Advertised as the worlds hardest Iron-distance race and IT WAS! 9,000+ feet climbing on the bike and over 2,000 feet for the marathon (I still feel like I am moving uphill from finishing this race a few days ago.)
The most impressive part of this race was not how hard it was (only a handfull broke the 11 hour mark), but it was the customer service. From packet pick-up to the awards ceremony, everything was first class. Our goodie bag was Rudy Project Tri-type Bag with everything you could possibly want (including a fleece blanket, extra TYR goggles, bottles, ect ect).
You wouldn't have known this was a first time event. Frank Lowery and his team put on the best production I have seen (this includes some of the countries BEST race production companies like FIRM on the east coast, TriCalifornia, J&A, and dare I say, IM) The City of Henderson constructed NEW ROADS just for this race.
Frank (the race director) personally answers his emails (very quickly too) and set up a "chat" forum where racers can post their concerns and he answers or chimes in to clarify. It is kind of like FAQ, but its on steroids. Please visit the silvermannv.com website and click on the Forum at the top to read the racers comments for yourself. http://silvermannv.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/index.php
This is the world's hardest Iron-distance. So if you are going to put in all of the training time to finish an iron race, you might as well finish the hardest one. Oh yea, over 60% of the participants were first timers and
almost all finished.

This race was awesome!