Race Previews

The Andres Bunch...

Thursday, 12 August 2010 05:00

Northwoods Preview - We don't have a picture of Michelle Andres and her family. She has five kids, you know. All boys, we think. Now, imagine that Florence Henderson--Ma Brady--in the photo is Michelle. But imagine her--Florence--with long thick black hair, with discreet reddish highlights, and not a hideous blond shag. Then imagine that Mr. Brady, the guy with the perm in the middle of the shot, is her--Michelle's--husband and that five of the six kids are boys. Pretend the leftover kid is "Debbie," a portrait crasher from Pequot Lakes. (The Andres--pronounced "Ann-drees," not "Ann-Dress," are from East Gull Lake, which is a stone's throw south of Pequot Lakes.) Next, imagine that the older woman in the right corner of the picture is not Alice, the Brady's acerbic housekeeper. Instead, pretend that she's Michelle's spry Aunt Ethel, who is visiting from Minot. That would explain Ethel's helmety hairdo. Lots of older women in Minot have "hair helmets." Usually blue.

What does this have to do with anything?

Not much, except that we believe that Michelle, who is a terrific triathlete in addition to being a very fertile woman, will once again win the totally cool Northwoods Triathlon, the 8th edition of which is this Saturday. Andres has five career wins, three..

of which have been here at NWT. (Okay, "northwoods" in this instance is actually one word, thus the acronym should be "NT.") Michelle owns the women's course record, a 1:05:48, set in 2008. No other girl has broken 1:10 on this course.

2009 champ Christel Kippenhan, who is from Germany originally and speaks with a really cool, and appropriate, German accent, and is a really, really cool person and very good triathlete though 2010 is only her 2nd full season of racing, should give Andres