Mike's Info:

The Elliot Lake triathlon was fun. I felt good for the first hour then fell off the pace a bit, but there was still no place I would rather be - it was a beautiful day in a great part of Northern Ontario and it is a nice friendly race. Sheila and Jan are great - it makes me laugh to watch them compete in every event with a full fuel belt. If they do it in the Firecracker though I think I will have to say something.

I have contacted the organizers for results which are being converted from scribbles to something emailable and will be sent to me shortly. There were 14 individuals (about half of which were from Sudbury!) and 12 relay teams. Kerry Abols was first across the line in 2:12:14, then Mike Caza in 2:14:30 and eventually myself in 2:19:47 - a bit shy of my goal but hey, under 2:20 and more than 5 minutes faster than last year! Also, Dave Welsh from our YTri group finished his first triathlon and when I saw him out on the course he had a big grin on his face like a little kid - fantastic! Only problem was, when I told him to do some overdistance training, he decided to also do some overdistance racing, missing a turn on the bike. The organizers had to go chase him in a van to get him back on course. Classic.

Sheila's Story:

How to come first and last in a race.

Well Jan and I did the Elliot Lake Triathlon on the weekend. How did we do
you ask??? We were first females in. Yep that's right, tied for first
place. Do you believe it??? Who knew we had it in us??? For our efforts
we got our names on a Honk'n big trophy, took both of us to hold it up, had
our pictures taken for the local paper holding the honk'n big trophy and
each received a cheque for $135. Does that mean we've gone Pro just like
Karen B. Here's our story.

We were to run this race as we would the ironman, instructions from Coach
Steve. Do the swim, ride nice and easy on the bike and run nice and easy
stopping every 11 to 12 minutes to drink and take in food as we would at the
water stations in the ironman and don't finish the race just keep on running
cause we had 1:45hr run to do that day. We arrived in Elliot Lake around
8am, registered, told the race director that we probably would not stop at
the finish line but just run through and not to worry about us cause we were
in training for this ironman. No problem he said and wished us a good day
and hoped to see us at the end of our run for hotdogs and hamburgers. We
unloaded our bikes and proceeded to set up in the transition area.
Everything was very well organized for such a small turnout. There were 14
individuals registered and 12 relay teams. So only 26 on the course in
total. The swim started a bit late and as we were in the water, which was
much colder than Muskoka, I noticed that the only other females doing the
race were on the relay teams. I pointed that out to Jan. Hey, all we had
to do was finish and we would be first females in. We did the race as per
instructed, nice and easy through the hills. Mike C and a few others were
finished the entire race when Jan and I came in from the bike. Mike asked
how we felt finishing one of the most challenging bike courses around.
Piece of cake and quite enjoyable when you go at a snails pace we said. I
don't think he knew what our strategy for this race was to be. The water
stations were still up as we ran so we made sure to take their water even
though we carried our own hydration system and thanked them for staying out
so late. As we approached the finish line dead last we were amazed that
there were still people waiting for us, cheering us in. Jan and I crossed
the finish line holding hands so they declared us both first place female
finishers. We apologized for taking so long, but apparently they've been
out longer in other years which was the right thing to say for our egos.
What a great race. The water was cold, the course was hilly but the support
was the best. Amazingly this was the 17th running of this race. All
proceeds were to go to two local young athletes competing in the Nationals
for track and field. The one girl, and I'm sorry I forgot her name, is
competing in the 3000m run and can currently do it in 10:29 but plans on
reducing that time. Can you imagine running that fast? Anyway, upon
hearing that Jan and I donated one of our winnings ($135) to help them out.
I guess that's what all good Pro Athletes would have done. Definitely a
must do race for next year.