Longhorn Ironman 70.3: ARENA FINISH!!!!

Nice Keith!  I like it!

But not at the cost of Quadzilla! Make sure that stays.

I've done two different "point to point" races with two different race organizations, and they both went off without any problems (for me and the people I knew who raced that day).

One race had T2 racks just like any other transition area. So they had busses running from the host hotel to T2 so you could drop off running gear, and then busses running from T2 to the start. Bikes, of course, were racked overnight just like a lot of races.

The other race issued disposable numbered bags at the start for you to place and hand over run gear. At T2 they had volunteers with radios about 200 meters  out from the dismount line getting race numbers from people coming in. Volunteers in transition grabbed your bike and handed you run gear and they you could just sort of pick a spot to put on shoes, bag your helmet, and leave it. When I finished my helmet and bike shoes were next to my bike in a numbered rack. I had no problem, but logistically this seemed like more work for the volunteers.

Either way my point is that people shouldn't fear the point to point thing. In both cases it made for a much better course under the circumstances, and that to me was more important than having a traditional transition. And after racing at Lonestar and volunteering at Longhorn in 2007 (first year for both events), I have no doubts that Keith will make sure everything is in place to make it work just fine.

They had wetsuit bags as well as T1 & T2 bags, and a very large, clear plastic bag. Number stickers were placed on all the bags.  T2 bags were packed with run shoes, race belt, hat ect). T1 was set up like any other race. While the athletes were in T1, they simply put the wetsuits into a bag with goggles and any other swim stuff and left it at T1, T2 bags were left at the bike racks as well.  As soon as T1 cleared, we put the bags (wetsuit & T2 bags) into the larger clear bag to keep them together, then into large trash cans with rack number stickers on them, loaded the cans into a U-haul type truck and drove it down the road. We took T1 contents (wetsuits, run gear, ect) and the T2 bags about 5 miles down the road to T2. Everything was bagged with numbers. T2 was set up in the same way T1 was, so the athletes basically knew were to go. They also had rack locators to help the athletes get to the proper rack and spot. The difference was, T2 bags were lined up in numerical order off to the side, as they came in on the bike, someone called out on a bullhorn the racer number, a volunteer grabbed the T2 bag and met the racer at the T2 rack location.  Most of the time, the volunteer had the bag waiting at the rack before the rider got there. They changed shoes, dropped the helmet and off they went. There were LOTS of volunteers need for this to happen smoothly. I think it went smoothly from a volunteer perspective.

I think the arena idea sounds great, similar to the IMLP finish.....

Keith,

That is a great idea! No wonder your races rock! THere will be lots of happy family members at Longhorn!

Can you fix the weather for Lonestar too?

Well, I was waffling about booking this as my first 70.3 distance.  Now I'm thinking that I totally have to be there.  That sounds absolutely fantastic!!! Can't wait....

That sounds awesome Keith. I think I'll rather do the Longhorn and skip draftwater, that way I can do the Endorfun trifecta: Mooseman, Tman and Longhorn!