Sunday, August 16, 2009 8:47 PM CDT
Kentucky newcomer, Charleston three-peater rule triathlon
By BRIAN NIELSEN, Sports Editor
bnielsen@jg-tc.com
MATTOON — Good news was also a warning sign for Saturday’s Lytle Park Triathlon competitors.
“When I looked at my bike speed I thought ‘oh, we’re in trouble on the way back,’” Cindy McGrady said.
Yeah, the wind blew the same way throughout the 12.5-mile bike ride meaning the triathletes’ second half of that segment was into the wind on the way back south into Mattoon.
The idea was to make the most of the good times.
“I had a good bike especially with the tail wind,” John Baker said. “It was a little hard coming back.”
By the time Baker was going into the wind he had a good command on his was to a record time and victory in his first attempt at the Lytle Park Triathlon.
The 41-year-old from Paducah, Ky., finished in 54 minutes, 41.70 seconds for the 300-meter pool swim, 12.5-mile bike and three-mile run to top the record of 55:41.35 set last year by Champaign’s Martin Gruebel, a 45-year-old who finished fourth this year in 58:02.75
McGrady of Charleston now has won the women’s championship in all three of the Lytle Triathlons, this time finishing in one hour, 34.9 seconds to beat her last year’s winning mark by more than a minute.
For both champions, this might have sounded like a sprint.
McGrady was coming off the previous Sunday’s Mattoon Beach Triathlon women’s title in an Olympic distance race although with the wind’s help, this Lytle event became a challenge in itself.
“The swim went well,” the 37-year-old Charleston competitor said. “The bike was hard. I did an Olympic distance last week. I kind of thought this would be easier and it wasn’t.”
Baker, meanwhile, considered Saturday a good tune-up for this weekend’s U.S. Triathlon nationals at Tuscaloosa, Ala.
In his tune up he recorded the day’s second best 300-meter swim of 4:22.4, fastest bike of 31:43.0 and third fastest three-mile run of 17:38.75.
Aaron Smith, a Charleston High School senior, was the fastest in the water with a time of 4:15.20.
Mattoon’s Adrian Rodriguez had the fastest three-mile run of 16:50.25 on the way to placing second overall but he could not make up the lead Baker built on the bike.
Still, while Rodriguez’s 57:17.60 overall time was 2:36 behind Baker’s win, the 31-year-old runner-up is enjoying considerable success in just his second year competing in triathlons.
“I was a runner in high school,” said Rodriguez, who moved from San Diego to Mattoon about five years ago and now works at Anamet Electric. “For 10 years I didn’t do anything. I got overweight and the triathlon was always something I wanted to do. It really transformed my lifestyle and physical ability.”
Looking at the age and experience difference, Baker said, “Before long he’ll be ahead of me.”
Other up-and-comers might be two friendly high school rivals from Coles County both heading into their senior cross country seasons.
Mattoon’s 17-year-old Blake Flood won the male 19-and-under division with a time of one hour, 13 seconds and finished sixth overall.
Trailing Smith by 29 seconds after the swim, Flood made up that difference and more with a 35:21 bike that ranked 10th best among all entries and then finished with the day’s fourth best three-mile run of 18:03.20.
“It felt good,” said Flood, a member of Mattoon’s 4x800-meter relay team that finished ninth in last spring’s IHSA Class 3A state track finals. At the end my side was killing me.”
“It’s fun to get a little competition now. It gets you excited for cross country.”
Smith earlier this summer ran for an American track team in Australia in a tour sponsored by Down Under Sports and won the steeplechase not that that helped his biking on Saturday.
“A triathlon isn’t at all like cross country,” Charleston’s All-Apollo Conference cross country and track runner said. “It’s a different muscle group than I’m used to. I’ll admit I didn’t do as much training in the bike and swim as I should have.”
Another young local winner was Charleston’s 12-year-old Grace Oetting, who won the female 19-and-under division in 1:24:24.
McGrady was the overall female champ by a 5:55 margin over runner-up Kc Diedrich, who won her 30-34 age division in 1:08:29.
“This is a really fun race,” McGrady said. “It’s a great triathlon for people getting started.”
Contact Brian Nielsen at bnielsen@jg-tc.com or 283-6856.
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