TREADMAN Re-cap

Finally, here's a recap of how the 2009 Treadman Duathlon went for me. I think this has to be one of the toughest bike courses in a short to olympic distance multisport race. Congrats to all who conquered it. I think there were very few DNF's too.

A usual, the race started pretty fast. Jesse Nelson and Brent Sinn pushed a pace of around 5:30-40 or so. I was running along side Mederic Hall, who has a Garmin GPS, so I asked what he thinks he'll run at--he said around 6 so I stayed there. About halfway thru run 1, Joe Moyer came along side us. He said he's doing around 5:45. That may have been what he was at as he caught us. Anyway, we hit a little gravel section then on to the Douglas Trail for 1.4 miles of straight blacktop path to finish the opening run. About a quarter mile on to the path, Mederic trailed off from us, but not too far behind. Joe and I finished run 1 in 20:16 (6:09 pace). It was easy to count where we were--we were 8th and 9th in the run and hit the bike course as such.

I knew he'd get a couple minutes up on me--and set the fastest bike time, so I just went at my own pace knowing better than to try to keep up with Joe. He didn't push too hard for a little while as I could see him for most of the race--getting smaller and smaller. I knew there were only 8 in front of me. I caught the first guy at about mile 5, second at mile 7, one here, one there... My plan to ascend Genoa Hill was conservative. I went into the little ring up front and the big cog in the back (easiest gear) and just spun up the hill. I didn't want to exhaust myself with 9 miles of road to ride and another 3.3 mile of running to do. Once I got up the hill, I settled in and upp'd the intensity a bit. I eventually caught and passed both Jim Hannon and Jesse Nelson within the last 4 miles of the bike course. I knew this would be short lived as they can both out run me in their sleep, but it was fun to log a faster bike split. I ended up hitting T2 in 3rd overall (and posted the 3rd fastest bike split of the day). Mark Carey was there and yelled "Joe's only two and a half minutes up, you can catch him!" I was thinking.... no, I probably can't. Words of encouragement are always nice though.

Only Brent Sinn and Joe Moyer were ahead of me as I enterd T2. Jesse and Jim were right on me though. In fact, Jesse actually passed me in transition, getting in and out in 19 seconds. I was over 30 seconds in T2. So by the time I hit the trail for the final run, I lost a spot and was in 4th. I felt really good going out. The distance between Jesse in front of me wasn't increasing very much. However, Hannon passed me at 1.4 miles in as I could feel myself slowing down. It wasn't long before Jason Sinnwell passed me. He went on to set the fastest split for run 2, but he wasn't able to catch Hannon. After Jason passed me, I could see back quite a ways and didn't see anyone. I almost wish I had because that would have pushed me a bit. Instead, I slowed down slightly. I knew I wouldn't catch the any of the four J's ahead of me (Jason, Jim, Jesse, or Joe). I figured Brent was going to win as I didn't see him out on the road with a technical or anything like that. I settled in to a pace that hurt, but wasn't unbearable. I finished 6th overall and was 1st in age 35-39. Jeremy Ekman took 2nd in our AG and 3rd went to Todd McCallum of Sioux Falls. The top 10 overall were:

1. Brent Sinn (third straight T-man win, pictured below)

2. Joe Moyer

3. Jesse Nelson

4. Jim Hannon

5. Jason Sinnwell

6. Mario Minelli

7. Jim Robb

8. Brendan Dolan

9. Mederic Hall

10. Julie Hull (1st female)

FULL RESULTS by clicking THIS.