On May 8th, The Ole Virginia Hams supported the “The Tri It Now – Ladies Choice”, our second Run, Bike, and Swim Mini Tri of the 2022 season. Ladies Choice participants ran the gamut from tweens on up.
The Tri It Now events are relatively easy and short events on a Sunday at The Freedom Aquatic & Fitness Center, Manassas. The course consists of: Run 1.5 miles – Bike 4 miles – Swim 250 yards. It’s a great way for our Technician Class members to get involved as the only things needed are a Handy Talkie (HT) and a desire to serve for a couple of hours on a Sunday morning.
Weather wise, it was not a good weekend, with the official rain tally at 2.02 inches in total @ IAD for May 6th, 7th & 8th (.06″, 1.58″ & .38″ respectively). At the time of the race it was 42° with an average 39% humidity.
So it was cold, cloudy, windy & damp. It short, a day designed to motivate the racers not to linger.
With regard to our Ole Virginia Hams volunteers, it was a first time experience for both Lori, KC0EWN and Wayne, N4HCR. They both were enthusiastic and did great jobs, despite the gloomy weather.
The total list of OVH volunteers, then: Andy, KJ4MTP; Greg, KM4CCG; Ken, KN4DD; Wayne, N4HCR; John, KG4NXT; David, KG4GIY; Al, KB4BHB & Lori, KC0EWN.
As always, a big tip of the hat again to Andy, KJ4MTP, code named “Shadow”, for organizing and coordinating the spotters that make up OVH’s communications support for this.
If you didn’t already know, Andy’s call sign is “Shadow” because his job is to shadow Ina, the coordinator of the races, which is no small feat. Ina herself, is a force of nature in her own right, and you can read about that at: https://www.triitnow.com/ABOUT_US.htm
We met at 7:30 AM in the East parking lot to do a short event brief review and adjust our coverage if needed. As always, Andy bribes us with donuts. This tends to make us more manageable.
We were all in position by 7:45 AM, with 7 fixed positions and one roamer, Andy, with the race coordinator.
Per our routine we were operating simplex on 147.525 MHz with our 146.970 MHz repeater as our alternate.
We wrapped up by 10 AM. Other than the poor weather, I am happy to report there were no incidents.
A big thank you to everyone who turns out to support OVH in the Tri It Now endeavors.