Race Coverage

A Minnesotan. And Damn Proud of it...

Wednesday, 12 November 2014 00:10

At the behest of the good MTN folk, an all too long IM Florida race report...

By Kyle Serreyn (ky-tri.blogspot.com)

Whenever I tell somebody about a race (and in this case, lots of somebodies), I always wonder if I should tell them exactly how I think and feel, or if I should tell them what I want them to hear. The latter is always more optimistic, the former far more realistic.

Anyway, the race…On Wednesday afternoon, I got into town with my dad (also racing) and my Sherpa (still basking in the glow of her IMOO age group victory). The weather, naturally, was phenomenal in the days leading up to the race. We rode the run course a couple of times, jogged around, did all the stuff that needed doing. On Thursday we all got in the ocean and swam around a bit – clear, warm waters, sunny skies, flying manta rays (seriously) – everything felt good and I was jacked to race....

Fast forward to Friday morning. Scrolling through twitter, found a #IMFL tweet from none other than Steve Mantell, him of national champion speed. I KNEW the start list, forward and back, and I “knew” I was going to win my age group (I know that sounds horrible, but…). Turns out Steve got in to the race in the last couple weeks (along with, it turns out, some dude from Austria with like a 9:12 IM to his name). So I had about 24 hours to adjust my expectations and plan. I really did think I was still going to win the age group, and compete for a very high overall position. More than anything I was excited for the chance to race Steve. READ MORE