Race Coverage

Artificial T-Rexes & Real Loons...

Tuesday, 23 July 2019 23:10

4th BERTRAM BLAST - Last Friday was Africa hot and Amazon humid. Bathing suit weather.

Temps were 30+ degrees lower on Saturday, and rain fell from the sky. Total sweatshirt weather.

Sunday's weather was perfect.

Bertram Blast happened on soggy, chilly Saturday, but that didn't dampen the spirits of the 100-or-so athletes that did the event. That's because off-road racing is less about results than it is about celebrating the outdoors, and whatever it throws at you. Within reason, that is.

Numbers were down, which bummed out race founder / director BRETT ODEN for a while. Then he recalled that his event shared the weekend with five other multisport races, including the Tri Loppet, our state's largest off-road multisport event. 

Ironically, the weather was much yuckier at Theodore Wirth Park than it was at Bertram Chain of Lakes Park, forcing the cancellation of Tri Loppet.

INGRID MELANDER, who is a wonderful person, as well as a total HOOT!, has been doing off-road tris (and MTB races) for a long time. She once drove to Arkansas (or Missouri?) on a Saturday for a race that was cancelled, then considered driving from there to Colorado for a race on Sunday, which would be a sleepless, nick-of-time type of deal. Because she had to work on Monday (she's an Emergency Room nurse), her boyfriend / traveling partner JASON GIDDINGS talked her down. They drove back to Duluth.

In her cool, stream-of-consciousy way, Ingrid described the 2019 Bertram Blast Triathlon: 

Great race...rain, last minute course change, a wee bit o lightening during set-up, tyrannosaurs in the lake....but it’s triathlon in Minnesota. The loons were even calling as we arrived and surveyed the beach and the weather.

Warm water, sandy beach start, and mountain bikes lined up in transition....

I’ve never seen so many kids competing in what we used to think was an adult sport.
It’s my 20th consecutive year doing this so maybe I’m just older....nope these kids are definitely younger. And fast! Do they even feel pain?

Youth is bliss, but i honestly wouldn’t trade the experience and maturity that comes from racing for two decades.
We may not be 20 anymore, but there’s still plenty of race left in us!!
Can’t wait for the next 20 years.
Thanks Bertram Blast for offering such nostalgia to this event....I was one of those athletes racing the Boo Blast back in the day!! Still have my ceramic pumpkin awards!!
As always....it was a pleasure racing ...

The 2019 BB Tri was won by ROSS GOLLA, 40, of Minnetonka, whose time was six minutes faster than his 4th place clocking in 2018, and Xterra veteran / totally cool person NANCY WHILLOCK, 40, of Aberdeen, South Dakota. Whillock also won the women's title here in 2018, and placed 2nd here in 2017.

Ingrid placed 6th in the women's competition.

The companion Bertram Blast Duathlon was won for the second straight year by JON SIGURUD. KAT MCCARTHY shared the Wnners Cirlce with Jon.

Next year's event will feature fully refundable entry fees, and will NOT be staged on the same weekend as Tri Loppet.  RESULTS