Ironman recently rolled out their 2012 Ironman Lottery promotion.  For $40 you can have a chance to win one of 100 slots into the 2012 Ironman Triathlon.  Tack on another $50 to that and join the Ironman Passport Club and your odds have just now doubled.  If you have completed more than a dozen Ironman races including races in 2010 and 2011, and have already signed up for a 2012 Ironman race, then your odds look even better as 100 additional slots are up for grabs for that pool of athletes.  Of course if you win, you still have to pay the $750 race entry fee.

Let's do some math.  Over 7000 athletes typically sign up for the lottery as per an official press release.  That alone equates to more than $280,000 in revenue.  That figure is four times greater than the budget of this year's Great Floridian Triathlon!

Let's assume that 4,000 of the 7,000 lottery applicants opt to join the Ironman Passport Club.  I'm certain the actual number is greater but I could not find any statistics on the Ironam Passport Club membership.  That adds an additional $200,000 to the pool, bringing the total lottery revenue close to a half million dollars.  Not bad for a non-event!

It should not come as a surprise who the real winner is in the Ironman Lottery!

Sideline Chatter: criminal with triathlon skills

The Seattle Times

Published Saturday, Jul. 30, 2011

No wonder it's called the Marathon County Sheriff's Department.

An 18-year-old suspected truck thief couldn't elude capture by Marathon's finest in Wausau, Wis., despite fleeing on a bicycle, then running through some woods and finally swimming across the Wisconsin River.

As Bob Chavez of the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat & Chronicle pointed out, "Benjamin J. Solchenberger may one day be a fine triathlete - when he gets out of jail."

Almost anyone who grew up in Clermont has Highlander Hut memories. For those of you not familiar with Clermont, the Highlander Hut was a multi-use facility named after our high school mascot at the time, the Clermont Highlanders.

I know I'm going to date myself here, but I have lots of fond memories of the Highlander Hut.  As a kid I attended many a boy scout and cub scout meeting in the hut.  Back then the train still passed through town so we would put nails and coins on the tracks when we arrived for our scout meetings.  The train would pass during the meeting and afterwards we would rush out to gather up our flattened souvenirs.  The hut was also the home of many of our high school dances. When I started producing triathlons back in Clermont in the early 80's, the hut served as our race registration headquarters.

A year ago spring the Highlander Hut became history when it was demolished to make room for its replacement.  This project was long overdo and at least five years behind schedule.  It always amazed may that although Clermont's population had grown by leaps and bounds, we still had the same amount of community meeting space that we had over 35 years ago.
The wait was worth it as the new building opened in time for our Great Clermont Triathlon season opener in March.  The main building has more usable space than the old hut and as an added bonus includes a large open-air pavilion.

This new facility is a great asset to our community and certainly enhances all Waterfront Park events, including our triathlons.  Waterfront Park looks like a brand new park with the addition of these buildings.  I'm especially excited about the opportunities the new pavilion offers as we plan for this fall's Great Floridian.

Now that the public swimming beach is back open (seasonally), Clermont Waterfront Park is truly the community showplace it was meant to be.

This was a task I have been putting off for a couple of years now, organizing our surplus shirts.  At the insistence of Doug we established a work day to sort through all out vintage T-shirts from the past 10 years. Last week we pulled out every single shirt that was stored in our warehouse and started sorting them out by size.

Don't be fooled by the photo below into thinking that's all the shirts we have.  An equal amount of shirts were still stacked up in boxes in our warehouse waiting to be pulled out and sorted.

Last year a couple boxes of our archive shirts got mixed in with our surplus shirts so it was great to be able to pull those out and put them back in storage.  Included in our archive collection is the very first Great Clermont Triathlon shirt from 1984 and several autographed shirts from Hunter Kemper.

My guess is that we went through at least 4,000 T-shirts.  I had promised a couple of church groups that we would donate shirts for their relief efforts in Haiti and Nicaragua so about 1,500 shirts were boxed up for them.  The rest of the shirts were put in tubs marked by size.  We plan to sell vintage T-shirts at our events this summer at a great price - 3 for $10. 

If you are looking to expand your shirt collection, or replace one of your worn-out favorite race shirts, then look for our vintage shirt booth at one of our Clermont events.   

After being in our new office for over two years, it was time for a fresh look.  We had planned to paint our drab white walls when we first moved in, but that never materialized.  I did paint my office right away because I could not stand being in a giant white box.

Who said painting had to be tough?  All you have to do is put a paint roller in Doug's hands and he is all smiles.

Cindy was our master trimmer. Who else but Cindy would step up to the plate to do the job most painter's despise, the trimming!

Mark soon realized that he was short on hands because he could not paint and tweet at the same time.

Last year was a crazy year for me and my event company, Sommer Sports.  While it was a good year for the company, it was certainly one I was glad to put behind me.  When you have been in the triathlon event business as long as I have been (27 years), it is often hard to get excited about the next upcoming season. I'm excited to say that is not the case this year. Two previous employees, Cindy and Jo-Ann, have rejoined the Sommer Sports team.  With those two gals joining Doug and Mark, I have a great team lined up with lots of positive energy flowing through the office.   Now I'm really excited about our 2011 season!

Recently we focused some of that energy on re-energizing our office environment.  The entire office just received a fresh coat of paint and next week will be adorned inside and out with some fresh new graphics.  We are also preparing for a major gutting and reorganizing of our warehouse.  It is amazing how much stuff you can accumulate when you have been doing this for over a quarter century.  I promised my team I will allow them to toss or recycle unneeded equipment.  Being a hard core pack-rat, that is going to tough for me....you just never know when you may need some of this stuff again.  :)   But I have always believed in the motto that change is good, and the change in our office/warehouse environment will be a good thing for all of us.

We have lots of positive changes in store for our events and the way we do things as a company.  Stay tuned for more details on that in future posts.   

Let's try this one more time.  When I first started blogging years ago I was one of only a very few race directors who blogged regularly.  During that era I was actually quite prolific with my blog posts.  Now's it has been two years and I just can't seem to get past the first few posts.  That sounds allot like my training.

I decided to try again and see if I can get this darn blog rolling again.  I have lots to write about, I just need the drive to gain some momentum and stamina.  If I can't make it happen this time, I promise I will give up on my personal blog and just focus on my Garden Blog.

Anyone want to place a bet on how long this writing spell will last?  I sure don't!  :)

It looks like Clermont's Waterfront Park is finally going to have a band shell!  I remember a band shell being proposed for phase two of the Waterfront Park project when it was announced about a decade ago.  Phase two should have been complete years ago based on the original plans...but better late than never.

Here is one of the earlier architect's rendering of what it should look like.

To get a lay of the land, The south Lake Trail and Lake Minneola are on the left.  The building behind the band shell would be the replacement building for the Highlander Hut.  In the past we have often used the Highlander Hut for race registration for our triathlons.

I was shown more detailed plans by local architect Mike Latham from GatorSktch Architects, the Clermont firm awarded the design contract.  The pavilion and new Highlander Hut builder are going to be very nice and an asset to Clermont.

Current plans have construction starting in April and if the project stays on track, it will be finished in time for October's Great Floridian Triathlon.  This means we'll still have to work around the construction during our summer Sprint Triathlon Series, but that is no big deal.

I'll post more drawings of what it will look like when I find them.

Recently the Clermont City Council decided to rezone the commercial district where our office and warehouse resides to allow adult entertainment businesses.  Ours is just one of four areas in town to receive this designation.  The reasoning behind their decision is that without such an ordinance, the city would be at risk of strip clubs or x-rated video stores going up anywhere in town.  Now they are restricted to the designated commercial districts.  By doing so it is easier for the city to place restrictions on the establishments and as a result, makes it nearly impossible for such a business to financially survive.

Fortunately as part of the ordinance adult establishments have to stay 1500 feet away from day care centers, schools and churches.  With the growth of all the independent churches around here you would be hard pressed to find an industrial park in the state that does not have at least a couple churches located within in it.  Thats a topic for another discussion I vow never to get into on my blog.

If you see a red light in our office don't fret, it's just the emergency exit sign.

Of course I'm talking about the movie Willard.  This time the stars are mice, not rats, and the setting is the Sommer Sports office & warehouse.  Just prior to the holidays I spotted a mouse scurry across the hallway by my office.  I was surprised because up to that point there has been no visible signs that mice were occupying our office or warehouse.  

The next day I set several traps and during the course of a week I had eliminated 8 of the little devils.  I think I finally have them under control so now I'll spread some bait packets around as a preventative measure.  I'm sure this problem will surface again because our warehouse connects to several other unoccupied units and mice can easily travel from one unit to another within this master building.