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Gorilla Wrestling and Crying for My Mommy...
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Monday, 15 June 2026 00:10
Photo - Vinny and Spencer
By Spencer Syvertson
I was confident coming into Buffalo that I would shave off time from my 2025 finish. The weather forecast didn’t look like it would play a big factor in my opinion. It turns out I was very wrong!
This was my first race starting in the 2nd wave as I aged up into the 30-39 group on race week. I was NOT a fan of swimming through the first wave from behind. After weaving around an athlete I then collided with another one within five strokes of the previous. Eventually I made it to clean water on the back half. As I headed towards shore I had one objective before T1: do not spike my effort while swimming through the weed line. Mission failed! It felt like I was wrestling a gorilla to make it onto the beach.
Out of T1 I was eager to rip it on my new tri bike. My plan was simple: ride hard, don’t look at my watch, and enjoy riding my bike. I quickly overtook the two athletes from wave one and moved into the lead. On the first of two laps I was having a blast on the downhills and smashing the pedals to carry momentum up the next hill. I came by my family at the halfway point and lapped my watch. A quick glance at my watch said 290 watts which is easily the highest power I’ve seen in a race. My body was feeling good and the effort was in check. On lap two the course became congested with the sprint distance athletes. This lap around the lake was less of a drag race. I made sure not to cross the double yellow lines when it got congested even though I wanted to keep my momentum rolling. I finished the ride with a PR power output and a decent average speed. ...
Bike Course Reconnaissance...
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Friday, 12 June 2026 00:10
By Mitchell Clayton
I started the Buffalo Sprint Triathlon on a terribly rainy day back in 2014 and did not finish due to a flat tire roughly 1 mile into the bike leg. Last Sunday, 12 years later, I finally collected my first Buffalo finish. The conditions were great for racing early in the day but got a little hot and humid right around the time I finished. The short summary is that I was able to put together a solid overall swim-bike-run effort. The swim was standard (but weedy), I biked faster than I thought I would on this course, but I ran little slower than I expected.
Now for the long summary. Like in most races as a former high school swimmer, the swim leg was pretty standard. I settled in at a 6/10 effort – fast enough and sort of tough, but without tiring myself out. Unfortunately, the lake was pretty weedy at the start and end of the course and I felt like a lake monster with the weeds getting caught around my head and shoulders.
The bike portion of the race started about a month prior to race day when I made the 4-hour round trip to do a course recon. And boy, I’m glad I did. The course was hillier than I thought, which changed my race plan and gave me time to buy a new cassette with easier gearing. The goal was to push less watts than I usually do on the flats but to really rip it up the hills, and that what I ended up executing. I built into the uphill portions, ending up cresting the 4 major hills at over 400 watts, and settled in at a high Zone 3 effort for the rest of the course. There are 2 major takeaways from the bike course: First, I’m really aero right now, ...
Julia!
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Wednesday, 10 June 2026 00:10
Photo (L-R) - Katie, Julia, Elena
2026 Buffalo Olympic Coverage - The morning was hot and thick and the times generally reflected those facts. It didn't prevent the pre-race men's favorite from winning, though, but as you'll learn when we post his terrific race report in a few days, it came with a steep cost.
Still, Spencer Syvertson, managed to win by a substantial margin, 3:41 to be exact, but his final time--2:04:46--was 4:42 slower than his winning time here in 2025.
His closest competition was provided by former Minnesotan, now Houston Texan, Mark Van Mechelen. Jeron Hall, 20, who turned in some fine junior performances last season, rounded out the men's Top Three.
The overall women's podium seemed to match what was predicted, but didn't due to the wave start system. When pre-race favorite Elena Jasper was the first woman to cross the finish line it was easy to assume that she would remain atop the leaderboard. Thus if you weren't paying close attention to the clock, it would be easy to miss the fact that former Buffalo Olympic winner Katie DeRegnier, who started two minutes behind Jasper, would overtake the top spot, albeit by a slim 7-seconds.
Game over, right? We know the Top Two and the next woman to finish, Kristen Hawkins perhaps, would claim the third step....
Another Record for Cami...
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Monday, 08 June 2026 00:10
Photo (L-R) - Julie Weisbecker, who rocked in the Olympic race and Cheryl Zitur and Christel Kippenhan, who excelled in the Sprint.
2026 Buffalo Sprint Coverage - Pre-race morning conditions could be adequately described as warm. Low 70s. When the race got underway, though, "warm" turned to "toasty," and humidity, as well as wind volume, began to tick upwards. Then it became downright "hot," and many would suffer, as would their final times.
But those that set the pace in the Sprint managed to rewrite long-standing records, doing so while the climate was bearable, starting with the overall winners, Mitchell Clayton and Cami Eckhoff. Clayton, whose personal race report will post later in the week, raced confidently en route to a 56:26, which lowered Andy Wiberg's 2016 race record by 18-seconds.
The win was the tenth of Clayton's tri-career.
As for Eckhoff, her record time at Tinman last month portended a victory at Buffalo, an event she had already won twice, and suggested that she just might "challenge" Cheryl Zitur's 2017 mark of 1:03:32....
Lucky #7!
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Saturday, 06 June 2026 00:10
By Doobie Kurus
The 7th annual SWIM-Off to Summer open water challenge was a huge success. Huge in that we filled again to capacity...and then some, at 230+ people. Huge in that we went international, including Mario, from Rio de Janeiro. Huge in the size of the smiles on people's face on Sunday! I had a feeling it was going to be a good day...and not just because I was able to brush my teeth and use the bathroom mid-event. The warm weather all week leading up to race day raised the water temps from the mid 60s to the low 70s, which was about the same as the air temps. The overcast skies and minimal water ripples made for good buoy sighting.
In the (.3 mile) Sprint distance, for the women, it was (62-year-old) Linda Green (9:58), Bryce White (10:18), and Teri Johnson (12:46) respectively. For the men, it was Gregory Breheim (9:07), Scott Siemens (14:27), and Mathew Enenbach (14:40) in that order....
