Splash and Dash Results

Well, when the lead guy doesn't get lost, I'm bound to not win! Ha! Here’s what Curt had to say on Gear West’s website regarding the last Splash and Dash for the year:

The second round of the Splash and Dash was held last night in... can you believe it... BEAUTIFUL weather. After the first round being cancelled due to weather, and the official first round in July had sketchy weather as well. This time we had a park full of 'specators' with sunny skies and temps in the 80s. We had 16 total participants, with 8 men and 8 women. 5 of the 7 participants from the first Splash and Dash returned to compete again. That's a 71.4% participant return rate, speaking to the awesomeness of this event.

Returning champion Steve Stenzel returned to defend his title, as well as single lap record holder Jason Midgarten who was looking to stay on course this time and challenge Steve for the overall. Returning women's winner Suzie Finger was notibly absent, leaving the top women's spot up for grabs with several new women showing up to give it a go.

For the men's race, Jason again used his swim prowess to garner a lead heading into the run, hoping to hold off Steve and S&D newcomer Cliff Owen. Steve ran a 5:48 and Cliff ran a 5:41 to close to within 1 second, but it wasn't enough to overtake Jason at the line who came in in 8:48. The second round was equally as close, with Steve and Jason coming around the last corner neck and neck. Steve put in a burst at the line to cross the "tape" first in 8:50. Adding up the totals, Jason squeaked out the win with a time of 17:39 with Steve 7 (17:46) seconds back and Cliff 11 (17:50) seconds back. All 3 were under Steve's S&D #1 winning time of 18:02.

The women's race came down to a running race, as the top 4 women were out of the swim within 15 seconds of each other both times. Newcomers Tracie Kent and Jen Rife battled it out on the run with Tracie clocking a 6:38 mile to come in first on round 1 in 10:11 to Jen's 10:37. Round 2 was much closer with Jen getting out of the water a little quicker and really putting the hammer down on the run to clock a 6:37 mile. Tracie closed slightly with a 6:35 mile, but finished 5 seconds in arrears. But with the 26 second cushion from the first round, Tracie came out on top with a total time of 20:17 to Jen's 20:38. Rounding out the "podium" was returning competitor Kris Mielke coming in at 22:17.

Afterwards competitors enjoyed leftover Turtleman hotdogs and and watered-down Gatoraid Endurance courtesy of me (Curt) who apparently doesn't know how many scoops to add to 2 gallons of water. I did capture some video and will post when I get a chance.

Here are the official results. This is the only event I’ve been to that’s been timed on a cell phone!! I love it! Oh, and note that the transition time is worked in as part of the swim time...

(Click for a larger graph)

So big congrats to intervals buddy Jen for coming in as the second female, and Kris for taking the third spot! Pharmie did great, finishing as the 5th female, and Beth was just behind her!

The male DNF was someone coming back from an injury, so he only wanted to do the swim. The female DNF was doing her FIRST EVER open water swim as part of this event, and she didn’t want to do a second swim. And I don’t blame her - sure, there were only 16 people out there, but after 50 meters, there’s been no time to spread out and the turn-around at the buoy is pretty nasty! A few of us actually joked about that after the race: in a “normal” race, you might bump into a few people, but you just move on, not knowing who you bumped. This race is so small that you KNOW who you’re colliding with in the water! In fact, Mike supposedly tried to “accidentally” drown Pharmie in the second swim!

Good times. Good. Times.

And a big THANKS to Curt and Gear West for hosting this event, and to his wife for helping with the timing, and to his father-in-law for being on "water patrol" in his boat! I'll be back next year!