June 1, 2014
First triathlon of the season! It was a perfect race day at Deer Creek State Park which is located between Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio. HFP Racing-FIT Family Series kicked off today. If you haven’t checked out any of their races I would certainly encourage you to give them a tri (pun). www.hfpracing.com
I have been doing their events for 20 years. Shannon Kurek and his team put on first rate events. The races are well organized, predictable, and affordable. HFP offers a wide variety of events that help grow the sport and make multi sport accessible to everyone. Importantly, they have mastered traffic flow which minimizes interference between racers of different abilities.
Deer Creek’s signature feature is the dam run, you literally run down and back across the dam and levies. It offers a spectacular view of the lake on one side and cyclist on the road struggling up a climb on the other.
I don’t typically like to race with the skinny Clydesdales. HFP has a cut off at a mere 200 pounds. That is bantam weight in my circle of meat eaters. Nonetheless, I am forever grateful that age groups exist so that we can all enjoy racing without be an elite. A third place finish in the Clydesdale age group was a nice reward for racing hard today. Overall there were around 600 participants mostly from the Cincinnati/Dayton corridor and the Greater Columbus area.
Shayne Thomas
WSI Cycling
Tiffin, Ohio
