Polar Bear Triathlon 2007 White Sands Missile Range New Mexico

Based upon my experience I would say: Avoid this triathlon -- story below.

I'm hoping that a lot of folks find this blog so that they won't get hosed by this triathlon.

I live in Albuquerque NM and its a 4 hour drive to white sands missile range. The race was scheduled for Saturday Dec 8 2007 at 8AM and I drove to Las Cruces Friday night -- I arrived at about 6:30PM and then checked into my hotel and set my alarm for 5:30AM. I woke up Saturday morning and did my pre-race food routine and checked out of the hotel. I left the hotel at about 6:40 AM and arrived at the entrance of white sands missile range at 7:14AM. There was a large line of cars waiting at the base entrance and the line was moving very slowly but I didn't worry -- I had heard that they would hold up the start of the race until they could get everyone in the gate -- oh boy was I wrong on that.

At about 8:10AM a guy came running back along the long line of cars and trucks with bikes affixed to their bumbers etc. He went by me as I heard him say "the race is already started." He kept moving down the long line of cars and trucks behind me apparently repeating this message. I suddenly was very pissed off and then a minute or so later he came back by me. Now he was pissed off and he was yelling "don''t ask me any questions -- I'm very busy and I don't have time for it!" He did say that if we wanted to stick around there was a possibility for credit towards next year's events. I wasn't in any mood to wait any longer and I was angry. So I just left.

Bottom line:
Information on this race is very difficult to obtain and you can have a very bad experience as I just described.

• There is no real website about the race. Just a website that says that there is a race.
• The website incorrectly states that the race begins at 0900 hours -- I just got lucky: I called Thursday to confirm my registration. By chance I found out that in fact the race begins at 0800 hours
• There is absolutely no information on the matter of getting into the gate -- like arrive at 6AM so that you can have time to get through the gate. They were taking about 5 to 10 minutes to process a single car. There were maybe 50 cars in front of me. I didn't time their process time but they were moving very slowly.

This turn of events was very disappointing as I've been training and recovering from an injury over the last 7 months. This particular race is essentially the very very last race of the season in New Mexico but it would have been my first of the season as I was finally healthy and prepared. I drove back to Albuquerque and on the way decided I would do my own triathlon -- just a training session where I push myself just a bit harder than normal.

I got my bike, helmet and shoes set up in the garage for a quick transition. I have a 3 mile run circuit and I pushed myself a bit (22:53). Not as fast as I would have run in a race but not bad considering there was no competition. Then I quickly transitioned to my bike and rode into a 25MPH headwind along with some rain. I was determined and so I pushed ahead. I rode out 6.2 miles and turned around. Now I had a tail wind and I hauled some butt. At times I was going 28MPH and I could see the leaves flying around me at the same pace -- thats how I know the approximate speed of the head wind. 42 minutes later I was done with the ride. The total time for the run, transition and bike was 1 hour 6 minutes. I was happy with that but I'm still not happy about the management of the Polar Bear Triathlon.

Now its the off-season and I'll have about 3 months of easy training. I'll be back next year with a vengeance but I won't be back to White Sands Missile Range for any races -- and I would recommend you do the same (especially if you don't live in the immediate area).