On January 17, 2011,
in 
I’m sure everyone has heard that Paratriathlon will be included in the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, but have you heard about the Dare 2 Tri Paratriathlon Club?
The Dare 2 Tri Paratriathlon Club is a local club open to youth and adults with a physical disability or visual impairment who are interested in any part of the triathlon: swim, bike or run. The club will offer training opportunities and race support for interested athletes. The inaugural Dare 2 Tri Club meeting will be held on January 24th, 2011 at the Wrightwood Tap in Chicago, from 6:30 – 8:30 pm.
If you’re interested in getting involved or learning more about the Dare 2 Tri Club, a group of Chicago Tri Club members are planning on attending the inaugural meeting together. If you’d like to join us, please RSVP with Keri Schindler (info below) and also please RSVP with me so we can get a sense of how many members are interested in helping out. From one tri club to another, we would very much like to promote the efforts of the Dare 2 Tri Club and assist them as best we can.
The Dare 2 Tri Club info is below; please feel free to send this along to friends. Thanks!
DARE 2 TRI Triathlon Club
CALLING ALL Para Triathletes or those interested in becoming Para Triathletes!
Did you hear ParaTri is in the Paralympics for 2016!
Did you hear about the DARE 2 TRI Triathlon Club!
If you are interested in finding… Read the rest
Adam Eck, designer for upstart Rev3, decided to poke fun at the market leader Ironman and offered up his take of the “R-dot” tattoo. I don’t think anyone will actually go out and get this tattoo, but it is a clever way to let people know that Rev3 is a viable alternative to the standard WTC Ironman events. As their ad indicates, it’s time to “start a new revolution”. Although I haven’t done a Rev3 event I do like the company and the spirit of customer service that they’re embodying. Plus the fact that they’re providing competition for the WTC should mean lower prices and improved quality across the board for all race participants. With the demand for long distance races growing at a rapid pace Rev3 should be able to thrive alongside the WTC and hopefully will encourage even more new race directors to enter the triathlon market.
Note: It looks like Adam Eck’s post about the Rev3 tattoo was taken down.
This weekend I headed out to Seattle to visit friends and ended up on the mountains of Washington snowshoeing for several hours. If you have not been out to the Washington area for some winter sports fun you are really missing out. It was my first time snowshoeing and I really enjoyed trekking through the snow, taking in the purity and awesomeness of nature. I also got in a pretty good workout to boot!
I couldn’t believe how easy it was for my friends to get out of the city and hit the great outdoors. We drove for about 20 minutes and we were outside of Seattle, and in less than an hour we were at the base of some amazing mountains ready for some fun. Here in Chicago you could drive for an hour and still be in the suburbs. I love living in a big city but it does have its downsides at times. I also couldn’t believe how many people were out and active in Seattle. You would never know it was the middle of winter by the amount of people out on the trails and mountain passes. What a great active city, I may have to pay it another visit soon!
By now most of you have probably heard about Rev3, the small upstart challenging the WTC in long distance triathlons. If you haven’t heard about it yet, head on over to Slowtwitch and read their latest article which features the Rev3 Triathlon series and its founder, Charlie Patten.
The moment that sparked Patten to dream up Rev3 came when he was waiting in line to sign up for Ironman Lake Placid after finishing the 2008 race in 12 hours 15 minutes. “The thought came into my mind while I was waiting in line,” said Patten. “The supply of quality races must be very low if athletes are dishing over $500 one year in advance. And people were securing their accommodations for the following year while they were checking out of their hotel on Monday after the race. What sealed the deal for me was the fact that a lot of those athletes were complaining about having to commit so far in advance.”
Supply and demand, two of the most basic terms in economics. Even today as the WTC hikes up registration fees most of their races continue to sell out. Clearly there’s more demand than supply right now, and the WTC understands that which is why they continue to raise race fees and introduce new Ironman races around the world. The past couple of years alone have seen the introduction of Ironman Cozumel and Ironman St. George, not to mention several other new 70.3 races.
It’s clear that there’s a large… Read the rest
Yesterday I watched the IM Kona coverage on NBC after a mid-day bike/run brick workout. I settled in with my food and drinks while in my compression gear and got ready to watch the 2 hour highlight show of the world championships. I followed the live web coverage during the actual race so I already knew the outcome but I was excited to see how they would present the showdown between Macca and Raelert during the final miles of the marathon.
As usual the show did not disappoint. It was a good combination of race coverage and human interest stories (although many on SlowTwitch disagree), with a little more race coverage than year’s past. Personally I like seeing more race coverage than human interest stories but I’m more familiar with the pros than the average person that NBC/WTC target with their coverage. I doubt the average person watching the show also watches ITU coverage on Universal Sports or has their Tivo set to record anything with the word “triathlon” in the title.
One thing I noted during the show that was different this year than last year was the advertising coverage. I don’t recall seeing many big ads last year that were specifically targeted at triathletes, yet this year there were major commercials by mainstream brands like Ford that featured pro triathletes (like Chris Lieto). I’ll tip my hat to the folks at Ford, they did a great job specifically targeting triathlon users with their advertising; the Ford commercials caught… Read the rest
Sometimes it’s a little hard to get out of bed for your early morning workouts. Take this morning for example. I was scheduled for an early workout session at VQ, but as I woke up and saw how dark and cold it was outside, and I thought about the full day of work and school ahead of me, all I wanted to do was hit the snooze button and go back to sleep.
After a couple of minutes I dragged myself out of bed, and after eating a quick snack and putting on my workout clothes I headed over to VQ. I was in a pretty groggy mood until I got to VQ, and the all of a sudden I felt better. I don’t know what it was, but even though I knew I was in for a super long 18 hour day I was really happy to be there at that moment. It was a great feeling and I was happy to start my day with it.
That feeling of happiness made me realize how lucky I am to be in a position where I’m at today, where I can derive joy and excitement from the activities I do in my life. I know so many struggle with the work life balance and I feel like I’ve been blessed by finding an extracurricular activity that balances out my professional life pretty well. And for that I am very thankful.
Photo by Michael Dawes
(Reprinted from Six to Nine Scholar)
In the triathlon community, any controversy that arises is eventually discussed heatedly on the forums at Slowtwitch.com, the leading forum for endurance athletes. On the last weekend of October, the forums at Slowtwitch were active with a new scandal revolving around the World Triathlon Corporation (WTC), the owners of the Ironman Triathlon brand. The negative outburst from the community, and the subsequent handling of the event by the WTC reminded me of a framework for managing scandals we learned about in our Marketing courses. I’m not certain if the WTC management used the exact steps we covered at school but the way they responded to the situation certainly fit into the framework provided.
The framework for managing scandals comes from the case “Let the Response Fit the Scandal” by Alice M. Tybout and Michelle Roehm. The case provided a step-by-step guide for companies to craft a proper response to negative events that may cause damage to their brand. The framework provided had four steps:
- Assess the Incident - Is the scandal or negative event pertinent to the central attribute of the company or brand? If the negative event is tangential to the company or brand, is there a chance of a spillover effect damaging the company or brand?
- Acknowledge the Problem – If the company is likely to be impacted by the scandal, it should be swift in publicly acknowledging the problem and outlining steps
Looks like the news media has finally discovered what we triathletes have known for years now: the sport of triathlon is growing rapidly and everyday people are embracing it. Triathlons are not just for hardcore Ironmen (and women) anymore, they’re for all individuals who are seeking to live a healthy, active lifestyle.
Two recent articles in major media outlets (CNN & The Wall Street Journal) have recently highlighted this trend. They’ve showcased everyday people, ranging from young professionals to mothers, who have taken up triathlon as a way to stay health and regain some of their youthful athleticism. Chuck Menke, direction of marketing and communications at USA Triathlon, states that over the last five years USAT membership has gone from 50,000 to 135,000 annual members. But why is there such a huge growth in triathlon now?
Menke says “it’s a combination of the Olympics — triathlon made its debut in the 2000 Sydney games — a growing group of middle-aged competitors looking to reclaim their athleticism, and a desire for fitness-conscious camaraderie.”
I believe that over the years the general population has become more aware of the benefits of exercise as one gets older, and many have turned to some form of sport as their primary form of activity. Running and marathons were the go-to sport for aspiring adult athletes, but this decision has slowly changed over time. For starters, the jarring effects of running have taken a toll on the aging adult athlete, and these individuals have… Read the rest
Not sure if everyone has seen the RunTri website that has Ironman race data analysis and graphs showing some really interesting trends. My favorite bytes of data are the Ironman Wisconsin 2010 charts and the North American Ironman DNF Rates chart.
The Ironman Wisconsin: Correlation Between Bike and Run Splits chart shows just how well the racers paced themselves on the bike and run legs of the race. They basically plotted bike splits against run splits and broke down the racers into four groups: Fast & Balanced, Energy to Burn, Left it on the Bike Course, and Smooth & Steady. You want to be in that first group but I guess most people would settle for the last group too.
The North American Ironman DNF Rates: Finishers and DNF by Race chart shows the DNF (Did Not Finish) rates for the 2010 North American Ironman races. Ironman Wisconsin had a 6% DNF rate, but Louisville and St. George led the way with 16% and 14% respectively. I know Louisville was super hot this year and St. George is supposed to be ridiculously challenging so those DNF rates don’t surprise me. I actually have some friends who just signed up for St. George next year. I wonder what they would think of this DNF rate!
More bike service & app news! The first one is called Capital Bikeshare and is based around the Washington DC area. The service uses a technology called BIXI that allows riders to access the bikes via a special key card. It seems to be pretty low hassle and affordable. Definitely one to check out this weekend for everyone headed to DC for the Rally to Restore Sanity (like our friend Chuck over at Chicago Bike!)
Another bike-sharing system making use of new technology is SoBi, the Social Bicyle System.
SoBi is the first public bike share system to rely entirely on wireless technology for tracking, locating and unlocking bikes. The system is compromised of three elements: the social cyclist, the central server and the social bicycle.
Here’s how it will work: after creating a SoBi account — via web, mobile phone or street kiosk — a cyclist will have unlimited access to bicycles in the bike share system, which will be equipped with GPS, a secure lock and wireless communications. Once the cyclist locates an available bike, he can use a pin code to unlock it. The central server will approve and track the transaction.
Here’s a video of SoBi in action.
And last up we have an iPhone app that lets you use your iPhone as a bike computer. This is pretty cool for casual techy bike riders, but as a more advanced bike rider I don’t think this little app holds a candle… Read the rest
