Elysian & Graniteman Stuff...

July 11, 2010

* Brett Lovaas, whose name is sometimes lewdly mispronounced, picked up his first win of the season at the umteenth Elysian Triathlon on Saturday. Last year's ET champ Todd Landgraff, whose name is rarely mispronounced and is enjoying a breakout season in 2010, finished 2nd only 10 seconds behind Mr. Lah-vass' (phonetic pronunciation with accent). Jackie Pribyl, whose last name is slightly vowel-starved (an ethnic deal), was the women's champion. Almost 300 athletes participated in this year's event. RESULTS

* Facebook Photo: L-R - A girl, Todd Landgraff and a tree.

* The nubile Nikki Bergh--she's getting married to her high school sweetheart in December--is a lovely person, a fine athlete, a paragon of pedagogy and totally cute...

Her only apparent flaw, and it's an weensy one, is that she is "Directionally Challenged."

Having just racked her bike in T2 at the 7th annual Graniteman Triathlon today, Bergh, a perpetual smiler (photo), started running in the wrong direction. Volunteers loudly attempted to re-route her, but without immediate success. After a few laps of the grassy corral, Nikki, still smiling, hurdled--with form that would have impressed Edwin Moses (Google him if you don't know who he is)--a fence and took off onto the run. Through it all, she laughed as robustly as the wonderfully large group of spectators who witnessed her folly.

Bergh, who was 2nd here last year, ultimately finished 6th. It should be noted that this year's women's field was significantly stronger than in 2009.

The race, which featured a new and totally cool venue and  drew a record crowd (450+ participants), was won by two-time Buffalo Sprint victor Troy Anderson and returning women's champ Diane Hankee, who turned one of the fastest and most satisfying performances of her multisport career.

FYI  - We may a slightly embellished Nikki Bergh's Directional Challengedosity. Perhaps what happened on Sunday was an acute episode, and not a pernicious condition.

Darin's words and photos coming soon...RESULTS

Graniteman VII was staged at a great new venue--Warner Lake Park near Clearwater--and featured a cool point-to-point swim. The swim course started at the white bubbly stuff in the bottom center of this photo. It finished at the little break in the treeline at the 1 o'clock position. If you squint really hard, you can almost see the "Swim Finish" banner.