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Developing from ground zero and hosting an athletics event is not all fun and games. However, that is one goal of the organizers of Peregrine Charities’ 2nd annual Triathlon scheduled for Sept. 27 at George Wyth State Park. The other goal is raising funds supporting medical research for rare pediatric diseases, and providing assistance with children’s hospitalization and medical treatment.
Peregrine Charities was founded by Connie and Russ Wasendorfin 2004. Russ is chairman and CEO of PFGBest, one of the largest U.S. futures brokerage firms. The family foundation chose pediatric diseases as its focus after an employee’s young child was diagnosed with a rare disease.
Prior to last year’s first triathlon, the Charities hosted at a Chicago restaurant Octoberfest parties whichincluded an auction and live music. At the end of 2007, the board decided to host a sporting event. The idea of a triathlon arose.
“Which was great, but I myself didn’t know anything about hosting a triathlon,” said Amber Wasendorf, wife of Russ Wasendorf, Jr. “I’d been a spectator and had watched kind of how it worked. It came down to what I like to do best, which plays into my strengths – organization, and community involvement.”
Amber said the first item of business was to decide the distance of the race. It was determined to provide an Olympic distance. “Potentially we could apply to have the event be an Olympic qualifier,” she said. “Then we sent lunch invitations to about 28 community leaders including mayors’ offices, public works, visitors’ bureaus, leaders of different athletic organizations, like running and swimming clubs; different policing agencies, and the DNR.
“We told them what we wanted to do and asked what they thought of the idea. You could have heard a pin drop. Then, all sorts of hands shot up with ideas and suggestions being made. It was good to have experts in their fields give us instantaneous feedback.”
One month later, Amber and a co-worker traveled to the Olympic Training Center for USAT (USA Triathlon), the governing body of the sport, in Colorado Springs, Colo., spending two days in classes to become Certified Race Directors.
“We wanted to make sure we were following their criterion for providing a good, safe and solid race,” Amber said. “We did research on what USAT had to offer. We knew that if we were going to host a triathlon, we wanted to do it the way other large triathlons do it. We were modeling ours after the Chicago Triathlon and most recently, the Hy-Vee Triathlon held in Des Moines whichhas been extremely successful.
"Also with being sanctioned by USAT comesvery nice checks and balances. You turn in 20-to-30 pages in paperwork showing your race route, by their requirement how many personnel are supposed to be at each major intersection, where you have to have uniformed officers, things like that. They can respond back with suggestions. With sanctioning also comes event insurance.”
Amber said upon completion of the USAT training, the hosting of a triathlon “felt right, felt good. We already had the input and strong support of our board. We had strong support of community leaders. Sometimes we got overwhelmed with the magnitude of it all, but we knew if we could complete all the laid out steps, we would have a race that people would say, ‘Hey, this was well organized. I’m glad I took a chance on your first race’.
“A lot of things in the planning book received from class would have been on my to-do list, but not having ever hosted before, there was bound to be things that were overlooked. Something not on my list would have been the number of volunteers needed to staff the transition area where the bikes are stored before and after the swim.”
Amber and her former co-worker ran the weekend with strong help from 14-17 “lead volunteers”, who were in charge of other volunteers. Each worker carried badges that had emergency phone numbers on the back. The packet also included a pad and pen in case a note was thought of that could improve the race for the next year.
Amber said firming up the race routes took a little time because of the weather in February and the ensuing tornadoes and floods. “Whatever Mother Nature could throw at us, she did. We were planning our routes during February, March and April when there was snow and ice cover. We didn’t know in some areas what kind of surface was on the road. We were out with shovels trying to figure out if it was gravel or a combination of asphalt and pea rock. There also has been a perception that George Wyth Lake is polluted. That’s not the case. We asked the DNR water testing division to test the water. We were posting results nearly monthly on our web site.”
Next on the agenda was making a big push for athletes. Amber used online triathlon search engines to advertise. She also purchased mailings from USAT.
“We were in a pickle,” she said. “We had all these grandiose plans that were coming together so nicely, we had a great buy-in from businesses in the community that were becoming our sponsors, we were lining up volunteers, we were speaking to different volunteer groups, but we weren’t having a whole lot of athletes sign up. We opened registration May 1st, but it wasn’t until July 15th that we had our first athlete.
“That’s very difficult for a race director,” she continued. “You have to budget for perks - the giveaways, t-shirts, water bottles, prize money. How do you order when you don’t know how many people will be there? My dream was to have 500 participants, but we were being told by seasoned race directors that 50 our first year is a phenomenal turnout. So we contacted triathlon clubs in Iowa, we advertised online in Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois, and we ended up with 151 racers, one as far away as California. And over the weekend we had 198 volunteers.”
The event was not without a few “snafus”, Amber said, “but hopefully they weren’t that noticeable. We didn’t anticipate it being so dark when we opened up our venue for race day. The DNR opened the park for us at 5:30 a.m. and it’s really dark then. In September, it’s very dark at 7 a.m. We started the race at 7:30 a.m. We did have one light generator. We had two others that did not operate correctly.
“Setting up your swim venue at 10:30 at night in two kayaks with two women who are kind of slight in stature but great in mind is probably not the best use of time. We had to layout buoys and make sure they were straight. This year, we’ll probably start at 1 or 2 in the afternoon. We also found out that our signage did not stick into the hard pack of the roadside.”
Amber said cell phones were utilized along the race routes in addition to walkie talkies. She believes the latter were under-utilized. “If your cell phone tower gets struck by lightening, you can’t use it and your communication is gone. In upcoming years I hope to have ham radio users at certain points in the race.”
The Triathlon raised $50,000 last year. Gifts were given to the Peregrine Charities research fund at the University of Iowa Research Lab. It funded a CATSCAN project at St. Luke’s Hospital in Cedar Rapids. Covenant and Sartori Hospitals received funding for pediatric equipment in their emergency rooms. Allen Hospital also received a gift for its new ER.
Amber says there are a lot of ideas being tossed around for future triathlons. The 2009 race will use the same route. “Eventually, we would like to route the bike and/or run through Cedar Falls and Waterloo downtowns to show off the Cedar Valley. We would like to turn it into a full weekend of athletic activities focused on families, children and those who really want to go out there and see how they can achieve their personal goals in longer distances. Next year we would like to add a sprint race and a family or children’s triathlon with very short distances.”
She has advice for other groups or individuals looking to host an event for the first time. “Be organized. Layout or find a plan and follow that plan. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. If one component that you love to do in conjunction with your race seems like it would be a lot of time spent working on that versus the core project, leave that for subsequent years. Focus on the core. Research and seek out experts in the field. Develop a data basefor your first year and subsequent years of all the people who have been utilized. Be a strong communicator. If that means monthly email, or posting something on your web site. We have a Facebook page now.”
For information regarding this year’s triathlon, go to www.peregrinecharities.org/tri/info. There are four divisions: Elite, open to all participants who have a realistic chance of winning the race; Clydesdale and Athena Divisions – men weighing 200 or more pounds and women weighing 150-plus pounds; the Novice Division, for persons who have participated in three or fewer triathlons and want to race with other “newbies” rather than in their age group; and Teams – two- or three-person relay teams.
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