Race Coverage

Breakouts & Breakdowns...

Wednesday, 27 July 2016 01:10

TOUGHMAN HALF - Sean Cooley is a balls-to-the-wall racer. He wants to win every race he enters and is willing to bust his hump to make that happen. Sometimes it works, like it did at Lake Waconia, where he took down the men's course record. And sometimes it doesn't, like at Minneapolis where he hammered the bike so hard he paid dearly on the run. Still, he managed a 2nd place finish behind a dude--Matt "Pain Train" Payne-- who hasn't been beaten by a fellow Minnesotan since 2012 and is a perennial USAT AOY HM.

At Toughman in Chisago City last Sunday, Dr. Cooley once again let it all hang out during the bike portion. Despite the headwind on the return portion, he kept his head down and cranked furiously until the end. By that time his leg muscles had turned to oatmeal. The four-minute lead over eventual winner, that pesky Payne, dwindled quickly.

Matt, who wasn't feeling too spunky either, took the lead before the five mile mark of the run.

Oatmeal Legs fought valiantly the rest of the way, but eventually had to settle for 4th. He was overtaken by the event's amateur race record holder, Tim Hola, and Kris Spoth, who raced because last weekend's ca-ca weather cheated him out of a successful 70.3 experience in Racine....

 That Top 4, you must agree, is an All Star cast. FYI, the win was the 47th of Payne's career and his 7th half IM victory.

Twas not a day for mass record-setting. Heat, wind, and a bath-water, non-wetsuit swim saw to that. Still, several athletes, especially in the women's race, set personal bests for the distance, starting with the winner, Erin Hydman-Farrens, who posted a 4:49:07, which lowered her PB by two minutes and change. After a swim split that put her more than six minutes behind the defending champ/pre-race favorite Kelly Trom, Erin went to work. She blew the field's doors off with a bike split and landed her in T2 just a minute behind Trom, who she later caught an overtook. Erin's run split was her gender's 2nd fastest of the day.

Trom held onto 2nd, finishing 59 ticks after Hydman-Farrens.

A PR performance by Sara Carlson (top photo), which featured the fastest women's bike split, landed her, and her signature smile, on the final podium step. Her 4:51:06 was a 3:38 improvement on her prior best. She wanted to break 4:50, and would have done so easily if the water temp had been neoprene-legal.

Other PRs in the Top 10 were set by Tiffany Kari (4:57:14), which placed her 4th; Kelli Moretter-Bue (5th in 5:02:10 - Old Best - 5:12:20 - Florida 70.3) and Meghan Henry (8th in 5:07:20 - Old Best - 5:37:37 - photo R).

One divisional record did get rewritten. Jan Guenther's 5:06:31 lowered Melinda Silbernick's 2006 55-59W mark by 9:09.

As always, Toughman Half was an awesome event. RESULTS