don't always trust the race organizer

That is horrible. Good for her for bouncing back so well, though.

I did one race last year that I will never do again, even though it was very convenient. To start, there had been a couple days of heavy rain leading up to the race, and the river had a very strong current. They could have helped people out by having the downriver portion of the swim be in the middle of the river and the upriver portion along the shore where the current is weaker, but they did not. The day started with a "mini", which was even shorter than the sprint. It only had a 200m swim, and some people were out fighting the current for almost an hour. The lifeguards and kayaks couldn't stay with them because the current was too strong. By the time the last person made it to shore, he just collapsed on the dock. The officials should have sent kayaks out after a certain time, and just given everyone in the water that time. After the debacle with the first swim group, they had the rest of us walk upriver, and just swim down.

Then we got on the bikes. We started out on an MUP that was open to the general public with no signs warning people that we were going to be racing on it. We had to dodge elderly people, dog walker, people teaching their kids to ride, etc... We had no business racing on that path. When we finally got onto the road, it was very high traffic. There was once decent hill, and the people who went in earlier waves were holding up cars which were holding up those of us who started in the last couple waves. I actually got stuck in traffic while trying to race. Then it was back on the MUP. There was at least one collision between a rider and a pedestrian. Fortunately, no one was injured that I heard of.

The entire thing was a safety nightmare, and I will never do the race again.