Race Coverage
Some Serious Wipeouts...
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Friday, 01 March 2013 00:10
By Norm DePlume
The fourth annual BeMobile Iceman Triathlon took place on February 23 in the border towns of Grand Forks, ND, and East Grand Forks, MN. The event - actually a 'quadrathon' as it includes a final sledding leg - presented a real challenge for the 100+ athletes in attendance. It was particularly grueling for solo competitors who were forced off the beaten track for some portion of each leg - skiing, biking, and running. In fact, course director Andy Magness called this year's event the toughest yet, saying that "we had more snow this year than ever before so the run in particular was a tremendous challenge, and even though shortened a bit took all the racers significantly longer than in previous years". The ski and bike sections were equally difficult with the ski being host to "some serious wipeouts" and the bike including "brutal pushing for those unfamiliar with proper snow riding techniques", quipped Magness.
Sean Cooley (photo), a med student at UND, took the win in the Yeti category (male solo racer) again this year with a time of 1:25:17 - his third straight stint as champion. The women's Yetiess category, the deepest ever in the races history (with 11 solo female racers) was won by newcomer Bryn Putbrese with a time of...
2:20:01. The first Minnesotan in was David Jensen, reaching the finish line in fifth place with a finishing time of 1:40:34. The winner of the "Glacier Award", for longest time out on the course without a DNF went to Charlie Christianson who perservered to finish in just over three and a half hours.
"Being that the event takes place in both Minnesota and North Dakota, we are encouraging the development of a rivalry between the states," says Magness. "I always hear about how deep the triathlon talent runs in MN", he continues, "and how Minnesotans possess this sort of north-woods toughness, but thus far the event has been pretty much dominated by athletes from North Dakota. I'm almost ready to wager that Mr. Cooley is unbeatable in the event." And while Minnesotans have been quick to argue that their lack of participation is because the event falls on the same weekend as the hugely popular and long running American Birkebeiner race, Magness assures that his organization has already planned to remove this excuse from the table in 2014 by making sure that conflict doesn't exist.
