From Henry Hauenstein:
Pete…22 miles, and you had a great pace! Great to see everyone at Hinckley…..Ken, Paul, Matt, Terry, Julie H. and Jon….(new to the team) Great showing by all…everyone placed!! I ended up 1st in my age group, happy with my run…even without a warm up, maybe thats why it hurt so much! The bike was difficult with the wind, but at least there was no snow/rain. Looking forward to seeing everyone for the training rides and up-coming races. Spoke to Gregg from Champ Racing and he is still trying to put another Tri together at Lake Milton or near there.

From Julie Healy:
Hinkley Duathlon today
Julie Healy – 1:41 – 2nd female overall

Jon Fike – 1:33 – 2nd male in age group

Course was hilly as usual 🙂 but the WIND! Oh my the wind! It was crazy. At one point I was riding 30 miles an hour down hill with the wind coming at me/to the side of me and I honestly do not know how I didn’t fall over! Overall – other than the wind… great weather, great people and a fun event as usual.

From Matt Geis:
Re: Racing Weekends
Pete – Run like fox buddy! We all have a story of being off course a bit!

Participated in the Buzzard DU/BI this morning – as did many other Team ER members braving the 30 mph wind and cold.

Ended up taking 4th overall and 1st age in the BI. Went with the road bike today knowing it was a hilly course and wasn’t about to get caught in the side ways wind gusts with the full disc. Went in with the goal to 7:15-7:30 run splits – ended up with an ave of 7:45 – considering the hills I was pleased. Made up ground on the bike and had some fun figuring out how to deal with the wind.

Overall the times were slower than last year with the challenging conditions.

Maybe one of these days Hinckley will be kind and offer up a plate of 70 degrees and sun.

Safe racing to each of you! — MRG

From Pete Finnerty:
Racing Weekends
First off, I hope those who competed at the Buzzard Duo had an awesome time. I took this weekend off from racing to get some rest and ready myself for the weeks coming up! I forgot to get this out last week but here goes.

On Saturday April 9th I ran the Jackson Laughs 25k, a benefit race for the Fragile X Foundation. Race morning I was feeling pretty good and pumped to keep a steady pace for the 15.5 miles ahead…if only I knew at that time I would be running a bit more than that. I saw Chrissy at the start, she said she was running the 5k, hope you did well! The race started off at Dix Stadium in Kent and would take country roads and the Portage Bike and Hike, it was a beautiful course passing by several lakes. I ran behind the leaders pack for the first mile or so and then they took off.

I was running with a couple others and was keeping a good pace around 6:45-7. Around mile 10 or 11 we ran back through downtown Kent and I figured there would not be many more miles to go. As I ran down Franklin St I noticed a road I usually ride down during the summertime but saw no signage or direction to turn that way. Later I would find out there was supposed to be someone there telling us to take a left turn….so I kept running forward as did a few of the runners ahead of me. We kept running and after a while I was starting to wonder where we would turn back to Dix Stadium.

That turn did not come and I ended up past I-76…realizing I must have taken a wrong turn I slowed down to ask some of the other runners where they thought we were. We then had to ask a driver how to get back because we were “way out in the country”. I began to find my way back and found a couple more runners who had lost their way. This one guy who had never ran further than a half before had paced himself at 6:15 and was ready to pass out, poor guy. He got a ride from some support staff when they found us jogging along the road. I told them I wanted to finish my race so I created my own way back and finished at 2:32:59 but found out I had ran 22 miles instead of 15.5. I wasn’t mad though, it was a great training run. Actually a perfect run for the Pittsburgh Marathon coming up. So you know you’re a runner when those situations occur and you just say, “no big deal”.

On Sunday I competed in my last swim meet of the season in Medina and the first time I had competed in a meter pool. I apparently finished first in my age group for all my events and received some cool ribbons (not sure if there was anyone in my age groups). My times were as follows: 200m free-3:06:76, 50 fly-44:09, 50 free-35:85, and the 100 IM-1:48:36. Hopefully I can bring those times to some great splits in tri’s this summer. Great times with the Kent Master’s group as well. And since the day was beautiful I had a great 50 mile ride in the afternoon. Happy training everyone.
be well,
Pete