Sunday's 24th annual Tinsel Triathlon fundraiser.

Tinsel Tri Skaters

Central County United Way is upping the fun by testing an inline-skating race before the start of Sunday's 24th annual Tinsel Triathlon fundraiser.

The event's sign-ups already reached 1,000 and are on course to beat last year's 1,200 participants. Most entrants race on a 5 km run starting at West Valley High School in west Hemet, bike 12 miles on closed-to-traffic Domenigoni Parkway and finish with a 150-meter swim. Others choose the more genteel option of running just the 5k race. Registration and check-in begins at 7 a.m. Racing starts at 9.

Advanced registration is available on the Web until Thursday at tinseltriathlon.com, the Central County United Way office in Hemet until Friday morning or at the event. For more information, call 951-929-9691.

Connie Hall, a United Way organizer of the event, was contacted by an inline skater interested in racing on the bike course. As an experiment, about 30 skaters will race at 8 a.m. and should be finished by the 9 a.m. start of the Tinsel Tri. Skating could be added as a category in 2010.

Runners will be intrigued when they see the speed skaters. I saw skaters on the last stretches of the Silver Strand Half Marathon in Coronado. They were fast. Unlike agonized runners, they had big smiles on their faces as they skated in packs and pairs. I expect that they will finish the bike course in less than 50 minutes.

Hall, a woman with a most positive outlook, pointed out that the Tinsel Tri is a rain or shine event. She is confident it won't be raining. Forecasts for Sunday call for a 20 percent chance of rain under partly cloudy skies. History is on her side.

"We live on a lot of faith that it has not ever rained on the Tinsel Triathlon," she said.


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