Race Previews

Suburban Vegas & the Redneck Riviera...

Wednesday, 02 November 2011 03:00

(Little Blurry Photo - Hilary Patzer riding like an banshee at Silverman '10. Hilary will take on the same course this Saturday at the ITU Long Distance World Championships.)

The majority of Minnesota's multisporters haven't raced since mid-September. There are some, however, who have yet to curtail their racing seasons. A gaggle of Loon Staters will be toeing the starting line in Henderson, Nevada on Saturday at the 18th annual ITU Long Distance World Championships. And an ever larger contingent of our triathletes will be at the 11th edition of Ironman Florida in Panama City, Florida, also on Saturday.

The following Minnesotans will be racing at LD Worlds, which will feature one of the most challenging courses--4K - 180K - 30K--they'll ever encounter:...

* Ruth Brennan Morrey (Rochester) - Nominated for Rookie of the Year and Long Distance Athlete of the Year, Ruth has a shot at making the 35-39W podium. Her stoutest competition should come from Germany's Tina Krone, who was the 2nd amateur female finisher at LD Worlds in 2010. FYI, the Immedstadt (GER) course was very fast. Tina's time was 7:47:01. The fastest amateur woman on Saturday will almost at least nine hours to go the distance.

* Alex Hooke (Rochester) - Alex's LD PRs are 4:04:01 (half) and 9:30:09 (full).

* Diana Koepp (Rochester) - Diane's PRs are 4:54:36 (half) and 11:39:40. (Photo R)

* Joe Moyer (Rochester) - Joe's a 4:20s and 10-hour guy.

* Hilary Patzer (St. Paul) - Having placed 4th in her IM debut at Silverman in 2010, Hilary knows this course. That's a good thing.

* Josh Riff (Edina) - Winner of three halfs in 2010, Josh's LD personal bests are 4:07:59 (half) and 9:25ish (full). His AG (35-39M) will be the toughest in the men's amateur field, featuring San Fransisco-based Fin, Sami Inkinen, who was victorious at Wildflower and Hawaii 70.3 (8:58:59 at Kona, too!) and perennial LD star Tim Hola of Highlands Ranch, Colorado.

PREDICTIONS: Ruth Brennan Morrey will crack the women's amateur overall Top 10 and podium in her AG. And though he may not podium in his AG, we suspect that Riff will avenge his sub-par effort at TriStar 111 with an overall amateur Top 10 finish on Saturday.

PRO PREDICTIONS: Sure, we don't usually write about the pros, but we'll make an exception here, cuz we really like Craig Alexander a lot. We believe that Crowie, who won 70.3 Worlds on a variation of this course, and is coming off his 3rd Hawaiian Ironman World Championship win, will record his THIRD World Championship victory of the 2011 season, and that Leadman winner Jordan Rapp (US) and 2010 LD World Champ Sylvain Sudrie (FRA) will round out the men's podium.

Caroline Steffen (SUI), Leanda Cave (UK) and Erika Csomer (HUN) are our our best guess to be the Top 3 pro women.

MTN also salutes the Minnesotans who will be taking the 140.6 challenge in Florida on Saturday. They are:

Lori Dixon, Scott Eerickson, Jeff Flake, Don Geer, Jeff Groffsky, Chris Guertin, Caroline Hale Colddwell, Brian Hanson, Charley Hausman, Andrew Henderson, Danielle Ingram, Darrin Johnson, Brian Kelly, Matthew Kennedy, Jeffrey Kluge, Michale Koetting, Doobie Kurus, Devon Palmer, Sue Rubens, Josh Smith, Arnold Strebe, Luke Twedt, Hans-Jurgen Van Heteren Freeze & Ray Woodworth.

PREDICTIONS: We're picking Sue Rubens to podium in the 45-49W category. On her last visit to Panama City she placed 3rd in the 40-44W category in 10:14:41. Whoa!

We also believe that St. Paul pro Devon Palmer, who popped a 9:04 in his first IM at Arizona a year ago, will post a time in the 8:40s.

PRO PREDICTIONS: Alabama's Jessica Jacobs will repeat as the women's champ. She'll be joined in the Winners Circle by Dirk Bockel of Luxemborg.