Greetings sports fans, thought I would share the reply I got back from Envirosports when I noted my observations in my thank you message to the RD. (me in black, response in blue)
First let me thank you for taking the gamble and adding this race to the schedule this year. I’m sure it’s a huge undertaking that most participants never even consider when they start critiquing a race when it’s over. I appreciated everyone’s efforts out there in trying to make race day as nice as possible.
I was a bit surprised that the participation was so light, but the weekend also had UVAS and Bay to Breakers to pull people from, not that they were actually “competeing” with you per say as they are quite different is size and distance. I know it’s a lot to even suggest, but you might get better attendance if the race were on another weekend. Logistically, I’m sure it’s much easier to do two races on one weekend and not have to return to do another one. If people really want to race, they will skip the others anyway.
We will likely be moving these events to the first weekend of May next year and flip-flopping the races so the Half is on Saturday and the Sprint on Sunday. We understand that this will be directly opposite of Wildflower, but we’d like to present ourselves as the alternative to that race. Our Sprint already has a strong following – selling out in mid-January each year. I think the Half might benefit from this positioning.
I also wanted to provide you with a racers interpretation of how you might make the day a little more enjoyable next year. Please don’t take this the wrong way, I simply want you to hear some impressions from a participant. This is in no way a soap box or a bashing.
- Color coding the caps would be nice. That way a person has to decide before the heat of the moment what wave they want to be in. I think too many people self seeded with grander plans than they actually got due to the excitement and caused some log jams in the water.
Next year’s swim will be a single loop. That will avoid the crossover that comes with a double-loop course. We will always favor a self-seeded start as opposed to pre-assigned age-group waves. For our sprint race with 600 participants, we are able to start these self-seeded waves three minutes apart and have minimal crossover. Too many races with age-group starts wait eight or more minutes between each wave – with larger events taking up to two hours to start everyone!
- Perhaps you could put up some tall cone/posts with plastic flag ropes around the transition area to keep people out. I know you needed to keep a lane for boats, but too many spectators were milling about on the ramp and early in the transition area. Blocking off the sides and announcing regularly to get people out would help.
We plan to move the transition area next year to the area in front of the motel rooms. We use this area for the sprint tri. In addition to keeping spectators out, it will dramatically improve the Half by avoiding the crossovers with the bike/run ins and outs.
- After an event like a 1/2 IM, one needs a meal. Red vines, trail mix, watered down Gatorade, bananas and cliff bars are fine for a sprint race but I was disappointed that it was all we had after the 1/2 IM distance. A plate of pasta or burrito fixins, maybe a salad or some additional fruits would really be welcome. Check out the bounty at a J&A productions race and you will see the difference I’m talking about. Simply said, for $200 I expected more.
J & A sets a high-standard with their post-race fare. The Chipolte burritos they get are 100% donated, as Chipolte is an event sponsor. I know this because I’ve worked J & A events for years. Of course, Chipolte also has several store locations within a 50 mile radius for that event, so it’s a great marketing vessel for them. At Lake Berryessa, we’re a little hard-pressed to find food sponsors willing to truck their goods out to the venue. That said, we are having conversations about what we can do in the way of providing food next year. Right now, it looks like our best option is underwriting the cost of a BBQ hosted by the resort. It’ll come at a significant cost to us, but we understand that triathletes going the extra distance absolutely need and expect it – as they should.
- The bike turn around #1 was on a downhill slope. People are usually going pretty fast downhill. Perhaps you could make it on a slight uphill. It came up really fast on me and I had to leave rubber on the asphalt to slow down fast enough to make the very sharp turn.
Excellent note. This is the sort of thing that is bound to surface on raceday when the course is in use for the first time. Sometimes we can anticipate these blips before raceday. For instance, at one point, we had bike turnaround #2 at a different location and on one of our many, many course drive-throughs we realized that it was on a slightly blind incline, so the course was adjusted. Actually, that was the course change that move bike turnaround #1 to its final location. This is something we’ll revisit before next year for sure.
- The bike course could have used more signage alerting the public to the event in progress. I nearly got creamed by a truck driving down the middle of the road on the short stretch near Rust Ridge Winery (E. Chiles Rd I think it was). There was no sign on the other side at the beginning of the road for oncoming traffic to reduce speed or watch out for bikes. The road was pretty skinny and I was near the edge. If it had been one of the other riders who I passed on that road, riding down the middle like you shouldn’t do, we would be mourning the loss of a fellow athlete today.
There was a CHP officer stationed at the intersection of Chiles Pope Valley Rd. and Lower Chiles Valley Road (the intersection after Rust Ridge Winery). In addition to adding signage, the bike course will have course monitors – armed with flags and/or foam fingers (like the kind you see at basketball games) at all turns next year.
- The intersection at the bottom of the last steep section had a CHP patrol car with an officer inside it, but no volunteer with a flag or anything. It would have been nice to have an extra set of eyes at that corner to help slow traffic down because the corner is almost blind from the resort side.
Totally agreed. I’d also like to add a course monitor further up the hill to advise cyclists to slow down as they approach that turn.
- The wait for posting of results and awards was a let down. I don’t see why you couldn’t have posted the results for everyone up to something like 6 hours and then added pages as time permitted. I finished in 5:35 and then was told the posting wouldn’t be for another hour and a half. I went to the timing tent, got my time and left. I like to stick around and cheer on my fellow athletes and give the winners the recognition they deserve, but most of them left because the wait for some would have been over two hours. Kind of anti-climactic.
Our timing company, PM Events of Portland, is accustomed to delivering results live. They also time all of the Vineman triathlons.
- If you take the extra step (and $$ I’m sure) to get the race USAT sanctioned, your participant list will increase for sure. Many of the highly competitive racers want to race when their times and rankings will be impacted on the USAT standings national ranking system.
Here we have a philosophical difference, Dave. We will never sanction our event through USAT. We cater our events to athletes whose focus is coming out and having a good time. We don’t mind if the highly competitive folks opt for a different race on the same weekend. In fact, most of the time those races will better meet their needs. Our priority is to produce a safe, fun and well-organized event for folks who enjoy the sport. We don’t want to have to issue Susie Soccer Mom a drafting penalty at her first triathlon, when we can monitor it ourselves out on the course and simply tell her to stop drafting without ruining her experience.
- I’m sure next year, if there is a next year, the date will be published earlier. Most competitive triathletes schedule the season in Late December or Early January so you probably lost a lot of draw because race calendars were set and race fees paid when the event was announced.
We announced this event in late-November and had our first four sign-up on Dec. 1st. The only hold-back on announcing it was the different permitting agencies dragging their feet. With this event, we deal with Napa County, CHP and DOI – Bureau of Land Management. We had to get all of them on board for the new event before we could advertise and accept entries.
Once again, thanks for a nice day, I had a PR and was pleased that I finally completed a race without pain in my IT bands (HUGE FOR ME). Tell the volunteers we all appreciate everything they did for us out there.
That’s quite a course to set a PR on, Dave! Congrats! Thanks again for the thoughtfully written feedback. I make a point to save all of our post-event e-mails so we can revisit them as we make plans for next year.