD is a very solid guy who I would definitely trust with my entry fee and my airline tickets.

29

This bears repeating:

they’ve paid every single bill, and they’ve paid them all on time, including every pro athlete getting his or her check, in full, on the same day he or she raced.
Nobody wanted this race to be cancelled. But take a minute and put yourself in their shoes. It’s easy to be a hater, a back seat driver, and a monday morning quarterback.

My guess is the people complaining about it have never organized a race. I wasn’t privy to any discussions, don’t even know any of the players, but I like the way they are giving refund options, and I like that they are operating in a clear and professional manner.

As for me, I will defer my registration till 2008 as a vote of confidence in their actions.

Go Halifax 2008!

30

“I still don’t understand how they could accept applications when they were not 100% confident that the course was set, permits obtained, etc.”

they were 100% confident. i doubt that even 1 out of 20 of the races in this country wait to take entries until permits are in hand. if permits-in-hand is a prerequisite for you, then i’d suggest another sport (and not running or cycling, because they’re run the same way).

it’s not that they weren’t confident, it’s that their confidence was unjustified. their problem is this: up until now, this organization has enjoyed great success in dealing with city fathers in the towns and cities in which they have existing relationships, or in which they could build these relationships off the talent they have in developing them. they are doing something new with 101, and that is exporting, or delegating, the building of these relationships to local points of contact. in order for this to work, these local points – these local RDs – must be able to execute the way that shannon kurek himself executes in the midwest and great lakes.

it is my view that in all three locales in which they’ve so far found themselves invested – bradenton, clear lake, and halifax – they found significant issues doing business in this manner. in clear lake, they just sent a company guy out and made him the “local” guy, after the locals didn’t come through. in other words, they reabsorbed this task in the case of clear lake, but they didn’t have time to reabsorb it in halifax.

i don’t know if you remember when ironmanlive started doing live coverage online. it was a disaster. but it got better and better, and now they do a fabulous job at the bigger races and everybody has forgotten the early problems. these 101 guys have to figure out how to put on races in distant locales. i’m confident they’ll do it. but you’ve got to call a spade a spade, and their difficulty in leveraging their local expertise to distant locales has been their achilles heel. there are a lot of things to do very well at the midwest level that they have struggled with on the national level. i’d still enter their races (and plan to), but it would be disingenuous not to acknowledge their uneven execution across the broad span of their mandate.

31

I agree…HFP puts on tremendous events. That’s why this surprises me so. Seems little logical thought was used in putting this whole series together. It’s like they forgot all they knew…

32

I did an HFP Event before in Akron Ohio and it was wonderful. They had an Olympic distance race that I did and my wife did her first race - a women’s only super sprint for first timers with the swim in waist deep water so nobody would be scared (they were all scared anyway, but everyone finished). The women’s only race was extremely encouraging for new triathletes and it was really fantastic to watch. The announcer during the race talked about the triathlon lifestyle and this being the first of hopefully many triathlons for the racers. Absolutely top notch race and its really wonderful to encourage newcomers into the race. I still really hope the 101 distance succeeds and I feel terrible for HFP organization - they may be losing huge amounts of money and they certainly did not intend for anything like this to happen. Plus I’m sure they are worried that they alienated past and future customers, which they did not intent to do. So I wish them no ill will and hope they can get it together. But with that said, its pretty hard to not be disappointed and its pretty hard to not be kicking myself for not seeing the cancellation of this race coming. I have no idea about what goes on behind the scenes in putting a race on, but I can’t help but to feel like they rushed this thing and I was stupid for signing up so quickly. I’m sure the organization feels a heck of a lot worse than me - I’m only missing a race / vacation; they may be flirting with financial disaster. So I wish the organization and series the best. I’m just disappointed and not ready to sign up for another one of these until 2009 after I see they had a very successful 2008 race. Unfortunately, I don’t see too much of a chance of them having successful 2008 races.

33

It looks like the race directors of Savageman are providing discounted entry fees for confirmed Halifax 101 participants. This course is hard enough that participants will really have to be in iron-shape in order to race, so those who were preparing for the Halifax race will have trained very well for Savageman as well.

http://savagemantri.org/WhatsNew.html

34

I agree…HFP puts on tremendous events. That’s why this surprises me so. Seems little logical thought was used in putting this whole series together. It’s like they forgot all they knew…

I think if we were in Shannon Kurek’s shoes, spray-painted orange from marking courses, we’d understand why things are happening like they are. I’ve known Shannon for nearly 15 years and I can see the stress this year. I know how much he loves organizing races and how it had to hurt him to cancel Halifax.

35

It looks like the race directors of Savageman are providing discounted entry fees for confirmed Halifax 101 participants. This course is hard enough that participants will really have to be in iron-shape in order to race, so those who were preparing for the Halifax race will have trained very well for Savageman as well.

http://savagemantri.org/WhatsNew.html

That’s a classy move!

36

Thanks for posting that - I had just spent some time on the Savageman websight and it looked really cool. Now with the added incentive of a discount, I think I’ve solved my extremely minor problem of finding an end of the season race.

With my minor problem solved, I feel bad about critisizing HFP and I realize they did not intend for this to happen and hope this does not lead to any kind of financial disaster for anyone in the company. Good luck - we know you did not want to cancell the race and did not intend for this to happen.

37

Threads like this make me wonder why there is a 101 forum?

I mean isn’t this 101 business, so therefore shouldn’t it be in that forum? But it’s not, because you know way more people will read it in this forum right? I know you have explained the existence of the 101 forum several times, but threads like this make that explanation seem invalid.

I hope the series works. Pointing out that there was a timing mistake at Hy-Vee or drafting problems at Clearwater doesn’t help 101 though, just as pointing out problems with 101 races doesn’t help those races. I don’t get the “Everyone else screws up too so it’s okay that we are screwing up” mentality.

38

in hindsight do you think the 101 directors, investors, etc. should have attempted to build the brand (the series) in the same model that say, challenge has? by this i mean slow, controlled, expansion of both race series and brand. i support 101 and applaud them for their vision to grow a new series and contribute to our sport but i question their judgment in attempting to grow and do too much too soon. i hope they recover and are able to continue and grow the series; perhaps a little more cautiously and slower.

39

“I’m just disappointed and not ready to sign up for another one of these until 2009 after I see they had a very successful 2008 race.”

i certainly understand your reticence, and i hope you won’t mind if i offer another way of looking at it.

as you rightly point out, this is a top notch organization. as you also rightly point out, the 101 side of the organization is bleeding money. it’s by no means their last nickel, or close to it, but it’s enough to sting.

i look at these things differently than others might. to me it’s brad kearns’ world’s toughest half, or jeff henderson’s musselman, but on a multi-race, national scale. i championed those two races – though brad’s race was the only one i was able to go to – when neither had as of yet happened. i did not receive any money for doing so. these guys were taking a step of financial and reputational faith. i felt in their case, and feel in this case, that my response to this cannot be passive. i have a stake in it, as a triathlete, and as one who has a long investment in the sport, and has gotten much in return for this investment.

you have to decide what your rightful response is to people like brad kearns, jeff henderson, shannon kurek. you also have to ask yourself how it is that races ever get going, if nobody ever enters until everyone is convinced that there is no risk to entry. how will you ever have a 101 race, fleshed out, bugs worked out, if everyone leaves it to everyone else to be the crash test dummies?

the question i ask myself is, has shannon kurek established sufficient bona fides in order to earn my trust in the production of a first-year event? does he have a habit of screwing people? of not paying his bills? of treating his customers shabbily? of putting on unsafe events? of routinely canceling events? based on the answer to these questions, i then determine what my reasonable service is to shannon or those like him, as a stakeholder in triathlon. obviously you know how i come down on this. i’ve had up 'til this point wonderful relationships with both the NAS people and the WTC people, and now they barely talk to me (in the cases of a couple of people, they don’t talk to me at all anymore). maybe that’s just because we haven’t had anything to talk about. but i rather suspected my hoping for and publicly endorsing 101’s success would alienate me from the most important race organizations in the world, and i fear it has.

but that was a risk i was willing to take, because i felt i had a responsibility to a sport that i love and that’s given me more than i could ever hope to repay. accordingly, i think it’s appropriate for others to ask about their status as stakeholders in triathlon and, if so, whether there’s an element of risk that ought appropriately to be taken? against that backdrop, just how much of a risk is it when somebody enters a shannon kurek 101?

40

Thanks for the posts Dan… Yep, it is sad to see how much business has gotten into our sport. When it starts to impact relationships,
thats bad.

I continue to offer I just do not see the business case need for 101. Yes, it might be nice to have something to go up against WTC,
but I would never put my money on that bet.

I stay ask, follow the money, and where is the largest group of folks in the US with the big bucks, and where will they be in 10 years.
That is the series someone needs to develop, IMO

Dave