What battle shaping up among the top 3 H+P teams! The Millennials are absolutely not going down without a fight, shooting right back up to the top spot after the Masters Men took it from them yesterday. Nick continues to prove he deserves his 2nd placing on the podium, building on his lead over 3rd place. Vicki battled hard, losing just over 40s to her 2nd place rival, but still remains in gold! H+P still has the top 4 teams, and 4 ultimates in the top-10!
RELAY
The parity among H+P’s top 3 teams becomes more and more evident with each stage! Pat Spencer ran an absolute out-of-his-ability performance, hitting 1:09, to propel their team back onto the top spot on the relay podium. On the shoulders of Greg Cartmell’s relay-best 1:01:50, the In-Betweeners bounced back form a point of despair (12 mins back, 3rd place) to 2nd place OA and a mere 2:01 out of the top spot.
Graham Dunn came in with a very solid 1:16:58, highlighted by a documented max HR of 204. This was enough to keep the masters men, who stood atop the podium yesterday, within ~4 minutes of the lead and ~2 minutes of moving up to second. What can the endurance beast, IronLuke, do with these youngens come Friday? This also built on the squad’s dominant performance in pursuit of the event record, gaining another 5:51 and putting the ‘17 team 29:31 ahead.
In the Mixed-1 vs. Mixed-2 battle, Both Anne and Kristin impressed with course PBs of 1:18 and 1:21 respectively- this battle is coming down to the wire! The masters women kept up to these mixed squads on the shoulders of Heather Dixon who came in with an excellent 1:20, closing the gap on Mixed-2 to now sit only 3:02 back. This is going to be one unbelievably tough record for any future masters women’s team to beat!
Kailey Haddock battled hard, but the heat understandably got the better of her. She still dug deep and managed to keep the team within striking distance of the event record set in 2016 and to hold the team’s position strongly in 4th OA.
In the Funatics battle, Julie Guenther posted an amazing 1:36, while Cari absolutely pushed to limit to keep her team alive. Funatics-1 have built up a massive lead (1:13:39), but with their all-star Coffee up next and Andrew ready to crush the marathon, will that lead be enough?
ULTIMATES
Nick posted a stellar 1:05 split, completely solidifying his place as 2nd on the podium. It also ate every so slightly into 2012 Dave as he now holds a 10:35 lead!
On the women’s podium race, Vicki ran another ENDURrun best, posting an excellent 1:11:11. Her closest competitor ran an amazing 1:10:19 to close the gap, but Vicki still sits 1st OA for women! Val Hobson ran yet another ENDURrun best as well, coming in with a 1:14:01 and building on her lead in 3rd OA and over 2015 Val.
Thaddeus Homewood came in with another stellar performance, and only seems to be getting faster with time. He ran 1:11:16 and inched even closer to the top 5! He continues to demolish his 2015 self.
Andrew continues to defy logic and ran a great 1:33, and now sits 24th OA. Will finally crushed 2013 Will with a very strong 1:45:09!
Up next…the most illogical race of them all…CHICOPEE!
