On Saturday, Oct. 5, 2014, athletes from across the Southeast will have the opportunity to participate in a historic event as they race their way to being named the North Carolina state champion!

This Sprint-distance triathlon will take place at scenic Bryan Park, in and around Lake Townsend, in the beautiful city of Greensboro, North Carolina. The course features a 750-yard triangle swim, an 18-mile bike on quiet country roads, and finishes with an out-and-back 5k run through Bryan Park. This event is open to all triathletes aged 10-99, no matter their experience; there is a category for everyone! Awards will be presented to the top three male and female participants in each race category, including open/elite, age group, collegiate, athena, clydesdale, novice, and relay teams.

The swim will take place in the clear, clean water of Lake Townsend. To be able to participate in an open-water swim in a North Carolina is a great treat, as most lakes are regularly closed to swimmers! Participants will be sent off in waves and will follow buoys in a triangle pattern, starting and finishing in the same area. Near the swim exit, there is a small island and a long pier, which are both perfect for friends and family to watch the race. The unique design of the swim will allow for spectators to be within 15 feet of the swimmers as they finish the swim in the cove of the Lake Townsend Marina.

The bike course is a fabulous one-loop course on smooth, rural country roads. It has gently rolling hills, with much more down than up, making for a fast course. Traffic is unbelievably light, so bikers will feel as if they have the roads all to themselves. It’s a fast and challenging course with beautiful scenery and many wide roads through both neighborhoods and farms.

The 5k run is an out-and-back course, allowing racers to keep a close eye on the competition. It is completely self-contained along the shady roads of Bryan Park. It winds through the Bryan Park Golf Course, with large oak trees lining the road, providing beautiful views for participants. It is a relatively flat course with only a few small hills.

Draft-Legal ITU-Style Race!

If that doesn’t seem like quite enough of a challenge for you, the 2014 North Carolina State Triathlon Championship Race will also include a draft-legal ITU-style race! Here is a chance to race alongside some of the Mid-Atlantic’s best collegiate athletes in a unique format of multisport racing. This portion of the event will take place in the afternoon once the main race is done. Participation is capped at 100 for this first year, and athletes must submit an athletic resume in order to be accepted. So it really will be the best of the best pushing each other to the championship. If you’re not up to participating in the race, stick around to watch and witness the sport’s most exciting and viewer-friendly format of racing, just the way they do in the Olympics!

The swim course for the draft-legal event will be the same as the previous event; however, the bike and run portions of the race will be loop courses, keeping the athletes within Bryan Park for the entire event. They will fly around four laps of a 4-mile bike course to finish 16 miles, and run a two-lap 5k course, sprinting to the finish for an exhilarating end to a great day of multisport racing.

If you are interested in competing in either event or would like more details on watching or volunteering, check out the race organizer’s website: www.triviumracing.com.