Here’s the question posted to us:
“The Timberline Trail Running Club’s Pine Hollow Tri on June 5, 2011 is only one week before AA Sport’s Blue Lake Triathlon. If I can do just one event, which one should I do?"
June 5 works for us, and really works for the local venue, so that's how we based the decision. The date of the Blue Lake Triathlon moves around a bit, and there's other fairly large races going on around that time. We're a totally different type of race, though, and of course we don't check ahead with others and plan around them. Jon and Carol of AA Sports are great people, but they're running a business. I'm not saying they don't care about their participants, but admittedly their mode of operation is to get as many athletes into their races as they can.
The venue at Blue Lake is admittedly overcrowded, cold, and drab, but I have a few friends who sometimes do it anyway just to improve their age-group rankings by taking advantage of the hundreds of like-minded and newbie triathletes out there that think if they shave another eight seconds off the bike they can make it to IronMan by the end of the season.
Blue Lake isn't necessarily a bad race, but if you look at the huge photo of Mt Hood in the background of their logo, you'll realize that this isn't the view from Fairview. Blue Lake Park is in a Portland suburb, while Pine Hollow is nestled in the foothills directly east of the mountain and offers a true weekend experience in the country. Blue Lake isn't even sanctioned by USA Triathlon - they just have their own "club ranking system" they call Tri Northwest.
I don't mean to sound as if I'm scolding, as we truly do appreciate feedback. I'm just saying that in my opinion, one race offers something vastly different than the other, and you have to keep in mind why you're involved with the sport, and do what works for you.
- Bryan, RD
I hear you on all of that. The one thing that Blue Lake functions as is a "coming out" party of sorts for everyone in the area; it may be the largest sprint/oly in Oregon, maybe the region (excepting SeaFair) so everybody sees each other.
If you ask me it'd be nicer to do this elsewhere.
In a sense, Alu Man functions a lot like Blue Lake, just an end of season wrap, but vastly superior experience.
I'll be at Pine Hollow obviously, I've outgrown Blue Lake - at some point when you've been around this sport long enough you learn what works and what you like about races; Blue Lake represents nearly everything I dislike about racing: Early wakeup call, crowded course, sub-par course in and of itself, crap scenery - it's pretty anticlimactic at the finish.
Pine Hollow is the opposite of all of that, and the competition gets deeper every year, for example (not counting me) the gal who was just behind me and 2nd OA in the Sprint went to state as a HS athlete in two sports (swim, run), currently running at OSU plus got her pro-card and did the Seafair Tri pro race up in Seattle (which I managed to do last summer). Seafair is way faster then Blue Lake in terms of Comp, especially in the pro wave and she was in the top ten women; that just goes to show what you're getting. The guy who the Pumice Man enduro event finishes in the top ten minimum around the area too.
There you go, build it and they will come. This event is probably the best grass roots on-road tri in the state, on par with Whiskey Dick in Ellensburg & Alu Man in The Dalles.
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