Home
Record Numbers & Repeat Champions...
-
Tuesday, 19 February 2019 23:10
TRI-U-MAH - This has been our state's biggest indoor tri for a while now, and this year's turnout was by far the largest ever.
Typically about 200 athletes register and 160-180 ultimately show up and finish. This time, though, there were 179 individual finishers and 40 collegiate athletes. That's 219 line-crossers. Hopefully this marks a trend toward greater enrollment in outdoor races this summer. Fingers crossed.
Tri-U-Mah is not only our state's largest and longest (90 minutes broken into 30-minute segments) indoor swim-bike-run, it is also the most competitive. Leading the way for their respective genders were repeaters MICHAEL WEISSENBORN, who won here in 2017, and 2018 women's champ / future outdoor star PAIGE SCHULZ, who was very impressive in two outdoor starts last summer and is the prohibitive favorite for Rookie of the Year in 2019.
Though Paige didn't match her 2018 distance total, she missed it by a almost neglible 1/100th of a mile.
Weissenborn, however, was able to better his 2017 distance by more than four tenths of a mile, thus his eventual margin of victory was huge: 1.09 miles. Michael had great bike and run splits, but it was in the water where he truly excelled. Only REED STEELE, who expects to be first out of the water in almost every multi he enters, touched more walls....
Big-Ass Bouncy Houses & Pseudo-Consistent Splits...
-
Monday, 18 February 2019 23:10
By Steve Stenzel (iwannagetphysical.blogspot.com)
Yesterday (Ed. February 10) was my first race of 2019: the Minneapolis YWCA Indoor Triathlon. I had signed up for the longest distance: 600 yard swim (in a 25 yard pool), 8 "miles" on a spin bike (NEW bikes where resistance matters!), and a 5K on a 200 yard track (25 laps).
The evening before, we went out to my wife's aunt's house for a skating/taco party. I ate lots of crap, and the boys played out on the ice even though it was -2 with -15 windchill.
The ONLY (and tiniest) bit of pre-race drama took place regarding my goggles. After getting back from Mexico, they started leaking a bit. On Friday's swim, they were just gushing water. I think the little "tabs" that hold the goggle straps as tight as you set it got loose from me playing around with them as I kept loosening/tightening them while playing in the pool in Mexico. They don't hold them as tight as I'd like anymore. And being I still felt like these goggles were "new," I didn't have a back-up pair. So I ...
Stenzel Strikes Again!
-
Friday, 15 February 2019 23:10
Photo - This pic of Sookie's nails (Sookie is the YWCA's Indoor Tris race director) has nothing to do with this story. It's posted because we think it's cool, and we were unable to get a shot from the race.
YWCA INDOOR TRI #2 - Usual suspects galore, plus enough adventurous newbies, conspired to push attendance to record levels. This event had 79 finishers in 2018. Very good numbers, eh? Last Sunday, 92 athletes went the distance. Very cool.
Glancing at the results, several things stood out, most notably that masters and grand masters rocked most of the top spots. How cool is it that 61-year-old NICK KOSZEWSKI, pronounced "Koz -shef -ski," we think, won the Sprint race? We tried to find stuff about Nick on the Inter Web and didn't find much, unless he's a biomedical scientist at Iowa State University. If so, he's incredibly accomplished, looks decades younger than his real age, has great hair and speaks German.
Another sixty-genarian, RICHARD DANAHER, turned in the fastest men's time in the Mini, which placed him 4th overall in that event. He finished 5th overall/4th male in last year's February Mini....
Top 10 Newbie Fears...
-
Thursday, 14 February 2019 23:10
By David Mills (newtotri.com)
1. What if I can barely even swim 2 laps?
The swim is simply the bouncer that stands at the triathlon doors to keep the riff-raff out. If it weren’t for the swim, there would probably be about a million more triathletes than there are today. And that’s the whole point of a bouncer right? To keep the party exclusive; to keep it respectable. The truth is, swimming is coordination. It’s like patting your head and rubbing your belly at the same time. Anyone in the world can do it. You just have to practice it a little. With even a kindling of desire to become a triathlete, anyone can acquire the necessary coordination to kick, stroke, and breathe in a coordinated rhythm with a few trips to the local YMCA. Don’t let the swim intimidate you. But don’t expect it to come easily your first time in the pool. Just stick with it and don’t get discouraged; before you know it, it will “click” and you’ll be swimming laps no problem....
Mimosas and Quiche...
-
Monday, 11 February 2019 23:10
By Julie Pagano (mntrigal.com)
Life Time Eagan Indoor Tri Race Report - A couple of weeks ago, Lifetime Fitness held their series of indoor triathlons. I was able to participate in the event at their Eagan club. As this was my 5th year participating, I was pretty well aware of what to expect. 10 minutes of swimming followed by 30 minutes of biking on the spin bike and ending with 20 minutes of running on the treadmill. This event really has a special place in my heart as a few friends and I do the event together and grab brunch afterwards. A sweet little reward after 70 minutes of hard work.
I was really looking forward to this year’s indoor tri to see if my Ironman training has made an impact on my results. I knew I wasn’t going to go my normal pace on the run due to my nagging knee injury but had set some aggressive (for me) goals on the swim (goal – 23 lengths) and bike (goal – 11.3 miles)....
