Windsor race has Collegiate Division

I really like this as a conference race. It looks like it would be one of the few opportunities to actually race in Colorado during the school year. If we made it a conference race there could be up to 150 athletes just in our conference participating, so that could be a big incentive for the race director to work with us a little bit. I am not sure if we have the funds to purchase a large number of slots right now because it is the end of the year, but it would be cool if we can afford it.

Yeah, we don't really have the funds right now either. What we're planning on doing is to just encourage everyone on the team to register in the next couple of days. That way we'll be in for sure. I think that is what we should encourage other teams to do as well.

This looks like a really cool race. Practically speaking, however, the drive from Tucson is quite long. We recently drove back and forth to Lubbock...a nightmare the way out there...and the drive to Windsor is another 4 hours (8 roundtrip)--this according to googlemaps. One other real problem for the UA is that this is on the first weekend that classes begin and its on a sunday. WIth a 14 hour trip post race, that is really pushing it I think. Our team is currently in limbo, having just elected new officers (me=President), and we certainly do not have the funds at the moment to comp this. And I'm not sure I would be able to convince people to sign up for this up so far in advance and without assurance that its an official MCTC race. That said, can't rule it out, but just wanted to make this information known.

Relatedly, I am very interested in getting a conference schedule worked out. I really want to push our team towards focusing on conference races. To me the conference races add an element of camaraderie and competition among schools which makes for a much better racing experience for members of a collegiate triathlon team.

The drive distance is a valid point, however I think that some sacrifices are going to need to be made if we really want this conference to succeed. Most of our (AFA, CU, CSU) races are in Arizona. Havasu for example was a 16 hour drive. And we've gone to Tempe/Phoenix twice a season for the past couple of years for Nathan's and SOMA.

As for not signing up until there's assurance that its going to be an MCTC race, I think that the plan was (or at least what we talked about last weekend) was to finalize the schedule within the next week or so. The race won't sell out by then, so we'll be ok. Just so long as people start to register once we finalize the list.

This seems like a cool race, and I would like to do a conference race in Colorado. NAU won't be able to travel that far that early in the semester this year, but if we plan on it for next year, it could be a possibility.

I think that even if the TriCats can't make it, it should still be a conference race if it has enough support from other schools.

Question for anyone from Colorado: Are there any good races in Colorado any later in the year? I think the biggest problem that we are going to have is not going to be the travel, (you guys obviously travel pretty far for some of the races and there are enough of us willing to do that) but just the fact that it is so early (the first weekend of classes). It just makes it hard to organize a team trip, because that will probably even be before our first official team meeting of Fall '09.

This is a biased opinion, but the Lindsay Brown Memorial Triathlon hosted at the Academy is a pretty good one, and it'd be easy for us to set the collegiate division since we run it. I think its right at the beginning of October this year. Plus, no promises, but we may be able to find a way to put some of the teams up in our dorms if they were willing...

Oh yeah!! Party in my room...

But seriously, Lindsay Brown was great last year and promises to be great again next year.

we may also be able to get it approved to let you guys camp out on our athletic fields, which are right next to the course. Obviously, we'd camp out there with you, but after Havasu, it could be a lot of fun and all the teams could get to know each other a little better.

What are the distances on the Lindsay Brown Race? If it is an Olympic distance race in early October, then that would be a perfect race for our conference schedule. It would also be really good if we could help your team out with fund raising like that, I know we take it any where we can get it.

Thanks to all who came out to make Wild on Windsor a great success yesterday!  Results can be found at www.5430sports.com.  It was great to see so much participation from the state of Colorado.  Congratulations to CU and CSU, the mens and women's champions, respectively.  This race was particularly exciting on the men's front, as CU and AF actually tied for first when the scoring was done.  As a tiebreaker, the race director decided to recalculate the results 6 deep, and named CU the winner.  Once again, congratulations!  Thank you all for making this a great event, hope to see you all next year!

So I think we should have a good showing at Lindsay Brown.
What's the deal with camping on the AFA? Are we camping with you guys from the AFA team? on the athletic fields?