Fred's Blog

While I was in San Diego last week I was hoping to jump start my 2009 fitness program by squeezing in a couple of runs.  For the first couple days of my trip the weather did not cooperate as it ended up being cold and rainy. For the remainder of the trip I can only blame my lazy self.  I'm sure it had nothing to do with the mass quantities of local brews I consumed each night...

Now I have a new excuse, a darn head cold.  I'm hoping to start fresh next week and get back on track to getting in shape.  Any bets?

That was my first impression when I first looked at the agenda for the USAT Race Director Symposium that was recently held in Colorado Springs.  Topic wise, this year's conference was one of the weakest ever.  A big focus of the conference was on greening up our events.   I think they forgot they had a similar presentation last year.  While making an event "green" is important, with the economy in the tank and sponsorship dollars slipping, it may have been more prudent to discuss another type of greening...greening up our events with more greenbacks ($) so we can stay in business.   At first I just concluded that USAT just does not "get it" when it comes to the business of race directing.  Then it finally hit me, the symposium is not about growing our events and the sport of triathlon, it is all about education and event safety.   

I have attended almost every single race director conference/symposium that has been held since I started race directing back in 1984.  Some conferences you look forward to attending because they have great and informative sessions lined up, some because of the location, and others you go to solely for the networking opportunities.  Occasionally you'll be fortunate enough to attend one that has all of the above.   This year's USAT symposium falls in the networking only category.

When I dropped off the USAT Board of Directors a couple of years ago I volunteered to serve on the USAT Race Director's Commission in hopes that I could contribute more back to the sport.  You would think that this committee would have a major role in the development of a symposium created specifically for race directors, but that is not the case.  USAT staff does it all and that is most likely why the topics are not as relevant as they could be.  USAT staff does a great job in executing a professional symposium, but they certainly could use some help in selecting the conference agenda.

 
As I type this I'm flying to California to attend the Running USA conference.  When you compare the two conferences it is like night and day.  The Running USA Conference is all about growing the sport, and ultimately the events.   That would be a refreshing approach for next year's USAT Symposium.

That was the dilemma facing me last month as I was finalizing our Clermont event schedule.  On the table was the Central Florida Triathlon Series.  This is a home grown series with a rich triathlon history.  I introduced it way back in 1986.  Back then it was still common to have the swim last in a triathlon, and there were no rules.  At first the series bounced around several Central Florida venues during each season, but ultimately made Clermont its home.  In its heyday, about 6 or 7 years ago, each series event would max out at 1400 participants.  In 2008 we were lucky to attract 300 per race. 

With the series funded primarily by entry fees, just crunch the numbers and see why a business person would question the feasibility of continuing to produce the series.  I have my own thoughts as to why the triathlon market has slipped here in Clermont.  I'm sure it has nothing to do with market saturation and the fact that another organization here in town produces seven additional triathlons here.  Those seven are in addition to the five or six that we produce in Clermont annually.  That cannot be the case though because USAT's Executive Director just sent a letter to all race directors disputing any thoughts we may have about market saturation. I promise I will elaborate more on aoll of this later in another post.  

Anyways, I was faced with an approaching deadline to get our calendar to the City of Clermont for approval.  Do we hold a summer sprint series or just stick with one multi-distance triathlon weekend?  If it is a series, do we host all events in Clermont or use multiple venues...and at what distance?    What about our tanked economy and the impact it may have on participation???  That is way too many questions to deal with, especially with no correct answer available.

An the verdict is........a three race series with all three races taking place in Clermont!  Don't ask me to elaborate on why.  Perhaps it has to do with me being a pack rat?   You should know by now that I just hate to part with stuff....

Seeing how I've only written about a dozen posts this year I figured I might as well squeeze another one in before the year ends.  I had big plans 12 months ago, but this past year did not go the way I had hoped. I guess I should not feel too bad looking at the state of the country right now.  This year was a milestone year for me though...I survived twenty five years in the business! 

I promise, I'm still going to blog about the history of triathlons in Clermont.  I especially want to cover the part about why I got started in this sport.  That's the most frequent question I get asked and it will be a relief to direct that person to my blog instead of having to tell the same ole story over and over again.  :)

Time to head over to my garden blog so I can squeeze one more 2008 post in there as well.

See you next year!

The tropics are heating up, colorful spaghetti lines from the computer models are crisscrossing the state...ah, summertime in Florida.  Fortunately for us our final Florida sprint triathlon is this weekend and we have no triathlons here during September, the peak of hurricane season.  Off course the GFT is still looming on the horizon for late October.  How could I ever forget Hurricane Wilma who wreaked havoc on the GFT in 2005.   That was an anomaly so the odds of another storm impacting the GFT are very low.

Our newest nemesis, Fay, may cross over Florida early next week.  The irony is that I still may have to deal with her next weekend.  We'll be up in Maryland next week for the Iron Girl Columbia triathlon and current models show the remnants of Fay passing through that area on Sunday, race day.   We've already had our share of wet events this season and I'm not sure I'm ready for another.

No big deal, I know when I wake up in the morning and check the tropical weather, Fay will be heading somewhere else.


Our next florida Tri is not until the GFt at the end of Octob 

My last post was February 27 and at that time I announced I was returning to the blogosphere.  Some how I ended up in the stratosphere instead of the blogosphere.  Well let's see if I can get back on track.  I still have 25 years of our Clermont Triathlon history to document....and news on what is in store for the future.  Of course this has been a rather eventful season so far, and some of it may be safe to share here.  :) 

The good news is that I know the best is yet to come! 

You've heard the cliché the hurrier I go, the behinder I get, well that sums up my life lately.  Blog writing is just like my running, it is something I want to do, but I can't seem to make it part of my daily regime. It doesn't help that we are slightly short-staffed right now.  I know, excuses, excuses...I just need to make it happen,  

As conferences go, this year’s ChampionChip conference was uneventful.  Like most conferences, one of the main reasons you attend is so you can network and catch-up with old friends.  I brought our new timing guy, Matt, along so he could learn more about ChampionChip and race timing.  During the conference there were several workshops related to RunScore, a timing program that many of the timers use.  A new client/server version of the software was just release and everyone was anxious to learn more about it.  RunScore has always been sort of fickle in a network environment and this new version will change that.

No earth shattering ChampionChip news came out the conference.  ChampionChip is finally releasing its version of an active chip.  A regular ChampionChip is passive, meaning it has no battery and relies solely on the magnetic field of the mats to energize it so it can send data to the system.  An active chip is larger and has a small battery in it.  This allows it to be used for faster sports like inline skating and cycling.  The cost is also significantly higher.

The guys at ChampionChip were all excited about a new system they developed to time yacht races.  That went over like a lead balloon.  Another big push they made was for their Time Point systems.  This is a permanent system that would be installed on a track or running trail.  When athletes pass over it with their person ChampionChip on it would collect the data and show it on a screen at that check point and put it online for the athlete to review later. An interesting concept but a very expensive one as well.
 

One of the cooler new technologies they showed us was a GPS timing device they developed.  This would enable live tracking of athletes via web.  The device is fairly large and very expensive.  I see this being used as a value added service and for high profile pro races.  For the common age group athlete the only place you might come across this would be at a high profile long course triathlon or perhaps a marathon.  The athlete would most likely have to pay at least $50 to be able to wear one of these devices during a race.  You could then direct everyone to track your progress live on the web during the race.  I’m sure in another 5-10 years this device will shrink in size and price so it can become mainstream and be worn by all athletes at a race.
 

The conference was not a busy one so we had plenty of time to play tourist.  The area surrounding St. George is absolutely beautiful.  Zion National Park is just over 30 minutes away and the Grand Canyon about the same.  I spent a few hours scouting out possible triathlon venues, not sure why, it’s just in my blood I guess.

I’m off to conference number two in my winter conference triple crown.  This one is the annual ChampionChip race timers conference taking place in St. George, Utah.  More than half of the nearly 70 ChampionChip timers are expected to attend so it is a great opportunity to network as well.  Like the Race Directors Conference, this is the one time of year when almost everyone can come together and have a great time.  When it is over it is back to the “dog eat dog” world of event timing and for some timers, back stabbing, event stealing, and cut throat bidding wars.   We really have not had to fight too many timing battles over the years.  You lose some events and you gain some events so it all seems to average out.  I plan to expand our timing business in 2008-2009 so I’m sure we will get pulled in to a few new battles along the way.

This conference should be interesting to hear what ChampionChip World has to say about the new competition they are facing in North America.  New companies have entered the chip timing arena and are aggressively marketing their technology to existing timing companies a few high profile races.  A couple of major ChampionChip timers have already jumped ship, leaving the ChampionChip technology behind to use the new technology that is out there.

Unfortunately for the U.S. timers, ChampionChip is based out of the Netherlands and they are sort of out of touch with the U.S. business model. It does not help that the equipment prices are set in Euros.  A few years ago the US and European dollars were almost the same.  Now the dollar is so week that we have to pay half again as much for the same equipment.  That equates to a nearly 50% price increase and makes it a challenge for us to financially afford to increase our equipment inventory.

I’ll report back in a couple of days when the conference winds down.