[caption: this is my email responding directly to bret directly, and since I am
lazy;) I'm just
going to copy and paste it here to see if anyone else has comments]

Hey Bret, so I just had a chance to look over a schedule of tri's in the
northeast and it does
look like these are the best choices. My suggestions is not to over-do it this
year and
scare people off. Last year a number of people showed up to hammerfest and it
was a lot
of fun, but even the hardcore triathlete that I am;) I would never think of
going to five
races in five weekends. What I was going to suggest is Identify three races
with a weekend
break in between them, varying the distances. This would mean mabye the Boston
Tri,
Hammerfest, and then an Olympic distance Oct.1st but clearly there is no Olympic
anywhere close on that date range (or for the rest of October in that case).

That was ideal, here is reality. Even though the Colby tri is good timing, I
think
Hammerfest is the most central and probably the best option for "conference
championship." They were really excited to have us collegiate racers there last
year and
were really nice. Also taking into account the number of races I mentioned
earlier, I would
say for this year propose the season just as Boston, Finger Lakes, and
Hammerfest (I doubt
many collegiate racers are ready for 70.3, but just mention it will be a hub for
collegiate
racers if they would like to try it).

As far as next year, I would suggest some tri's over the summer, spaced 3 weeks
apart
since I'm sure most people are on that type of training cycle and its not
overkill. Then
come sept/oct plan on three races as mentioned earlier if the schedule works
out.

So that is my two cents, next step is to talk to race directors to see if they
can reserve
some spots for collegiate racers and see if we can coordinate the chip timing
for a
collegiate division.

Oh yeah and also we should think about preparing the northeast racers for
collegiate
nationals. Joining the cycling team made me such a stronger rider, I would
suggest the
same for any triathlete throughout the spring season instead of planning a
separate
competing collegiate tri season. We could designate an ECCC weekend and hold a
tri
workshop or something. Just some ideas. We'll talk through this more later.

Best,
-R