Race Previews

Lucky 13...

Friday, 19 August 2011 03:00

* Pigman XIII Preview - This iconic half launched in 1998 amid hot, humid and windy conditions; climatological circumstances that have been in place more often than not for the subsequent dozen executions of this event. Let's hope that Sunday's weather is different; let's hope that it resembles the perfect racing conditions that our region's athletes enjoyed last Sunday.

The inaugural Big Pig was won by former Minnesotans Jared Berg and Christie Orris, both of whom have long ago relocated to Colorado...

Jared's initial CR--4:19:08--has ultimately been lowered by more than 20 minutes, courtesy of six-time champ David Thompson, who hopes to better his two-year-old 3:58:17 on Sunday. A win for DKT will be the 71st of his career. ruth

Orris turned in a circumstantially remarkable--it was a hellaciously tough day!--4:56:15, which landed her at the finish line more than 15 minutes ahead of her closest challenger. Since then, Utah pro Malaika Homo (Malaika is pronounced "Meh-lyka" and means "Angel" in Swahili) has popped a 4:35:35 ('06). And Jan Guenther's amateur record, 4:40:14, was set back in 2000, when weather conditions were uncharacteristically accommodating.

The MTN Guys became extremely excited when we perused Pigman XIII's start list. If you read Thursday's post, you know that we are already wearing Depends. So excited are we to see how Minnesotans fare at Nationals tomorrow, we are afraid that we'll pee our pants. After seeing Big Pig's 800ish participant start list, we resolved to wear the adult diapers a day longer than we had originally planned.

Why are we so goshdarned excited?

Have you seen Pigman's women's field?

Past winners Cathy Yndestad (2009), Kortney Haag (2009) and Julie Hull (2007) will be there. So will Rookie of the Year frontrunner Ruth Brennan Morrey (photo R), who placed 3rd overall in her first half at Chisago last month. Sarah Mercer, Suzie Finger, Hilary Patzer and Joanna Hall are also registered.

Leading the way for the non-Minnesotans will be first-year pro Tami Ritchie of Ankeny, Iowa.

Gee, what's NOT to get excited about?

As for the guys, DKT will be pursued by Oklahoma's Main Man, Chuck Sloan, a former US Duathlete of the Year and podium finisher at Tri Nationals;