Sail Away with Me

It was a beautiful weekend to race and we had some familiar names racing in some familiar places. With just a week to go before Labor Day - and the unofficial close to Summer - I expect we'll start seeing a lot more results popping up.

First, a shout to some of the ladies that ran the Hood to Coast Relay out in Oregon. It makes it hard to parse results when I don't know the names of the teams, but I heard Melissa Tanner's Harvard team pulled off a 2nd place in the Women's Open division. That's quite a feat! Bryn Burkholder was out there racing and I feel bad because I saw her at the food store last night and was pretty out of it, it totally slipped my mind. Sorry Bryn!

Then there was the Annapolis Ten Miler. As I mentioned in the email, the race is still big, but it seems to have slipped a little in its reputation as the area's premier summer event. It's the summertime equivalent of Club Challenge: a tough course in often brutal conditions, and nobody ever wants to run it because of when it is. But it's also known for having great premiums, and a beautiful course through our state capital. We've seen Chrissie finish 2nd as Emily Lipman (I mistakenly said she was 3rd in the email), which was Emily Lipman's first and only race in the area; we saw Ben Ingram struggle to crack 60 minutes the morning after his wedding; we've seen the race canceled (2011) for a hurricane that never came. This year's conditions were absolutely perfect, the race may never be treated to the same day again! Carlos Renjifo won the day in what is sure to be his last race before becoming a dad, in a remarkable time of 53:53. There were something like 20 runners under an hour, which is about twice what it's been over the past bunch of years. Dave Berardi ran 1:01:50 in his first time there since the mid 80s!

I noticed that Max Hacker ran his first marathon down in North Carolina, the Last Chance for Beantown Marathon. The last time I saw Max was on the Club Challenge course workout we did way back in the winter. He made it out for a week's worth of early morning runs with us and then poof, got hurt. He moved to Annapolis (although I believe he's back in Fed Hill) and I assumed he probably wasn't running. Well, whether he's running or not, he ran an unbelievable debut, finishing 3rd in 2:52:11. SANDBAGGER!

Now for this week's Tri Corner:

At the North East Triathlon here in MD, Chris Scott took 3rd in his age group (28th overall) in 2:29:31. Chris has been crushing this year!

REV3 Old Orchard Beach in Maine, now in its second year, has fast become one of Alyssa Godesky's favorite races, and it's not hard to see why - besides being held in an idyllic setting, she races FAST there! In 2012 Alyssa finished 3rd there after a half iron two weeks earlier, and set her distance best. Just a month after an Ironman though, how would her legs respond? Apparently just fine, as she once again lowered her time over the distance, finishing 3rd in 4:46:19. A fast bike split set her up to run her fastest half marathon off the bike (1:34:09) and put her on the podium once more. Then it was time for the lobster bake, another perk of the REV3 race.

And the venue may have changed, but Ironman Canada is still David Lee's jam. Last year there was a changing of the guard and Ironman Canada, held in Penticton, BC, became Challenge Penticton. As a result, Ironman was left without a place to stage the oldest North American Ironman not named Kona. They quickly found a replacement and thus became Ironman Whistler. A beautiful and challenging course plus good weather led David to a great swim (1:04:50 - perhaps his fastest ever?) and a 5:30 bike split. Awesome start to the day, and while our spotter Angela was unable to make it around the course (apparently not spectator friendly) she gave updates when she could. David crossed the line in 10:48:22, which was just 2 minutes outside of his best, set at last year's Canada. David loves Ironman for the challenge, he's really committed it to being a lifestyle. This year has been a struggle for him as work obligations have had him traveling literally all around the world. As a result, hardly any training - certainly not the amount required to succeed at this endurance event. That makes this result even more impressive. Way to go David Bruce Lee!

It was quite obvious that David was going to win the Purple Drink Athlete of the Week after a performance like that!

Oh, and I almost forgot. Collin Anderson ran a short 15k at altitude that was really hard with lots of elevation gain and had a 15 minute mile all out at one point but then on a downhill mile went 5:11 but that's where this guy who is a 4:01 miler gapped him and then he lost by a minute but was still 7 minutes faster than the old course record. The end.

Special KC Masterpiece Award goes to Ed for picking me up on my bike when I was stranded 20 miles away from home on Saturday!