Southwest Valley Regional YMCA Olympic Triathlon : Official Thread

haven't done it, but will be doing it this sunday as my first OLY-distance race. as others have mentioned, it's a serpentine pool swim and a looped bike course. it looks like 6 loops/laps for the OLY. 

i have done 3 previous sprints, all serpentine-style swim. it's not confusing, but it does get clogged up. usually there is a timing mat where you'll jump into the pool. after you do your first set of laps [up and down the lengths of the pool] you will exit, run back to the beginning and do 3 or 4 additional sets of laps. the race official will hold any starters for you to go ahead. at 2 of the sprints i've done, swimmers lined themselves up by time - though i am not sure everyone was as honest as i was about their times. at the last tri-family racing event [the people putting on this one], swimmers were lined up by number and age group. this was a huge mess. i counted 9 people in one lane at one point in the swim.

don't know about the bike course...but if last year's race is any indication, there will be much fewer people out in goodyear than the tri-family event that was last weekend in scottsdale. that one was sold out [or nearly sold out] and the bike course of 4 laps was still pretty wide open. 

PS if you guys see a tall thirty-something guy with a hunter-orange saucony visor at the event, that's me!

I worded that wrong. Pile up = clogged lanes. There were times when I was swimming with four+ people around me.

OWS = Open water swimming. Kind of that mass start with lots of people around you.