Race Coverage

Resultsy Stuff...

Saturday, 21 May 2011 15:19

(Photos - L - Judi and Vicki. Vicki won the women's duathlon this morning. Judi was going to race, too, but she's got planetary fascism, or something like that, which makes her feet hurt a lot, so she decided not to. R - We didn't have a picture of men's winner, Nathan Hoffman, so we did the next best thing: post a picture of awesome actor, Philip Seymour Hoffman.)

*Green Lake Duathlon Capsule - A race doesn't have to be big to be totally good.

There were only 51 finishers at the totally good 2nd annual Green Lake Duathlon this morning, which was totally good despite being contested in gray and wet conditions, though the gray wasn't as .. angry-gray, nor the wet nearly as drenchy as in 2010 when a bolt of lightning scorched a tree across the street from the venue.

And the 2010 race, whose start had to be delayed 70 minutes, was totally good too.

Why?

Like the Green Lake Triathlons, the eight edition of which will be on August 13-14, the du is a race with a big heart, great courses, helpful volunteers and an amazing post-race banquet. It's an event with rural charm and amiability produced by people who care deeply about the happiness of their participants. This feeling is palpable, like Vaseline Intensive Care lotion.

The men's race was won in dominant fashion by Annandale's Nathan Hoffman, a 28-year-old former collegiate runner with a wife, two kids, an art degree and two jobs, one with his father's construction company and another which, we're not making this up, makes custom urns and coffins. He's gotta be the fastest urn and coffin-making construction guy in Minnesota, don't you think?

The women's race was won by the insanely blond, spikey-haired coach / personal trainer / tri apparel retailer, Vicki Ostendorf, whose many, many friends know as "Vicki."

On Tuesday we'll post the race story by a newspaper guy from Willmar.

FYI, when you check out the RESULTS, you'll note that the splits are totally weird. That's because they were computed on last year's distances (R-2.5-B-17-R-2.5). This year's race consisted of two three miles runs bracketing a 13.5 mile circuit of beautiful Green Lake.