At the end of the season in April of 2024, the Cal Poly Triathlon coach, Coach Scott Machado, approached me to see if I would be interested in hosting a new race at Cal Poly in the fall. The race as described by Coach Scott and some of the other coaches was going to be a series of super short races, held over the course of one morning. It seemed like an interesting idea that would be a fun break up of the monotony of our normal race season so I decided to jump on the opprotunity, and worked through the summer to plan it.
Held on October 13th, 2024 at California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly), the event had racers competing in a 300 meter swim, a 5 kilometer bike and a 2 kilometer run. Following a three-round format as shown in Table 1, with heats progressively getting faster while maintaining fair advancement opportunities. Athletes were initially seeded into heat 1 based on their self-reported 400m swim and 5km run times from registration. This had some issues which I will discuss later. One of the main goals was to make the course as spectator friendly as possible to encourage resting racer engagement but also community. Due to our limited heat size we were able to use a 50 meter pool with 8 lanes, with racers starting on the pool deck and running to their designated lanes. Working with Cal Poly’s Parking and Transportation department we were able to get some roads closed so our bike course ended up being a 4 lap course that looped through the center of the campus before returning to transition, and beginning the 4 lap run course (Fig. 1). During the run, athletes looped onto a section of the course that overlapped the bike course, which unsurprisingly led to some safety concerns. While the race was draft legal, the USAT referee and I agreed that it would be a better experienc fore everyone to only strickly enforce the rules for the finals, allowing the other rounds to be developmental.
On race day we had a good showing for the first year of the event. We had 54 collegiate racers sign up, with 47 total racers on race day, 30 men and 17 women. Which worked out well due to our limited number of avalable lanes in the pool, and it made things easier for me to have limited racers whos results I could mess up.
Race Recap
Round 1: Initial Heats
These heats were generated well before the event starts, so athletes can be notified of which round 1 heat they are in so they know when to warm up. The goal was to have each heat be as even as possible so everyone would have the same chances to progress as anyone else. We didn't want one wave to have all of the fastest racers in it, making it so only half of them would progress. We had initially planned to do the system used in Table 1, but quickly realized that without an even number of people in each heat do to racers not showing up on race day it was much easier to just have the top 8 racers from each round progressing on.
Round 2: Heat Assignments Based on Round 1 Performance
As racers come across the finish line I recorded bib numbers to quickly sort them into the next round. Once I had my list I double check them against the order from the timing chips, posting the results as soon as I had them. With each round starting every 30 minutes, we were able to guarantee racers about an hour rest between races, and plenty of time to contest results if something was wrong. Due to the limited number of women in the race we only were able to have two rounds, so Round 2 acted as the consolation and finals races.
Round 3: Mens Final
This was definately the highlight of the day for me. The racers had already done the course twice so were very familiar with it, while also being the most competitive race of the day by far. This was the last race of the day, starting at 12:00 PM so not only people from the teams racing were there but there were a decent number of Cal Poly students who came and watched and cheered for the racers along with the teams. Due to the course we had and unfortunate dismount line location, which caused a late dismount penelty for one of the leaders in the race, loosing him the race.
Table 1: Mustang Showdown Schedule 2024. Promoting a percentage allowed for event race sizes as the day went on, and allowed the races to become more competitive towards the end of the day.
| Start Time | Heat Title | Round | Upgrade Criteria |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7:00 AM | MA 1 | Men Round 1 | Top ⅔ automatically qualify for semi finals, bottom ⅓ qualify (except if there is a lucky loser) go to consolation |
| 7:30 AM | MA 2 | Men Round 1 | Top ⅔ automatically qualify for semi finals, bottom ⅓ qualify (except if there is a lucky loser) go to consolation |
| 8:00 AM | MA 3 | Men Round 1 | Top ⅔ automatically qualify for semi finals, bottom ⅓ qualify (except if there is a lucky loser) go to consolation |
| 8:30 AM | WA 1 | Women Round 1 (Semi Final) | Top ½ move to the final, Bottom ½ go to consolation |
| 9:00 AM | WA 2 | Women Round 1 (Semi Final) | Top ½ move to the final, Bottom ½ go to consolation |
| 9:30 AM | MB 1 | Men Round 2 (Semi Final) | Top ½ move to the final, Bottom ½ go to consolation |
| 10:00 AM | MB 2 | Men Round 2 (Semi Final) | Top ½ move to the final, Bottom ½ go to consolation |
| 10:30 AM | MB 3 | Men Round 2 (Consolation) | |
| 11:00 AM | WB 1 | Women Round 2 (Consolation) | |
| 11:30 AM | WB 2 | Women Round 2 (Final) | |
| 12:00 PM | MC 1 | Men Round 3 (Final) |
Issues
While the event was successfully executed, several issues arose that impacted the overall race experience. One major flaw was the imbalance in heat progression, particularly in the men’s semi-final rounds, where some heats were significantly stronger than others. After speaking with the coaches present we believe it was due to the first wave of heats not being properly balanced. Additionally, the overlap between the bike and run courses caused challenges, particularly at the mount/dismount line, where cyclists and runners shared space. This forced us to have the mount/dismount line quite far from transition so there was no chance bikers and mounted riders ever interacted. Lastly, the increasing presence of Cal Poly students walking through the course throughout the day created significant hazards, despite our efforts to maintain clear paths with barriers and volunteers.
