Hello. My name is Chris Bowerbank. I’m a race director, and I’m addicted to my email. Wait, let me qualify that. I’m addicted to my triathlon email. I’m signed up for just about every possible email newsletter and update that exists in Utah, and maybe on the planet. I get them all: Slowtwitch, TriHive, Active.com, TriFuel, Desert Sharks, USA Triathlon, BBSC/SGTri, TriFlorida, Ironman North America (or whatever they’re called now), and others. I even get email newsletters that I never knew I signed up for. But you know what? I still read them. Every word, but I’m not quite sure why. Maybe I’m looking for the latest trends in the triathlon industry. Perhaps I’m trying to tune into the latest vibe among triathletes. Maybe I just have too much time on my hands. No, that’s not it.

 

Every year I get phone calls from people looking to start their own triathlons and wanting to get pointed in the right direction. Most have good intentions, and usually it’s an unsuspecting triathlete who has volunteered for their local fitness center. However, most have no idea how their life is going to change by “volunteering” to be the race director.

 

The first thing I do is ask them three questions:

1. Can you function on minimal/no sleep multiple days in a row?

2. Are you looking for something to fill every waking spare moment of your life?

3. Are you crazy?

 

If they answer “yes” to all three questions, they are ready to be a race director. As the conversation progresses, I can tell that most of these potential RD’s are a bit OCD (like me). Why else would they think becoming an RD is a good idea?

 

So why have John Anderson and I been doing this for 9+ years? You should probably ask my wife instead of me for an unbiased answer. Somehow this race directing gig has become a part of me, maybe it even defines me now. In fact, I love it so much that I’ve long since passed the point no return.

 

I often reminisce about our first TriUtah race directing experience back in 1999, the Jordanelle Off-Road Triathlon & Duathlon. It’s amazing how far triathlon has come in Utah since this race. The transition area was outlined by a bunch of folding chairs “borrowed” from a local LDS chapel, with yellow “Caution – Do not cross” tape strung chair-to-chair. Bike racks were a luxury that we hadn’t discovered yet – everyone laid their bikes on the ground. Remember that brutal bike course? Punishing hills, lots of sand and grit, and oh those prickly, spiny bushes lining the trails that drew blood if you were even a bit off course on your way up or down. It rocked.

 

We had ~140 athletes that year. Some were hardened, experienced triathletes. Others were the epitome of a newbie. There was that one girl who two days before went to Wal-Mart and bought her a nice sparkly mountain bike to race with. She was soooo excited. Hadn’t even sat on it before race day. By the end of the bike, all bloodied and battered, she heaved that thing up over her head, and threw it down a 6 foot embankment, surrendering. I think the $10,000 in sponsored Timex watches as awards somehow pleased the athletes. Must have. They came back the next year in bigger numbers for more punishment.

 

Still to this day, I love talking with newbies. After all these years, amazingly I don’t get irritated when people ask me (via email, of course) if they can use wetsuits, when packet pickup is, how to get to a race, or whether they can use a mountain bike. It doesn’t bother me when I have to tell folks how far 40K is in miles because they can’t figure it out (multiply it by 0.6214 – might save you an email). I still get excited when a newbie (again, via email) asks me the simple questions such as, “Do I need a helmet?”, “How do I get from the swim to the bike?”, “How soon before a I race do I need to get there?” or “What do I wear during a triathlon/ triathalog/ triathalon/ triathalong?”

 

Triathlon is a part of me. Why else would I obsess about the width of a finish line, moving a transition fence post over three feet, or clipping the annoying excess off a zip tie? I think about the details from morning to night. I write down page after page of “To Do” lists. I can’t help it. I’m a race director.

 

I need some sleep. Right after I check my email.

 

Chris Bowerbank is the co-owner of TriUtah (www.triutah.com) and is a USA Triathlon certified race director. He tries his best to balance family, work, church, race directing and his own training. When racing, you can usually find him in the middle-to-back of the pack along with the other undertrained triathletes. Of course, you can always send him an email. He’ll be waiting for it.

chris@triutah.com

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