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Posts Tagged ‘revolution 3 triathlon’

Team Trakkers – Now Team Rev3 Application Is Live

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

Did you ever want to be on Team Trakkers? Well unfortunately, you are out of luck. The good news is that you CAN be part of Team Rev3 2012. (We are renaming ourselves for next season and doing more as brand ambassadors for Rev3.)

If you are interested in applying, here is the link: http://rev3tri.com/news/rev3-is-now-accepting-applications-for-our-age-group-team/

If you are interest in more information about the team, here is the scoop:

We are a group of 30-ish triathletes from across the country. Some of us are pros who win huge races. Some of us are fast age groupers. Some are just plain slow. Everyone is really active in their local triathlon communities as well as social media. Most importantly, every single one on the team is a class act and has become a second like a second family to me and each other. You may follow a lot of my teammates on Facebook, Twitter or their blogs, but what you don’t see is all the communication that happens behind the scenes in email, Google group messages, text messages and phone calls.

And I don’t use the term “family” lightly. They are people that trust each other to babysit their kids when they haven’t even met each other in person yet. They are people that open their homes to teammates to have a place to crash when they aren’t even home. They are awesome people to share a beer with, celebrate a race PR or have a shoulder to cry on after a disappointing performance.

Basically, Team Rev3 is mah people. I love them and will always be there to support and defend them. Even if Team Rev3 ever disbands, I’ve built relationships through the team that will last for a lifetime.

Oh yeah. And we get free entry to any Rev3 event and great discounts from sponsors (like TYR, Avia, Recovery Pump, All3Sports, First Endurance, Kestrel and SBR Sports) that love to support us as much as we support them. That isn’t too bad either.

So if you think you’ve got the character and social media chops to join Team Rev3, please apply and be the newest ember of the family. If not, I’ll still gladly cheer my face off for you the next time we race together.

Tags: revolution 3, revolution 3 triathlon, team rev3, team trakkers | Posted in Ironman, Triathlon | 3 Comments »

Poor Form WTC

Sunday, August 28th, 2011

Ironman races have become a hugely powerful marketing machine. Powerful to the point where normal people can cross their finish line and inspire people for the rest of their lives, even if they don’t know anything about triathlon. Powerful to the point where pro athletes can help put food on their table just by racing with corporate logos splashed all over their kits. (Yes, there is more to the financial side of being a sponsored athlete, but you get the point.)

Recently, Ironman decided to take a little editorial control over what they allow athletes to promote.

Notice anything different between these pictures?
The right is a picture of a poster from Ironman Louisville. The left is the original of Hillary Biscay racing IM Brazil earlier this year.

While the folks at Rev3 had a good sense of humor about the whole thing, it is definitely poor form on the part of WTC. Is WTC scared? To be honest, I have no idea why. Rev3 is still a really young company and has to market the hell out of every race new they do just to get athletes to the swim start. Ironman, on the other hand, can announce a new race and with seemingly zero promotion, they sell the damn thing out. Yet they still stoop so low as to photoshop sponsor logos off of the uniform of one of their most visible athletes?

Shenanigans.

While I’ve had some less than pleasant things to say about WTC, the Rev3 crew has always been pretty professional about their competition with the big red M. They’ve always been very honest in admitting that within the big world of triathlon, they are still a relatively small fish. They may have big aspirations, but fulfilling those takes time. They may put on races with a big feel and world-class production, but they have nowhere near the industry impact that the Ironman brand does (yet).

That is why I was extra surprised to see them sticking gum in Rev3′s hair like a school yard bully.

Earlier this year, WTC named a new CEO, which was really uniquely positioned from a communications perspective. I couldn’t help but interpret the announcement of hiring a “nice guy” to help balance the “cut throat – win at all costs businessman” that is the WTC’s previous CEO and now President. If the WTC is genuinely trying to change their image by being more of a “nice guy” they’ve got a long way to go to scrub the culture of douche-bag-ness from their company.

Support the good guys.

You F with our logos. We win the whole fing race.

How do you like that form?

(Photo credit to the original Hillary Biscay picture from IM Brazil: Jaime Vigaray)

UPDATE:

Dan Empfield over at Slowtwitch covered this story. You can read his article here: http://www.slowtwitch.com/Opinion/Hillary_Biscay_Digitally_Remastered_2298.html

While Dan does some good reporting, I think he skirts around the issue a little. He quotes at WTC spokesperson as saying…

“We do not feel that we should be promoting competing race series. They certainly are not promoting our races.”

Immediately followed by…

“We are protective of our brands and partners. But the athletes are our partners too. Our ambitions do not blind us to the needs of those in our industry, our athletes and their sponsors inclusive.”

If WTC considers pros as their partners, but still justifies scrubbing every single sponsor from a photo of Maik Twelsiek in the Louisville athlete guide, imagine what they’d be okay with if they didn’t like us so much.

Or maybe they just really don’t like Maik and Hillary…

Tags: Ironman, rev3 triathlon, revolution 3 triathlon, Triathlon, wtc | Posted in Ironman, Triathlon | 15 Comments »

Cedar Point FullRev: Pre-Race

Monday, September 20th, 2010

10 years of dreaming, four years of racing, nine months of training and 12 hours of driving later, I arrived at Cedar Point amusement park, the site of my first iron distance triathlon.

HELLO SANDUSKY, OHIO!

I rolled in to town on Friday afternoon so that I’d have plenty of time to get all my gear set up and organized so I’d have as little as possible to do the day before the race. As I checked into my hotel room, a nice big FedEx was waiting for me, a brand new set of Zipp 606′s for race day thanks to Race Day Wheels. Doesn’t Victoria look pretty with her new hoops? I love how they look and love how they ride even more. Now if they weren’t so damn expensive and I could afford to own them instead of just rent them…

Next up on the schedule was some last minute nutrition advice from the man behind the kick-ass nutrition that I’ve been fueling up with all year, Robert Kunz. It is great having him sponsor the team and being able to pick his brain with last minute race advice. He is a wicked smaht dude. It was a big confidence boost getting a little bit of extra validation that my nutrition plan for race day was solid.

And of course, a road trip to the roller coaster capital of the world just wouldn’t be right without some good ‘ol fashioned adrenaline pumping speed. I figured it wasn’t a good idea to attempt riding any coasters on the day before the race, so I got in as many as I could back-to-back on Friday night.

With some of my Trakkers teammates heading into the park.

This one was by far my favorite. Simple, but awesome.

Top Thrill Dragster: 0-125 mph then STRAIGHT up

Sunday morning brought some more team duties volunteering at the practice swim and handing out SBR Sports products. The ladies were armed with Tri-Slide and offering to lube up anyone who would take ‘em. Seriously, who would turn down this classy bunch of athletes?

The swim itself was pretty insane. It was really windy and the chop on the water was some of the worst I’d every swam in. It felt like I was back on the roller coasters. Dolphin diving through the surf was fun, but once you got out into the water, it was a big challenge just to time my breathing at the top of each wave and sight the next buoy let alone keep any sort of reasonable pace.

The weather report said that the wind was going to shift and calm down, but nothing is guaranteed. Thankfully the Rev3 folks had a backup swim plan so it wouldn’t turn into a duathlon, because if race day conditions were like Saturday, there would be a lot of DNFs before people even made it to T1.

The thing is that I was pretty excited for the possibilities of a really rough swim. Instead of scary, I figured that it would be epic. Actually nothing at all that day got my nerves giong. I was pretty cool, calm and collected the whole time. For less than 24 hours away from the biggest race I had ever attempted, I was pretty surprised .

That was at least until I started organizing my special needs bags. I don’t know if it was that it was a big enough signal to make it all feel real or that I’d never done a race long enough to need special needs bags, but I was freaking out BIG TIME. Pacing around the room, moving stuff aimlessly from one pile to another, talking out loud to myself, the whole 9. Thankfully Sam was there to help calm me down and that was my first and only pre-race freak out.

After kicking my feet up, a chicken dinner and plenty of hydration with EFS, it was bed time.

Up next, the full race report.

Tags: cedar point, rev3 cedar point, revolution 3 triathlon | Posted in Ironman, Nutrition, Race Reports, Triathlon | 1 Comment »

Video: Rev3 Half Iron

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

I handed over my Flip camera to my little sister to shot some video during the race. Check it out peeps.

My family even makes a cameo. My mom shows how much see needlessly worries about me while I race, Allison explains why she will never do a triathlon and Kelsey explains her new crush on Matty Reed. She decided that they can never have kids because they both have chicken legs and their kids wouldn’t be very good looking. But that may have changed when she heard his accent.

And, conveniently, I edited myself coming in to T2 just after Matty Reed. Hey, a guy can dream, right?

Tags: rev 3 tri, rev3tri, revolution 3 triathlon, Triathlon | Posted in Triathlon, Videos | 7 Comments »