Race Coverage

Size Matters and Uncooperative Hearts...

Thursday, 16 August 2018 23:10

YWCA WOMEN'S TRIATHLON - Isn't it cool that the largest multisport event in Minnesota is a women-only triathlon! We sure think so. With just under 1500 (of 1700+ registrants) finishers, it overtook, though not by much, the Minneapolis Tri for the enrollment title.

Here's some of the competitive takeaways from last Sunday's YWCA Tri:

- CHRISTINA ROBERTS did indeed make good on her favored status, winning for the 4th time. Twas the 21st W of Christina's career, and third win in five tri starts this year.

- In our race preview, we didn't give KELLY TROM (photo L) enough love. Our bad. We predicted that she'd finish 5th behind athletes who historically excel at sprints, suggesting that Olympic and long course racing were Trom'sr strong suits. Kelly placed 2nd last Sunday, her YWCA debut, and we couldn't be happier for her. This woman is versatile.

- CHERYL ZITUR, 53, has for the last five seasons been a record-setting machine. She crushed the 50-54 record by two minutes last weekend, and landed in 4th place overall.

- JENNIFER FITZHARRIS-FUNK needs to race more often! In two tri starts this year, she won the Minneapolis Sprint, then placed 3rd at YWCA. Way to rock JFF! ...

- The race-within-the-race the we were most interested in was the battle between junior standouts MACY IYER, 14, and ISABELLA BUENTING, 15-though only for a few more days. Here's what we wrote in our preview:

'We're ... anxious to see how the battle for teen supremacy shakes out. Will ISABELLA BUENTING, 15, claim that title? Or will MACY IYER? Bella and Macy are two of the three current female frontrunners, along with TAYLOR LUNDQUIST, who is racing at Nationals this weekend, for 2018 Junior of the Year nominations. These girls take turns beating each other. Macy beat Taylor at Lake Waconia. Bella beat Macy at Chisago Sprint. And though Taylor hasn't beaten either Iyer or Buenting, she has raced more often, setting two junior CRs and winning one race outright in overall women's course best time.

We aren't going pick a winner here. We're going to pick two of them. We predict that both of these talented girls will better the race's existing junior course record, which is 1:22:37. And we'd be surprised if either Bella or Macy finished out of the overall Top 10.

Both girls did, in fact, crack the Top 10, Macy taking 7th, and Bella placing 10th. And both torched the old junior record, Macy by 7:28 (!), Bella by 1:55.

Has the race for Junior of the Year become more clear? No. If anything, it's muddier than ever, which is how we like it.

- Four divisional records were set at Lake Nokomis last Sunday, despite the warm, muggy conditions: 00-19 - MACY IYER - 1:15:09 (Prior Mark - 1:22:37), 50-54 - CHERYL ZUTUR - 1:13:51 (Prior Mark - 1:15:51), 70-74 - TERRY SCHMIDT - 1:33:57, 80-84 - JUDY RYKKEN - 2:28:34. We plan to dig into our results archives to see if Judy, who we adore!, is the oldest female Minnesota resident to finish a triathlon. RACE RESULTS

GREEN LAKE TRIATHLON - KEVIN O'CONNOR has been impressing us since we first met him in 1990 at the Springfield Ironhorse Triathlon. The 20-year-old O'Connor placed 2nd that day behind some guy named TIM DEBOOM.

You may have heard of him.

It's 27 years later and KO is still rocking, despite a serious health issue. Here's an email he sent us the day after the Green Lake Triathlon:

"As I came out of the water yesterday my heart went out of rhythm. The Cardiac Arrhythmia I have is Early Atrial Contraction. When I have the episodes (2-4 times/month) they vary in severity. Yesterday's was pretty severe. I had two ablations back in 2012 and '13. Those ablations greatly reduced the frequency and severity of the arrhythmia.

In any case that was my issue yesterday. If it would have been a training day I would have pulled over for 2 or 3 minutes and relaxed to allow my heart to get back in rhythm. It's obviously hard to do that in a race although I may have raced faster if I had done that right away. There are a couple things that trigger the episodes and one of them is being horizontal, face down. Just like when swimming or riding in aerobars. Being vertical or laying on my back helps to get back in rhythm.

It feels like you have bonked and you feel the massive drop in blood pressure (light headed). During the bike my HR was 126 bpm and I averaged 243 watts. At Chisago my HR was 165bpm and I averaged 303 watts. As I started the run I was still miserable and really did not want to finish. I just shuffled along feeling terrible the first mile with irregular breathing and a loud stride. About 1 1/2 miles in I could feel my heart get back into rhythm and I started to feel better. It was just then that I caught a glimpse of David (Holden). Until that point I had given up on beating him. Needless to say I worked hard for the next two miles to catch him.

So you know, Kevin not only managed to catch and pass Holden, a perennial Master of the Year nominee, he crossed the finish line 2nd overall in a new Masters record. In five starts this year, Kevin has podiumed four times, including a big win at Chisago Sprint, and is clearly the current MOY frontrunner.

Not bad for a guy with an occasionally uncooperative heart.

Also, O'Connor had this to say about the Green Lake Triathlon:

..." the race director; he deserves great kudos. Everything about the race was excellent. Venue, water quality, race morning organization, pavement condition, route, community support, number of porta-potties, etc. the race is the perfect showcase for the town of Spicer."

We couldn't agree more. GREEN LAKE RESULTS