Race Coverage

Lovaas Notches #28, Lendway Stellar...

Sunday, 19 May 2013 03:10

(Photo - Heather Lendway turned in a totally super effort on Saturday.)

Blaine Triathlon - Despite the crappy weather that forced a late start, a number of athletes managed to muscle through the rain, wind and slick, slow-to-zero mph turns and rewrite some records. The overall winners were awesome, each taking gluttonous bites from the CRs. For Brett Lovaas, his 1:09:15 was a flabby 4:30 faster than the men's winning time in 2012. The victory was the 28th of his impressive career.

Last year's Rookie of the Year, Heather Lendway, chewed an even more elephantine-ish chunk --7:05!--from the the previous women's mark on this .3 swim (59-degrees), 16.7 bike, 3.5 run. Her stellar 1:16:30 landed her in 5th place overall and delivered her to the finish line almost ten minutes ahead of the women's runner-up. Awesome performance. Her young career now boasts three victories, one 2nd and three 3rds. Making Team Minnesota in one's second year of racing is a monumental feat. We suspect that there will be a spot on the prestigious Team for Heather at season's end....

When this was written we did not possess complete results. We had enough to discern that at least four of the non-open-class men's AG records went down, the most impressive of which was Tim Brown's 17:25 lowering of the 55-59M mark.

* 00-19M - Mitchell Clayton - 1:27:28 (-3:30)

* 40-44M - James Guenter - 1:23:00 (-1:23 - James also won this AG in 2012)

* 45-49M - Jeff Grebner - 1:12:46 (-1:35 - Jeff also won his AG in 2012)

* 55-59M - Tim Brown - 1:21:30 (-17:25!)

Here are the overall podium finishers:

1. Brett Lovaas - 1:09:15 & Heather Lendway - 1:16:30

2. Jeff Grebner - 1:12:46 & Megan Erlandson - 1:26:06

3. David Phiillips - 1:13:12 (33 seconds faster than 2012 winning time.) & Kjersten Buzek- 1:28:17

UPDATE: We have now received complete results and learned that Gail Smith broke her 2012 40-44W course record