2022 Asheville off Road Series Event Guide Podcast

Let's talk about the 9th Annual Asheville Off Road Series taking place at Ride Kanuga in Hendersonville, North Carolina.  The duathlon (run/bike/run) and Gravel Grinder Bike events all take place on Sunday, September 18, 2022. 

Our Event Guide is a recording of our iDaph Events Podcast, and here we discuss what to expect on Race Day. Race Director, Daphne Kirkwood and Amy Silvers, Administrative Coordinator from the iDaph Team talk about the courses, packet pickup, parking, and more - along with many other important details.

We look forward to seeing you at the AORS race just outside of Asheville in Hendersonville, North Carolina soon! For more info about the race visit our website here:

https://idaph.net/asheville-off-road-series/

Transcript

0:05

Hi, I'm Amy silvers administrative coordinator with events. And I have with me, Daphne Kirkwood owner of I D and race director. And we would like to welcome you to the 2022 Asheville offroad series podcast. Yes, welcome everybody. We have tons of stuff to talk about today, so we're just gonna dive right into things. Lots of things to share that are new this year. So hopefully you can tune in either audio on podcast or on YouTube video and just tune in a little bit, cuz I think it'll really help you on race data to come in stress free and have a great experience. And I'm excited. This is gonna be my first time with the the, this event. And I'm excited to get to ride Canga and I understand it happened there last year and it, it fantastic. Everybody loved the new venue. So tell us how this race came about and the updates for this year. Yeah. So originally this race started in Asheville at the Biltmore estate is where it used to be held and when the pandemic hit and they weren't permitting events anymore we wanted to still be able to offer this fantastic really unique Multisport event series. And so we moved it to ride Canga. Just outside of Asheville and Hendersonville. And it, it was a great event last year. And so we've just built upon that and looking forward to our second time being there. Awesome. So the races in Hendersonville, is it on ride Canga property or where did the races start to finish? Exactly. Yeah. So ride Canga has been there a few years. It's by the Kaga conference center. It's not on the conference center property. It's the opposite side of the road. But they do lease the land from the conference center. So some of. You know, land is gonna be used. The bike part just starts and finishes at ride Kaga. It's not on any of their bike park areas, so it's not a trail race. The bike is really road and gravel, dirt. That's the surface. So not trails, not on the bike park, the run, however, is all on ride, congas property. So even though ride Kanuga, you know, caters to cyclists and, and biking. It's really fun to be able to actually run on their courses that they have already set up. And so we will use both sides of the road for the, the run course. But it's mainly on trail. And we'll talk about that in a little bit, but the run is completely on the property. Does that help? Does that explain. That that, yes, definitely. Okay. Definitely. Okay. And what time do the races start? Eight o'clock. I think we do have'em well, yeah, I believe we have'em a couple minutes apart just because of, you know, the runners taking off versus the bikers. And so we'll give that instruction right before the event, but everybody just needs to be ready and there at 8:00 AM. Okay. And we typically have a charity partner or a nonprofit partner for each of our events. Who are we working with this year? Same as last year St. Baldricks, which is a children's cancer foundation. There's a local. I don't know if you call it a branch or a segment in Brevard in Sylvania county of the organization. And we partnered with them last year. The mission of their organization is just incredible to help, you know, families who are going through. The cancer journey with that happens to their children. And they just support and help them and provide all kinds of things that families might need during that, that journey. So they're incredible and we're so happy to be able to help support them again this year. Lots of the folks out there on the courses will be their volunteers. We also have a new weekend warrior giveaway that we are offering. And so if you register for the ride. And you win, you'll get your entry feedback, and you'll also win an entry to give your friend for this year. And then we have these, this that was locally made. It's super cool. It says Asheville offered series. You can hang things on it, you know your keys or whatever at your door, but this is super cool. That's part of the package. There's all kinds of other things it's you to enter? You just have to give us your contact information. And then if you wanna increase your chances to win all the prize package worth$700 you can give a donation to St. Baldrick's and you will get more chances to win. So that is until September 12th, that's next Monday the 12th at noon. And so definitely. You know, let's support St. Baldricks as much as we possibly can. That's new. And then you can always donate to St. Baldricks online, through race roster. It's really easy to, to give to them. And we will have some beer this year and so bring cash to give them a donation when you stop by and you get a beer after the event. And if you don't. That's fine. You can stop by visit them and just give'em a donation if you want to. They're incredible. And they also have somebody who is part of the organization and being supported by them who will be at the race either participating or volunteering a family. So that'll be really neat to have them there too. And we've, we feature them on our blog if you wanna check them out. So yeah. So very cool. Great, great. Yeah. Very awesome. Okay. So what can people expect on race weekend? Like packet pickup, let's talk about packet, pickup, registration. How does all that, all that work? Yeah. So we've been offering the ship swag option now for a couple years that happened with COVID and people, you know, just wanted to come into the event and didn't wanna have to mess with packet pickup. And so people have loved it and we continue to do that. It's a lot of work right. To pull it off. Yes it's but. You know, we're here, we're here really to create a great experience for people from start to finish. We want that to be great for our participants. And so it's worth the effort. We feel like to do this. And so about, was it a third of the participants opted in for this, this year? Yeah. Yes. When, when, when we pulled the numbers at that time we had almost a third who. Had opted to do that. It's just so convenient. It is. You just get there and you're ready to go. It is. Yep. So, you know, we, we will have, we we've shift a bunch out and we do still have packet pickup on Saturday. September 17th from three to 5:00 PM. And it's inside the shop at ride KGA it's a great opportunity if you didn't do the event last year, even if you did, because there's been a lot, that's changed there on the property for you to come out and sort of check things out ahead of time. You won't really be able to go and run the trail or anything like that because the bike park is still open. And because bikes and runners, aren't gonna mix well on their property. But you could still walk around and check things out ahead of time if you wanted to. So and then if they don't pick up on Saturday, if you don't pick up, you didn't get your stuff mailed. Amy, what time is packet pick up on Sunday? Morning before the 6 30, 6 30 to seven 30. And that's also, that will be also inside the shop there. Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah. And so can folks registers, can they still register on race weekend? Yeah, I mean, they, they can register all the way up until that 7:30 AM cutoff time. But as we know, you know, people that show up and then are frantically stressed and trying to register on their phones it can be really stressful. So what, what do you think about, you know, what should people do for if they are waiting? Well, the easiest. Yeah. The easiest thing to do is to, is to do it ahead of time on your phone the registration process is the same, whether you do it on your phone, on your computer, at home, or, you know, in person it's, it's the same all the way around. So you're gonna have to go through the same process regardless, and it just eliminates that stress. Or, you know, having to stand in line, missing the start, you know, it, it just, just go ahead and do that ahead of time is, is the best option. Mm-hmm agreed. all right. And then, and yeah, go ahead. And I know that so this is my first experience with the two D. Bid thing. Yeah. So we have two different bids. You have, we have a race number and we have the bike number. So explain how that works and what they do with those. Yeah. So the Tyvec bib. Is for folks to put on their body and then there's a thicker number and that goes on the bike. We, you can use a zip tie to put that on the bike, or we will have some twisty ties at packet pickup that you can pick up and put that number on the front of your bike. But the Tyvec bib goes a race number goes on your back. And that's for, for all the events. Yeah. And then as far as the, the timing chip, it is on that race number, the Tyvec race number. If you're doing a team, a du Athlon team, you're gonna get an ankle band to put on your ankle. So that's a little bit different. If you're doing the team and we'll talk about that in a. Okay. And we have two gravel Grindr races. Mm-hmm two different distances. What if someone wants to switch? What if mid-race they decide? Well, you know, I signed up for the 40 miler and I think I just wanna do the 20 miler. Can they do that in the middle of the race? It's highly discouraged. If they do, they will not be scored. So you really need to make that decision ahead of time. It really messes things up with timing. If you. Don't do the whole thing. If you do come in early and you haven't done the whole event, please let us know in the timing area so that we can take you out of the results. Otherwise it's gonna mess up the whole thing for everyone. If you think you've got lost and you didn't do the whole route You know, please also let us know that as well. We have no tolerance for cheating and cheaters in our events. And a lot of this is on honor system, even though we have the timing, chips and stuff, when you're out there, you know, there's a million ways that you could cut off the course, but you're just cheating yourself. This is fun. It's not the Olympics. it's, you know, it is a race, but it's fun. So, you know, just, you won't be happy with yourself if you make the decision to cheat. And if we find out you know, it, it's just not fun for anyone. So I don't expect that to happen. It hasn't been in an issue at this event, but I just wanted to mention it because you know, let's, let's all just do it right. And do do it the right way. Absolutely. Okay. So when they get there, where do people park? Yeah. So if you did the ride or the events last year, a lot of people mainly parked at camp Canga. Unless you were in the du Athlon the du Athlon folks all parked at ride KGA because the transition zone was at their car. This year they've sort of redone ride KGA in a lot of different ways. And so there is more parking available because of how we've made some changes to the event this year, which we'll talk about. And so. People can all park at ride Canga if they want to. Just keep in mind, if you wanna leave before the last folks come in before the award ceremonies, you, you really just wanna do your race and leave. I would not suggest parking at ride Canga. I would suggest you park at the. At the conference center, which we will have signs up for that that's where pupil parks last year. Because it's gonna be hard for you to get out of ride Canga there's one way in one way out. While the race is happening, it just will take you a while. It might be frustrating. You're gonna have to wait on people and be stopped. And so just for the ease of getting in and out, if you, if you plan to just race and leave, you know, park it at the camp camp Canga and if you plan to just stick around, hang out, have fun with this afterwards. You know, park it ride. Can. Same spectators, same go same applies to them. Okay. All right. Can folks get dropped off? Can, can someone drop off a participant with their. There's really not a great way to do that. So, you know, folks really need to park and then unload, you know, especially du Athlon there's, it's a multi-sport race, so you're gonna have stuff with you. So, you know, even if you're in, in the du Athlon. You need to have somebody park, whether it's at the camp. That's probably the easiest, if you're, if you're wanting to be dropped off the camp, parking lot at camp conference center camp. And that would just be the easiest way for somebody to just quickly park, have somebody unload and then You come over to ride Kaga and they're, you know, the easiest way to get over, to ride Canga from the camp. The conference center, parking area there's some trails connector trails. That'll take you over. You can do the road, but the road is going to have cars coming in and out for the race. So just be patient it's a congested area. Again, dropping, off's not super easy, but you know, if you have to do it that way, I would say park at the. Gotcha. Okay. Good to know. All right. What's happening on race morning that folks need to know about, I I'm always looking for caffeine to fuel up. We have anything like that. Yes. We'll have Dan with bare bones brewhouse. He will have his coffee card out there. So bring some cash support him and him getting up at the Cracka Dawn to be there, to give you coffee. We'll have Sycamore cycles doing onsite bike checks and daily bike repair. We'll also be there as well. So you can stop by, you know, if you want them to go through your gears or check your air pressure or something like that. So just leave yourself plenty of time in the morning, you know, I think it does start at 8:00 AM. And so, you know, some people try to wait till the very last minute to get up and get going. But it, it's gonna take you a little bit, so, you know, know that when you get there, you can have your cup of coffee and there's restrooms and stuff like that. Good. Good, good. Okay. All right. And what are our courses like? What can they expect for the courses? Yeah. So we'll go into a little more depth for each of'em you know, throughout our podcast. But you know, like I mentioned before, the bike is road gravel, dirt surface, and it goes from, you know, ride Canga through Hendersonville area. It goes through a camp Tonawanda. And then over to lake summit, if you're doing the 42 mile Ooh, pass the 42 mile is it's challenging. You know, people are like, oh, it's only 42 miles. It's it's challenging 42 miles. There's quite a bit of climbing on it. The 25. Doesn't do that full route. It skips the camp Towanda lake some of the lake area and comes back towards RGA and does Ettawa. So it's just an easier quote unquote option. It's not easy, but it's easier. Probably has more pavement on it than the 42 mile. And then the 13 mile du Athlon bike is, you know, probably more pavement than it is dirt gravel, for sure. So, you know, more people could probably get away with a road bike with a thicker tire for that one less gnarly surfaces that sort of thing. And it does, you know, a pretty basic loop around the ride. Canga. Area and comes back there. And you know, you have your run to do as well. The run courses are, like I said, all at rod KGA and the conference center property they're different than last year. And you know, the, the area, none of the. Routes are closed to traffic. I mean, the, the run is primarily on single track trails. And so, you know I think that was one of the, the questions we were getting is like the whole course close to traffic. And no, unfortunately, you know, we can't close the bike course down on a Sunday morning for, you know, four to five hours to cars. So yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. And so talk about the bike courses. Yeah, so Reed Bani he owns fit by Reed. He's also a CTS Carmichael training systems coach. He does bike fitting. So if you are in the market to get fitted on your, on your bike and you need help he is great bike fitter. He's also a cycling coach and he designed the courses last year. And so they, you know, people really liked them. And so we've kept those they're on ride with GPS. Those have been emailed out to all the participants. They'll also be on the event guide as well. And so You know, the biggest thing I would say is watch for the signs watch for the course markings. And if you have, you know, a GPS device that you can download the route, I would download the route. And even if you wanna drive part of it ahead of time some of the sections that are on pace mountain are really tough to drive. So you might wanna skip that part. But checking things out ahead of time is not a bad idea. That's why there was a course recon last weekend that redid with a group for this race. But you know, sometimes you get in a group of cyclists and you just sort of get mold into the racing and, and being with the people that you're with. And. Think, oh, well I'm with them. So they must know where we're going and that's not necessarily the case. And that's what happened last year to a group of people that just thought the person on the front knew where he was going. Cuz he was just pounding away, saw a course marking on the left side of the road for. On the return trip because they do a big loop around lake summit, saw that on the left and was like, oh, I guess we turn here. Even though the marking was, was straight ahead, they saw on the, the left side that there was a marking. So pay attention to the markings. The, the 42 mile will be marked in pink. The 25 mile is marked in yellow. The 13 mile bike is marked in orange and the run course will have very limited markings, but if you, if there's any on the pavement or anything, it would be green. So just keep that in mind. There's a lot of signs that we put up for this one. And so, you know, take that second to see what the sign says. Even if we have volunteers there, there might be a course split that you need to know about. And so you've gotta, you have to pay attention, you know? Let's see if there's anything else. Yeah. The descriptions are on the website for all the routes. So check those. Okay. And I know that we've had a lot of rain recently. Are there any areas on the course that are rougher or in worse shape than they were last year at this time? Yeah. So Reid went out with the CTS group last weekend and they said that around the south lake summit road, there's some sections that have some, some washout that's a little bit more challenging than it was last year. And then pace mountain road up at the, the state line area is rougher than last year as well. So just keep that in mind. I don't think it means necessarily that you have to have a mountain bike for it, but I would definitely, you know, slow it down and just be aware that there's some sections that are gonna be a little more gnarly than last year. Okay. And I'm a runner, not a cyclist. Not yet. Anyway. I know you guys are working on me but it would be my luck to get out there and have a flat tire or some sort of something mechanical issue with my bike. So what happens if I get out there and something like that happens? Yeah. So number one always come prepared to fix your own flat tire. So you know, watch a YouTube video. If you don't know how to do that practice before you get there, I would not be reliant on, you know, our sag support. We will have them out there. Yes. But it's a very expansive footprint that they're running on. And with three different bike routes, it's a lot of different sections for them to be out there too. So bring some of your own tools and stuff to change flats. We will have Ham operators out there assisting with sag as well as the communication, since there's some remote areas that don't have the best cell service, definitely take a cell phone. Just so you have that and if you have to walk with your bike to section, to call for sag, help do that. But try to be as self-sufficient as possible, you know, get your bike tuned up, checked out ahead of time before race morning. We will have Sycamore cycles, like I said, and daily cycle, mobile bicycle repair there to check things out. But if you're you need an overhaul or you know, you need a lot on your bike, please don't rely on them to do that right before the race. We saw some definitely not at one of the events this summer. I can't remember which one it was, but their whole bike needed a major tune up and the, the mechanic was like, I hope you can make it through this. So get the bike back out ahead of time. We got great bikes, bike shops in town and Sycamore cycles as in Hendersonville. And Bravard, you can take your stuff over there. Let'em know you're part of the race. And they can do that for you. The sag phone number, just so you have it, it will be in the event guide too, but I would take a second to jot this down. Put it in your phone. It's(828) 329-8863. If there's an emergency that you see out on the route, Call 9 1, 1. They are aware that the race is happening and somebody will come out and assist you know, if something major happens and you need attention. So, yeah. Okay. All right. So tell us a little bit about the run course for the du Athlon it's new this year, right? Yeah. So we don't have the five mile trail running race this year. We just didn't get the participation that we had anticipated last year for it. So we don't have that. So since we don't have it, I decided, Hey, let's change up the running course a little bit. Because rod Canga has new trails out there that are really pretty, pretty awesome. And I wanted people to be able to run in some of their bike park areas more than they did last year. So it's a two and a half mile run. It's the same route both times for the du Athlon, it's mostly single track. The run with GPS map and route is gonna be super difficult for you to use, to go out and try to check it out ahead of time. When I went and did the route a couple weeks ago and ran it through the whole time. It was, the GPS keeps going in and out just because the reception is so bad. And so, you know it's one of those things too, that rod Kanuga is a bike park and they don't really, you know, allow runners to be out there checking out those trails because they're, they have bike operations. So really it's gonna be a surprise for everybody. Surprises are fun. And it's, it's a great, I think it's a great loop. It's a really interesting trail race mixture of single track. And it does have some, some roots not, I mean, it is technical, not super technical. Course there's might be some muddy spots cuz of all the rain. There is some grass sections. There's some sections that are very smoothed and groomed on the ride Canga bike park area. So yeah, you get all, all the different offroad surfaces for this one, some gravel, some dirt. It's pretty cool. Okay. And we did receive a message, an email with someone asking about the best type of shoes to wear for this run, or is it, would you recommend trail shoes? What would you recommend for that? Yeah, I think a sturdier trail running shoe is probably getting to be the best bet and not a racing flat for this one there just because of all the different surfaces that I just mentioned. It's beautiful. It's amazing, but it's challenging. And you know, I would say for your ankles and for your feet, probably a sturdy, your shoe is gonna be the trick. If you don't have a trail shoe, you know, a road shoe would be good if it has some support to it. Okay. And I saw that last year, the du Alon participants parked in a field and their transition zone was at their car. Is that the same situation this year? Year? No, it's not. We've moved the transition. Transition is for the do Alon. And typically a transition zone has it's sort of a rectangular shape with an opening on. Both ends of a transition zone and we put bike racks in there. We didn't do that for the, this race because of COVID last year. And so we are gonna set up bike racks this year. It'll be more in the main race hub area next to the start and finish. So folks will need to park. In the general parking area and then bring all of your things that you want in the transition area, your bike, your running gear, your nutrition, hydration, all of those things to transition and set that up before the race. Okay, so leave plenty of time to get that taken care of allow yourself plenty of time. Absolutely. I mean, I would leave at least 20 to 30 minutes to get transition set up for yourself. You know, time to run back to your car, if you forgot something. So just for setting up transition alone, I would give yourself 20 to 30 minutes. Okay. So the du Athlon is multi-sport so you have, cuz you have the bike and the run, it's a little different than the two gravel brander races. So talk about logistics for those. Yeah. So do Athlon you know that we got the race numbers we talked about already, so you have to have that on that's your timing chip. So that's super, you know, important that you have that. And then as far as the race itself, you know, you run first, so you'll start with the run. And then once you're finished with the run, you will run into transition and we'll have signs that say run in. You run into transition on the backside of transition zone. Then you will go to your bike rack. You'll grab your helmet, your bike shoes. Hopefully you'll already have stuff on your bike as far as you know, what you want for hydration. And then you will run out the front with your bike. Of the transition area until you get to the Mount line at the Mount line is where you will get on your bike and head out. On the bike route for the du Athlon bike, there's not a water station. On the bike course, it's only for the 42 mile folks. So just keep that in mind, you know, to have your own nutrition and, and drink and stuff on the bike. And then once you get back from the bike, then You bring your back bike back into the front of transition, where you went out on the bike and you put your bike back up on the RA rack and then get ready for the. Okay. And then we run again. Okay. Yeah. So we run, we biked and we run again. Yeah. And then, and just so you know for the runners, you know, you keep that bib on the du Athlon folks. You keep that bib on the whole time that has your timing chip. There's gonna be mats on both sides of the transition. And you know, if you wanna have your own hydration, they have handheld water. Devices at fleet feet. So you can stop by there and grab one of those. If, you know, you feel like you're gonna need more than just at the one water station that we have on the run course. All right. And new this year, we have a team by request. Of course we have a team do Athlon, I'm really excited to see this. I know one participants had originally registered for one of the Can't remember when he was with the gravel grinder or the du Athlon, but when he found out about it, he, he wanted to redo his registration and do the team do Athlon. So he could do it with his girlfriend. He was really excited that they both can one bikes, one. Run and it's something exciting that they can do together now. So tell us a little bit about this new option. Yeah. So we actually had the team component for COVID. We took it away with COVID and, you know, just trying to minimize the interaction between people and touch points. But. We decided, you know, with the request that we're coming in to bring it back. And so it's two person teams, so we're, we're expecting it to be somebody who is a runner and somebody who is a cyclist. It could be a multi-sport person who just picks one or the other, but two person team How it works basically is the runner runs. The biker is in transition while the runner is out, running at the bike rack and the runner will come into the transition area and see their friend or family member at the bike rack. And they will take off the ankle band that's on their ankle. That's their timing chip it's has a Velcro. And their friend will put that on their ankle before they leave transition. And the, the runner does not have to take off the run number because the biker will have the bike number on their bike already. Okay. The biker will go out the front of transition. Do the whole bike course come back into transition. And that runner will be at the transition area at the bike rack, waiting for their friend or family member. And the biker will take off the ankle band off their ankle. And their runner will put it on their ankle and run out the back of transition and do that second run and then come into the finish. So the runner wears that Tyvec race number and the biker has the thicker race number on the front of their bike. Okay. Got it. I think you covered all the, all the questions on that one. Good. Let's talk about music. I love to run with music. It sounds like with the, the different events and the traffic and. Volunteers maybe of course, ALS that you're really gonna need to hear. So probably it's best to leave the music at home with this one. Yeah. I, I mean, I'm such a music lover when I exercise and stuff, but for this one, it's just, there's a lot going on. Just leave the music at home, soak in the trail, the runners, the experience, cheer each other on and just, you know, leave the music at home this time it's safer. Okay. An all important question. Where are the restrooms located? yes, we'll have porta Jones, porta, Johns near the parking areas. We will also have them at the start finish. We will have them at the rest stop along the 42 mile course as well. So that should cover, you know, most of the needs for folks. And so that's where you can find. All right. And what about water stations and rest stops? Yeah. So we'll have a water station about halfway through the run at the grass field where the du Athlon folks parked last year. So down in that area, that's gonna be managed by McComb performance training. And then the 42 mile bike has a rest stop. The other two, the 12 and the 25 don't have a rest stop. The 42 does, and that's at camp green Cove at their back entrance around lake summit. And that's managed by green moose fuel. Right. And what's happening after the race. Can do we need to bring cash card? Is what, what are our options? What, what are things that happen after? Yeah, we are elevating the post race experience this year. Really excited to have some new things out there. And new small businesses that are supporting being there. And so in turn we wanna support them too. So definitely bring cash and card and be ready to experience some of those offerings that are new this year. We have dirty Gies taco stand. They will be there and they'll have a, a breakfast taco option as well as lunch options. For. They're fantastic. We'll have yoga and massage there with the post-race massages John Duncan and the autocrats, the bluegrass band. They're gonna be out there bringing the vibe and then we have, we'll have some beer this year. It is a donation for beer and that money is gonna go straight to St. Baldrick's. We're trying to raise as much money for them as possible. So if you, if you wanna have a beer plan to give some cash for that for a donation, we'll have daily cycle bike repair that will be there as well. If you don't see them for thing in the morning, look for them in the afternoon. And then new we have partnered up with athletic upgrade and they are gonna have a recovery zone, really super excited about this it's state of the art recovery zone. And They have a couple different options. It looks like a compression option and the cryotherapy that's localized red light therapy. They have hyper volt. So check them out and bring some cash for that. I believe they have like a$40 option and a$50 option and come see what they have. They also are gonna be offering a raffle as well. So you'll wanna definitely visit with them. To find out more about that. Cool. And I hear, we might have some merchandise sales. Yeah, lots of, lots of great stuff this year. I hear that we'll have the vintage Asheville offroad series shirts from previous year have this year shirts available. If we have any left. We ordered some, I love them for a minute. I mean, They're so cool. Like I, the brown, I was like, I dunno about if people like the brown, but the print is amazing and it's not super thick on there. It's a really nice, soft feel. So if you did not get one of these free or buy one online, You might wanna just pop into the shop online and go ahead and get one of these so that you can make sure and get the size that you want because this might be seriously your new favorite race tea. I'm not just saying that they, they turned out really great. yeah, they did. I, I love the Bella of canvas. They're super, super soft. They wear, well, that's a perfect color for fall. And that green just really pops on the brown It's gorgeous shirt. So we'll have those, if we have any left and I hear you've ordered some new decals, some offered series decals. Yeah. I'm excited to see those. And do you have'em one there? I, I think it's in my car. I bet they're all. Yeah. They're or at the warehouse? One, two. Okay. I do have a another thing though, the new hoodie, if you wanna see that brand new red local hoodies. Woo. So they're some. Love it. Nice. Super cozy hoodie says run local. I know cyclists, you know, it doesn't say bike local. It says run local. But we have a lot more running events than we have biking events. So we'll take these with us all fall, but they turned out fantastic. Yes. And we also will have with us the free to run t-shirts, there's a tan color and a gray color. And several people added those to their registration. And if you did that, stop by the merchandise tent and pick that up. We'll have those there for you. And do we have any leftover mugs from last year offered series that we're selling? I feel like we have some campfire mugs maybe, or. Yes, I believe we do have some that are left over. So we'll have those there too. All kinds of good stuff. Definitely swing by the merchandise 10 and see what we have. Yeah. Awesome. And we take cash or card. So yes, away. Yep. Awesome. Yep. Okay. Awards and prizes. Are we gonna have an award ceremony this year? We will. What will that look like? We will we are gonna do those, you know, we always try to do the award ceremonies as quickly as possible. So it's really dependent on, are we filling up those Award category groups. And when we get those sort of full or mostly full that's when we will do the award ceremony. So for this one, it's a little hard to predict when that'll happen, but we will do those on site and we'll have some ride Kaga day passes. We'll have some Sycamore cycles and fleet feet gift certificates. I'm gonna show. If you don't mind, the locally made pottery mug because they're gorgeous. This is what they look like. So nice. It's nice. Beautiful. It's beautiful. And those are from folk Wayfair pottery. They did such a great job on these. It matches the shirt. Perfectly. Hi. you know, we want things to go together, so, yeah. So those are great. And you can look online at the awards categories to see which categories get those mugs. And let's see if you can't stay for the award ceremony we will have where you can pick those up starting Tuesday. I guess that would be the 20th after 3:00 PM. So Tuesday after three at fleet feed Asheville, you can pick up your awards. If you want to have yours shipped and you win pottery, it is gonna be a little more expensive to ship those because the packaging and the material costs more to ship'em. So it'll probably be more like 15, 20 bucks for this, this race. So just keep that mind. If you end up winning and wanna get it Shipp. All right. So we have the the interactive event guide coming out that participants can look for, look through for their course maps, their queue sheets and all the important race day info. Anything else you can think of that they might need to know ahead of time? You know, I think the biggest thing is just pay attention, you know, be aware and pay attention. Don't just follow the people in front of you, whether it's running, biking, whatever And, you know, we have volunteers, we've got police officers. We have people out on the course. But just pay attention, you know, that things are open to traffic. So just, yeah, watch, watch and be aware. Okay. And photos, is there gonna be someone taking photos on the race course? And I think I might have heard something about a content. Yeah, we wanna just spice things up a little bit. This year. It's so fun to do these photo contests. And so we will have a photographer that's out on the bike course and so they will be able to capture everybody that is, is cycling out on the bike. And so. You know, you don't have to do anything crazy if you don't want to, but if you wanna decorate your bike or, you know, really get into it, we're just saying that, you know, you usually get a little advantage if you do fun, things like that. And so what are the prizes again for the contest? So I actually, I actually have some wing here. We have some handmade custom gear metals. Mm-hmm they're stained glass. They're really cool here. Oh, those are awesome. Those one here's here's another, yeah. So those, like in your rear view mirror or on your Christmas tree or hanging on your wall? Yeah. Those are really cool. Yes. And do it. And I think at three, is it top three? We have three. Okay. We do have three. Yes. Okay. Yeah. So, and then. Whatever that might look like. I mean, it could be serious face as you go by the photographer, you know, just intense or fun or, you know, whatever, if you know how to do a wheelie, do a wheelie. But we will vote on those on social media. We'll post up the best ones, vote on those. And then we will give those awards out later on. So once we get those photos ready, So be ready for that and, and have fun with it. And I think that top winner also gets a free entry to the 20, 23 as school offers unit. Oh yes. So little extra motivation there. Yes, for sure. All right. And of course we couldn't do these events without our partner or our partnerships with our sponsors, all the support that we get from our sponsors. And we're so grateful for the, for those partnerships and, and and they're helping assistance. And who, who can we think for the Asal offered series? Yeah, I mean, I think I mentioned a lot of'em during the podcast today, but some additional ones, a new one, Ken Wilson Ford came on board. And we were so appreciative of them being out there and being supportive of multi-sport races in our community. And then Asheville school, if you haven't met John Smith, he's quite the character. He usually comes out and brings an entourage of people. And they're supporting the events in our community too. So I just wanted to mention those two. Great. Okay. Anything else you can think of any? I think we've covered pretty much everything. It was a lot, but I think it was definitely the information people are gonna need to have a stress free day. So hopefully you got something out of it and we can't wait to see ya on September 17th at packet pickup or on the 18th. Sunday the 18th at the. Yes. So thank you for joining us. For the 2022 Asheville offered series podcast. Thanks Amy.