Race Previews

One of Minnesota's Premier Venues...

Monday, 16 June 2014 05:10

LAKE MINNETONKA PREVIEW - With 600+ entrants, the LMT will be the best-attended of the EIGHT Minnesota multis that are slated for next weekend. A consistently outstanding race at a premier venue (Excelsior Commons on Lake Minnetonka), the 11-year-old event is one of a child's handful of races that appears to be impervious to the current trends that affect race attendance, things like long course popularity and that newer triathletes, i.e. those who have come into the lifestyle in the last 6-7 years, race less frequently than their more grizzled veteran counterparts.

Also in LMT's favor is its astonishing recidivism rate. A higher than normal percentage of its participants return to this race year after year.

This is certainly apparent when you look at its list of past champions. Saturday's event will feature eight of them, four men--Brooks Grossinger (2013, 2012), Brett Lovaas (2009, 2006, 2006-BOUS, 2005), Steve Sander (2011, 2010) and Tony Schiller (2008)--and four women--Heather...

Lendway (2013), Jan Guenther (2009, 2008), Sarah Mercer (2010) and Sarah Foley (2005).

The MTN Guys are, as ever, anxious to get to Excelsior Commons on the 21st. It'll be fun to see if our predictions come true.

LMT '14 PREDICTIONS:

- Men's Podium - 1. Brooks Grossinger, 2. Brett Lovaas, 3. Erik Hendrickson.

- Women's Podium: 1. Heather Lendway, 2. Catherine Lee, 3. Christina Roberts.

- Heather Lendway will crack the overall Top 5 and drop the existing women's CR from 1:10:32 (HL in 2013) to the 1:09.

- Jan Guenther will nuke the 55-59W course record by 10ish minutes, from 1:26:55 to 1:15-and-change.

- Christina Roberts mom, Deb, will substantially lower the 60-64W CR.

- Steve Sander will smile and laugh almost contantly and Leslie Englert will not have too much hammie pain.

- Toughest AG? - 45-49 women. Podium: 1. Sarah Mercer, 2. Laura Swartz, 3. Leslie Englert.

If you are not enrolled in this annual classic event, remember that you can enroll in any of the other tris that will take place in Minnesota next weekend.