I’m sure many of you have heard about the busted dam at Tempe Town Lake (site of Ironman Arizona) and the subsequent emptying of the entire lake. If you haven’t, go Google some photos – they are pretty impressive. The upside is, the city will have the dam fixed and the lake refilled in time for this year’s Ironman. The downside is, it looks like all the other fall races that come before November won’t have that guarantee. Including my A-race for the year, SOMA 1/2 IM on October 24th.
I do love the race management by Red Rock Company and they put on some great events. They’ve been hit really hard this year by situations out of their control (forest wildfires, vanishing lake, etc). And now based on their website and Facebook posts, it appears likely they will have to make their fall series all duathlons. If something happened on race day (adverse weather, for example) and it became a duathlon, I’d just deal and race it. But we are 3 months out and I’m not putting in all this hard work to travel 750 miles to race a duathlon. There has been a lot of discussion on their Facebook page and even if they decide not to give refunds, I hope they are willing to defer people who wish it to a race next year instead of forcing them to lose their $$. After all, we paid for a triathlon, not a duathlon.
And so, the hunt is on for a new fall 1/2 IM for me. Unfortunately the two local races that I would have preferred are both in early-mid September and I just won’t be ready by then. Everyone keeps suggesting Silverman and other Vegas area races but the bike profiles on those are skeery (and since I was anticipating a flat bike course, that’s more the type of thing I’ve been training for). I’m also trying to factor in travel costs and difficulty of getting to some of these places into my decision. There are a few other options out there and I think I’ve pinpointed a favorite, but I am going to wait the couple days they promised until Red Rock *officially* makes SOMA a duathlon before signing up for something else.
And so it goes – life is never boring around here!
6 comments:
ah, that's really unfortunate. For the company and the triathletes.
Well, I'm quite interested on what your A-Race will be.
Nevertheless have a great weekend.
Cheers
That sucks. Hope you find a race. I think there are some in Miami late Oct/early Nov. Or Austin in October. But my vote really is for Silverman. Hills or no hills. It's just a great race.
Ugh. Sorry - that really does suck. Like you said, if it is a race day decision I'd go with it but a 3 month warning - I'd be looking too.
Nothing in this area that late in the year, so I have no suggestions. But it sounds like you have something in mind so - go for it! (once they make it officially a du)
Still....double, triple suck. :(
Ironman Miami 70.3 :-)
That is just such a random thing to happen, the picture of the dry lake is crazy. Thankfully they'll have it back before IM but it stinks that it's changing your A-race.
I know nothing about the race since I haven't done it yet (was supposed to do it last year but medical issues put a halt to that) but you might check out Miami Man.
It is on November 14th and they have both an olympic and half ironman distance. I plan to do the olympic.
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