Has anyone competed in a mixed relay before, and if so, what did you think? Any thoughts on what worked and what didn’t? Is there anything that should be done differently from a standard multisport event?
If you haven’t done one, would you be interested? What would it take to interest you? I can’t go into too many details as we haven’t announced the event, but it’s a unique venue in MI and will have a sprint tri the following day featuring closed roads and a run with no traffic. The sprint tri will have a pretty cool hook as well.
We have the venue for an extra day and I was trying to think of something fun to do that’s different from the norm and the idea of a mixed relay popped into my head.
The venue is situated in a way that you would be able to see 90% of the course at one time so you’d have a great idea of where everyone is at for the competitive folks.
I don’t expect it to be a huge event, but 10-20 teams could be a lot of fun.
I haven’t actually participated in one…but I was signed up for the mixed team relay in Omaha last year. It was the race I was most looking forward to all year. Unfortunately I cut my foot in the Super Sprint and it got infected so I couldn’t race the relay 3 days later.
But I would definitely encourage you to offer it at your race (and also Super Sprints), it seems like everyone enjoyed it in Omaha.
There is one every year in Switzerland, and it serves as a club championship. I’d say if you have multiple clubs in your region, you could try to pitch this to clubs and have them enter multiple teams. Plus allow for other random team entries as well (not clubs).
Being in michigan, you may even be able to get NCAA teams to do the race if it’s a fall time table race (not sure when you say it will be). There’s a decent number of teams in this north mid east region, and there is also collegiate club scene that is always looking for cool race venues in that area.
I did the mixed team relay World Championship in Torremolinos this year. Thought it was a really neat and fun event. Challenge for you doing it at your race weekend in Michigan might be that people doing that and the sprint would need 2 bikes if the mixed relay is draft legal. Of course you could always just make it not be draft legal and then people could have both bikes. Race I did was by far the most full contact swim I’ve ever had - beach start and the first buoy was at an angle with a really quick turn. My individual part of the race was a bit of a comedy of errors, which of course makes me really want to try again. Anyway, very fun, neat event - great idea to try it for your event if you can make it work. Would love to see more race weekends with opportunities like this.