One of the coolest things about the sport of triathlon is often times not racing, training or even the gear; it can be the actual event of volunteering. Just a few weeks ago I was lucky enough to be utilized at the store to be a tech volunteer for Ironman Wisconsin in Madison, WI. It is a great event with some of the greatest spectators you will find, hands down, at any triathlon event. The swim is beautiful, the transition area is like no other, the bike course is tough but fan-packed and the run is non-stop cheering and beautiful.
The week leading up to the event, our shop runs an expo store down at the transition area in the Monona Terrace. We get to see just about every athlete come and go as they make their way through packet pickup and look for any last minute things they may have forgotten. Some people are local, and we see them on a weekly basis and just catch up. Others come from all over the world and we struggle with our conversation to get to what he or she may need. But most of them are from the US, from all over the country and have actually heard of our store. Which is pretty cool.
We got a lot of questions and did everything we could to answer them properly. Many of the athletes were psyched to have us there to aid in their problems. While still some, like always, were out to get us by trying to force blame on things we had control over. One guy in particular was furious that Trek's new Speed Concept Draft Box II doesn't fit on the previous model of Speed Concept. He wouldn't let go of the fact that this was a terrible design by Trek and that we should rethink our design. Weird.
Another lady had no idea what she was going to do for water on the bike. She was scared to death to grab water from volunteers as she rides by on her bike, although we tried to explain to her that it's almost more cost effective to stop and grab the water than to either be scared or fall. She was having none of that. All she wated to do was to carry enough water on her bike to last the 112 miles. A nearly impossible feat. And what my fellow Trek-employee and I tried to drive home was that the amount of weight she would be adding to the bike in water was so ineffiecient, it wasn't worth it. But no matter how hard we tried to NOT sell her more products, she wouldn't have any of it.
Oh well.
Beyond the scope of just volunteering at the store, we got to walk around and see so many people and products from other companies. Places like 2XU, Newton, TYR, AquaSphere and some other local places sponsoring the event as well. Like Endurance House. One of the best all-in-one tri shops in the area run by some pretty awesome dudes.
We had some massive sales on bikes and clothing and were able to get rid of muck of the gear we had been holding on to for way too long. The storefront experience at Ironman is fun. But it is nothing like running the tech support the bike course. Check that out in my next post.
Dave
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