Longhorn Half Ironman Triathlon Race report

[triman]

 My day went like this:

4:15 alam clock
4:45 Leave house on bike, backpack with change of clothes and running shoes
5:28 Arrive Walter E Long Park, glad I didn't have to take the car and bus, I'd have been late
5:30 Change, sign-in as volunteer
5:35-7:45 - Standing on road outside transition entry shouting, "body marking first please, straight down on

Comments

[patriathlete]

volunteering is fun, there's something about being there for the nervous racers

I remember last year

[anetmarie]

when they had absolutely nothing (not even water) for the volunteers. I read somewhere on the longhorn site that ONLY athletes could come into the food tent. This wasn't a High Five Event, so it wasn't as organized and volunteer-pampering-oriented as we've been spoiled to expect from Dan and crew.. So this year I did the Texas Iron water stop. At least I knew I'd have water and gatorade! I wondered about the bus also, because after I checked in with Texas Iron at 7:30, I walked over to the race start, thinking I'd ride the shuttle back (since the website claimed that the shuttle would 'run continuously till 5:30pm'). After seeing most of my friends before/after the swim (I missed seeing some of them actually start, since the women over 40 were already in the water), I made my way back toward the Expo Center on foot. I never saw a bus running.

I think maybe the current accounted for people's fast swim times. For once, the swim was CCW-I think that helped on the long back straightaway.

Re: I remember last year

[triman]

Definitely not what I'd expect from Keith and team, so who knows what went wrong. You simply can't run a IM distance race like this and running a HIM is risky, eventually word gets out its a sh1tty gig and fewer and fewer volunteers show up as the years go by.

Some interesting stats: Number of finishers 1826 Min time: 03:49:45, Average Time:06:02:55, Max time:08:41:09, 15-people got finish times over 8:00, over 100 had times >7:30.

Re: I remember last year

[anetmarie]

I'm the RD, and just stumbled upon this. This is REALLY upsetting. We had a full food area, tons of water, vitamin water, gatorade, and sweet leaf tea for volunteers, breakfast tacos in the morning, food for lunch, etc.

We had 4 buses running all day. It's incredibly important that we take care of volunteers, and am addressing this right now with the Volunteer coordinator. I'm not sure how this fell through the cracks.

Pizza was also delivered to the Texas Iron and Hill Country aid stations.

Anyway, I apologize, and will work on making it better. There are a ton of moving parts in a longcourse race, and sometimes signals get switched. We have people who cover each part of the course, to drop off food, drinks, etc throughout the day. I'm not sure what happened....
Sorry!!!!!

Re: I remember last year

[triman]

Keith?

I'm sure many of the volunteers had a better time than we did, never the less those of us on the mount/dismount line, which was a long gig, didn't see anyone or any food.

Also, an FAQ with printed answers to questions like where do we get the bus? What time are the awards? Where is the medial tent? etc. would be a useful addition. getting them laminated would be even better. Just don't print them on inkjet as they run when wet...

I'd be happy to discuss some other comments if you want. email address is on the header of the blog.