Slowtwitch.com announces today its acquisition of the triathlon race calendar on the site known as Findatriathlon.com. This popular triathlon calendar hosted over 1000 races during the 2006 season. Adding its superior architecture and functionality to the Slowtwitch user community seemed a proper marriage, and the acquisition was finalized in the Autumn of 2007.

This fine race calendar incorporated most of the functionality Slowtwitch was looking for when contemplating its own calendar, persuading Slowtwitch staff and developers to acquire rather than build the code and architecture from scratch.

Findatriathlon's owner, Lee Schmidt, has been a member of the Slowtwitch Forum community since June of 2006, posting under the user name "lschmidt" and most recently as "Lee from PSN." Lee is a triathlete and runs Peak Sports Nutrition, an advertising partner on the Slowtwitch site. Lee will remain part of the development team enhancing the calendar, and will serve from time to time as a developer on other Slowtwitch applications.

Not all the functionality built into this calendar is currently employed, in particular that associated with the "Tag this race" feature. This utility allows readers to "build" a "personal race calendar," a feature that will be included on a new and more robust User Profile, a part of the Slowtwitch Reader Forum currently, but temporarily, underutilized (this feature will also make easier the ability of users to schedule race venue get-togethers so popular among the Slowtwitch community).

The new Slowtwitch race calendar shares a login with the Reader Forum. Creating a user account in one application creates the account for the other. The login is "sticky," allowing migration across utilities without the need to log in again.

This race calendar will be searchable by race type, race distance, by state, by region, with the events displayed chronologically or by proximity. Races throughout North America will be archived, with regions ignoring international boundaries (e.g., the "Plains" region will include Manitoba and Saskatchewan along with the Dakotas and other plains states, and British Columbia and Alberta will be part of the "Northwest" region in which Washington and Oregon will reside).

The new Slowtwitch race calendar had 20 races in its 2008 database 5 days ago, and by the end of today that total should pass 250. The goal is to have it fully populated within the next seven days.