Huntsville Sprint Triathlon



8/15/2009: <> Congratulations to all of you who competed today in the 29th annual HiWaay Triathlon, ecpecially those who finished the event for the first time. A huge thank you to all who helped today. We had many, many volunteers. And a number of you I don't even know. I have not counted, but I am sure we had well over 100 people helping out in various capacities. For all the small and big things you did this weekend I am very grateful. Special thanks to the HEMSI folks, Natatorium staff, sponsors, Huntsville Track Club, and the small army of police officers who kept the athletes safe on the roads. Results will be posted in the next few days. Compiling fairly accurate results takes some time. Reading the numbers off of peoples legs when flying past in bunches is difficult. The time spent compiling the results and resolving issues is considerable. We have resolved the overall times/places but not all of the split times. We may not be able to resolve all of the split times. We had a shortage of cups at the end of the run. We thought we had that covered but apparently we miscalculated. I am sorry about that. I am grateful for the weather today and for all of you who made it a fun time. I hope those of you who traveled some distance for the event were not disappointed. Feel free to express your views about what went well or what did not go so well. 8/03/2009: <> Tonight I posted the updates to the "confirmed entries" list. This includes the new entries and the corrections that some of you requested. I also seeded the heats based on your 5K time. If you did not supply a 5K time, then you were included in the fifth heat. All identical times were included in the same heat (e.g. everyone who posted a 5K time of 30:00 was placed in the 3rd heat). This accomplishes the equivalent of the "run with" option from last year. Please review and notify me if you see any errors. I placed about 30 envelopes in the mail Saturday. I returned the entry forms that I received postmarked July 23rd and later. Again I am sorry that we could not accomodate everyone's entry this year. Thank you for your patience as I worked through these issues. Please do not request additional entries into the race. I must allow the database to stabilize and move on to other tasks in preparation for the race. Thank you for your cooperation. 7/29/2009 7 PM: <> THE RACE IS FULL. PLEASE DO NOT MAIL IN ANY MORE ENTRIES. I have 40 or more on my desk now that I will send back in the mail within the next few days. Some of you have emailed me with corrections. I will attempt to get those onto the web tonight. The event filled up much quicker this year for some reason. I am sorry that we cannot accommodate everyone. 7/24/2009: <> I have posted the complete list of entrants (Well, sort of. One entry arrived at Fleet Feet yesterday and one team owes me some information). Another 10 or so entries arrived in the mail today. I am sorry for those of you who missed the cutoff. I will hold on to those entries for awhile in case anyone drops out of the event. I will contact you if an opening occurs. Otherwise I will mail them back to you. Several others have already contacted me and I will place them on a waiting list following those whose entries I have already received. However, in past events I have only had a few people drop out from the race. Thank you for getting registered early. Looking forward to a fun event. 7/23/2009: <> I received a flood of registrations today both online and in the mail. I have closed online registration. It is very likely if your mail-in entry is not on my desk right now that you did not make the cutoff. Sorry we cannot accept any more at this time. I will try to get the confirmed entries page updated tonight or tomorrow night. Filling up 3 weeks prior to the event is probably a record. I hope that you all enjoy it. 7/22/2009: <> Thank you to all who have registered so far. As of 8 PM tonight we have 418 entries and two more have come in since this update. So there are only 80 spots left. Glad to see a number of families participating as teams and as individuals. I updated the confirmed entries page. Let me know if anything looks incorrect. 7/15/2009: <> We have 221 starters now. Cut off if 500 starters. Fees go up on July 22nd. We are always in need of volunteers. Please contact me if you are willing to help. We have various time slots and various jobs to fill. Thank you. 7/09/2009: <> I updated the "confirmed entries" page tonight. We have 167 starters now. Fees go up in 2 weeks so don't wait too long to register. Last year we filled up a week prior to the triathlon and I had to turn away several people. Welcome to all the new faces at the Beginner's Clinic on Monday night. Thanks to James Falcon and Rick Greif for helping with this. 6/28/2009: <> We now have 108 confirmed entries. Please check the "confirmed entries" page and let me know if anything looks wrong. The first session of the Beginners Clinic takes place Tuesday July 7 @ 5:30 pm. Feel free to join us at the cross country park to learn about the event and how to train for it. 5/03/2009: <> Registration is now open. We distributed paper registration forms to several running stores and health clubs in the Huntsville/Madison area. On-line registration with Active.com may be accomplished by clicking on the "Register Online" link on the registration page. Or you can print out your own copy of the abbreviated entry form (or full entry form) and mail in as instructed on the form. <> Several changes this year. <> Children's Relay: Last year a request was made to add a relay for children. We have kept the "youth" category for young people 14 and under. But we added a category for children 11 and under. So the younger teams will not have to compete with the teenagers. But the younger children may still compete with a "youth" team if desired. <> Clydesdale/Athena: Requests were made the last two years for a Clydesdale category. Clydesdale (men > 200 lbs) and Athena (women >150 lbs) are now options. Anyone may still choose the "individual" category if they do not wish to compete in these divisions. <> "Run-With" Option: We eliminated the "run with" choice on the entry forms. If you want to run with someone, please enter the exact same 5K time for both of you (that you are both capable of running). We will seed everyone according to their stated 5K time. We will do our best to keep everyone with identical times in the same heat. This should greatly reduce the pain and suffering we endure each year during the seeding process. <> T-Shirt Sizes: We added several smaller T-Shirt sizes to the list of choices (Youth Large and Youth Medium). These are smaller than the Adult Small. 1/18/2009: <> M.D. Smith and HiWAAY Internet Services have once again agreed to sponsor the Huntsville Sprint Triathlon. This is a grass-roots event started by M.D. (formerly known as the "3-in-1 Triathlon"). The event accomodates first-timers, families and hard-core triathletes. The 29th Annual HiWAAY Huntsville Sprint Triathlon kicks off at 7 am on Saturday August 15, 2009. <> I hope that many of you who competed last year had an enjoyable time and plan to come back. I received several suggestions about ways to improve the event. I am considering those and will let you know if we decide to move forward with them. I hope to have the on-line registration open earlier this year so that you early birds can register soon and be done with it. Stay tuned. <> Thanks again to all of the volunteers from last year. Without you, this event could never succeed. If you would like to help this year, please let me know. It is never too early to line up people for the many tasks.