Race Coverage

Stenzel Strikes Again!

Friday, 15 February 2019 23:10

Photo - This pic of Sookie's nails (Sookie is the YWCA's Indoor Tris race director) has nothing to do with this story. It's posted because we think it's cool, and we were unable to get a shot from the race.

YWCA INDOOR TRI #2 - Usual suspects galore, plus enough adventurous newbies, conspired  to push attendance to record levels. This event had 79 finishers in 2018. Very good numbers, eh? Last Sunday, 92 athletes went the distance. Very cool.

Glancing at the results, several things stood out, most notably that masters and grand masters rocked most of the top spots. How cool is it that 61-year-old NICK KOSZEWSKI, pronounced "Koz -shef -ski," we think, won the Sprint race? We tried to find stuff about Nick on the Inter Web and didn't find much, unless he's a biomedical scientist at Iowa State University. If so, he's incredibly accomplished, looks decades younger than his real age, has great hair and speaks German.

Another sixty-genarian, RICHARD DANAHER, turned in the fastest men's time in the Mini, which placed him 4th overall in that event. He finished 5th overall/4th male in last year's February Mini....

The Mini was won outright by veteran outdoor triathlete (though we haven't seen her in a while) LEIGH CURRY, 44, who threw down a 28:19, which is only 16 seconds off the men's race record. Her margin of victory over her nearest rival was 4:26.

Leading the way in the Long race was Sprint course record holder (2018) STEVE STENZEL. A decorated distance runner, duathlete and sprint triathlete (Steve-O's got a need for speed!), he once again won by a large margin, and bettered the winning time here in 2018 by more than nine minutes.

KAITLIN RANDOLPH won the YWCA January Indoor Sprint Tri in runaway fashion. She returned hoping to do likewise in the February Long race. She did manage to win, though not by an outrageous margin. That's because she was lined up against 2018 Long winner MEG KELLY, who has posted multiple victories at YWCA Indoor races in recent years. Kelly hung on for 2nd, just two ticks off last year's winning time.

Randolph is originally from Drummond, Wisconsin and adores cats. Stenzel is originally from Wells, Minnesota, which is a bigger town than you might expect. He enjoys Tommie's Pizza.

TOP 5s:

MINI - 24 finishers - 1. Leigh Curry, 44 - 28:19, 2. Molly Leifield, 45 - 35:10, 3. Marie Rickmeyer, 55 - 36:33, 4. Kate Varns, 47 - 36:53, 5. Richard Danaher, 63 - 36:56

SPRINT - 25 Finishers - 1. Nick Koszewski, 61 - 43:16, 2. Jeremy Wheaton, 47 - 43:55, 3. Anna Kline, 39 - 44:47, 4. Nate Evans, 35 - 45:11, 5. Darren Kuhn, 42 - 45:29, 6. Rachel Lerner, 47 - 46:16

LONG - 36 Finishers - 1. Steve Stenzel, 37 - 44:37, 2. Noah Danaher, 21 - 51:52, 3. Kaitlin Randolph, 28- 52:56, 4. Meg Kelly, 46 - 54:49, 5. Charles Gerten, 23 - 55:30

RELAY - 3 Teams / 7 athletes - 1. Elizabeth Gross, Molly Yokiel, Jill Michel - 58:18