Race Coverage

Ang Unedited...

Sunday, 11 May 2014 00:10

By Angie Hop

KINDA LIKE A RACE REPORT, BUT NOT REALLY - I was thinking about Chain of Lakes the other day, after it was over, and had gotten reporting from Stromberg and a few clowns from Fergus Falls that decided to partake in essentially the tri race opener for Minnesota over the past eleven years.   The race originated in 2003 by Mark Storhaug as a fundraiser for the Alexandria Swim Club, the team I started swimming with in 1979, yes, that is a SEVEN next to the 9, but I was only 8 years old.   My mom’s best friend had a daughter my age and she was a handful, so in order to get her out of her hair and perhaps tire her out a bit she thought she’d sign her up for swimming.   But, she would only agree if I would swim as well.   My mom agreed, wrong the check for $50.00 to the AAU swim club and a swam.  It was like no swimming I was used to.  I went from barely being able to swim 25 yards to being able to finish a 2000 yard workout by August.    Coach Storhaug hit the scene in 1983, took me from a average freestyler to a above average breaststroker.  He taught us how to work hard and to have each other’s backs.  I know no other people ...

in my life that are more loyal to each other than swimmers  are to each other.   Maybe it is the long hours of being along but being together.   The laborious stress of waiting for races.  Working so hard but chronically being fatigued so dual meets yielded little improvement congruent to the work that was being outputted.   The pressure to perform for those one or two most important meets, regionals and state.   As a kid putting all that work in and having it all hinge on a race that lasts only one minute and eleven seconds.   Whatever it was or whatever it still is, those people, my swimming people are still the ones that stick with me the most.   So what does this have to do with COLT?   In January of 2014, Mark Storhaug coached his last meet with the Alexandria Cardinals, and with that an end of a great era.   In 2005 I remember reading about the triathlon in the Lake Region Echo paper in Alexandria, Minnesota, the paper circulated every Tuesday and Friday in town.   My Dad recommended I do it.  I recommended he shut up, I was 175 pounds still two years  after my third baby had been born.   Shortly after this I had a revelation, something was stirred in my to do something about myself, my health, my mood and my life, and as I’ve written previously, I signed up for LTF tri, having two goals, not to be last and to finish in less than two hours.   The next May I signed up for COLT.  Walking into to Discovery pool was exciting.  I never swam there because it wasn’t built before I graduated, I told Heather Lendway this and she replied that she’d swum there many times for meets (her age begins with a TWO).  The record board still displays many of my favorites including Stacey Neidenfuer and Steve Mohabir.   I swam my 600 yards in the pool, biked and ran.  My goals then had progressed to top half of women and to not stop on the run.  The next year I raced well.  I was in the 1:25 range for the course, a good improvement from the year before, after the race I went back to Mom and Dad’s.   A few hours later I got a call from Coach saying, “Hopper, I’ve got a third place age group medal for you here in my office, way to go kid”.   I didn’t go get the medal, but it showed up in my mailbox in Minneapolis that next week, return address of Discovery Middle School, Mark Storhaug.   Coach’s last year directing the race I won it, thanks mostly to my favorite Minnesota girl Michelle Andres, having “something else” that weekend.   I remember her saying to me she couldn’t be there and said, “it is all yours, go get it”….sound like Andres, yes?   I chronical these events for one reason, not because I’m trying to be boastful , because honestly folks, I’m a regular age grouper that likes to do triathlons.   It is about how everything has to start somewhere.  Everything has to start somewhere and most of the time WITH someone.  I’ve seen people that have asked me to help do some pretty cool things over the past two years.  Sometimes they just need some encouragement.   Kind of like what good old Storhauger gave me.  

They celebrated Mark’s retirement in February, of course, one of my boys had a hockey game so I couldn’t attend, but it was a perfect ending to a really great career.   Cheers coach………and I know it is your newest passion, but you will never ever convince me to take up golf, like ever.