September/October 2014
Iron Fit Endurance Race Results
(and upcoming group workout information)
There have been many races since my last blog recapping the successful weekend of racing at the Mighty Hamptons on September 7th. Iron Fit Endurance athletes continue to post personal bests and top the podium on various events throughout Long Island and elsewhere! Here are the race results from these events:
Jim Nostrom and Jose Hernandez both competed in the Deep Pond Duathlon and had great races, with Jose posting a 2nd place age group and 9th overall finish and Jim placing 7th in his age group. Frank Fiorello came by to watch the event on a bike ride that day!
Frank had competed in the Lake George Triathlon a few weeks earlier where he placed 2nd in his division!
He then headed down to Key West to compete in the 8-Mile Alligator Lighthouse Swim on September 20th. This was an epic race for Frank. His report told that the conditions were quite rough, however, the biggest obstacle was the jellyfish that they encountered! Two members from his 4-person relay team bailed due to the horrific jellyfish stings leaving Frank and one other teammate to alternate swimming and kayaking the 8-mile swim as a 2-man team! Their support boat even sank while they were out there (unbeknownst to them)! Frank said this was the most grueling event he has finished, swimming at least 4 miles of the 8-mile swim while getting stung all over his body and face by the jellyfish. He said that people were screaming as they got stung, but he just tried to forge ahead as best as possible. This was quite an accomplishment for Frank!
Meanwhile, husband and wife Iron Fit Endurance Team members, Noah and Irene Lam headed to New Jersey for the Newport Liberty half marathon on September 21st. Both had great races on a humid day! Noah will be competing in Ironman Arizona in November and Irene will be competing in the NYC marathon!
Susan Roman headed to Princeton, NJ for the Ironman Princeton 70.3 event. In amazing fashion, Susan posted her 5th PR of the season! Susan PR’d by over 18 minutes in this 70.3, going sub-6:30 for the first time! Susan had a LONG season, and this was the last of the tri’s for her. Her resume for the season included: a PR by over 3 in in the Long Island Half Marathon, an incredible race at Quassy 70.3 followed by a first time Aquabike race (and 2nd place in her division), a PR in Ironman Lake Placid by 1 hour 26 minutes, a PR in the Springs 10K in September, A PR Olympic Distance at Mighty Hamptons by 16 minutes, a PR in Princeton as mentioned and then another PR (topping her 10K PR in September) at the Entenmann’s 10K (in terrible rain, wind and flooded streets)! She also posted another PR (making it her 7th of the season) just last weekend at the Army 10- Miler in Washington D.C.
Simply amazing…
Here is Susan at the finish of Princeton, making it look easy...
We had perfect weather for the Mightyman Montauk weekend of racing!! Being a late-September race, the weather can be unpredictable! We were lucky to have had sun and warm temps for the races this year!
Irene Lam competed in her 2nd Olympic distance event with ease, posting PR! Irene swam 11 minutes faster, biked 4 minutes faster and ran7 minutes faster!!!! INCREDIBLE!!! She is definitely ready to move up to the 70.3 distance next year!
Susan, Jose and I did the half Ironman relay, which was a blast. Susan was our swimmer. After racing the week before in Princeton, she was happy to have “just a 1.2 mile swim” on her plate for the day! I was originally supposed to run and Jose was, of course, supposed to bike. However, I have been dealing with a foot injury (a heel spur) and was not able to run much in the months of August and especially September, so we made a last-minute decision for Jose to run and me bike. Jose and I both had to do some last minute “cramming” for our events being that Jose hadn’t run more than a few miles and I hadn’t biked more than 25 in the months leading up to this! I was pleased with my bike, considering, and was very impressed with Jose’s toughness on the run! We all posted solid times earning us a 2nd place.
Noah Lam completed in the half ironman in prep for Ironman Arizona. He had a PR race by 32 minutes! He has been training hard and will be ready for a great day at Ironman Arizona in a few weeks! Here is a picture of Noah and Irene after the race!
Christa Dwyer, who will be competing in Ironman Florida in a couple of weeks, also posted a PR! She raced 30 minutes faster than the prior year’s race! She swam 2 and a half minutes faster, biked 12 minutes faster, and ran 13 minutes faster! Christa also placed 2nd in her age group at this race proving that she is ready for an incredible first Ironman down in Florida in two weeks! Her husband, Kevin, was there to cheer her on and to take great pics of all of us! He is so proud of Christa, for good reason, and will have quite a day in Panama City cheering her on! In fact, he even followed Christa in his car for support during her last long ride (Christa rode 117 miles that day)!
Our runners have been having great races as well! Husband and wife team Peter and Donna Morandi competed together on the Ocean-to-Sound Relay. They had great races and seemed to have had a blast! Donna will be competing in the NYC marathon followed by the Philly Marathon 3 weeks later!
Frank, Susan and I all competed in the Entenmann’s 10K on October 4th. The weather was rainy (as you can see by the flooded streets) and WINDY! We even had flooding on the streets! Despite this, Susan posted yet another PR! Frank had a bad fall in the beginning of the race, but got back up despite hurting his knee. He still had a solid race. I was able to defend my title, though my time was quite a bit slower. The good news was that I didn’t have pain in my heel while running!
My NYC marathon crew did the Entenmann’s half: Deepak Chopra, Patti Carbonara and Kaitlyn Pearsall all had very strong races, despite the rain, wind and flooding! I had hoped to get pics off all of them as they ran towards the finish, but the monsoon prevented me from doing that!
Here is a pic of Kaitlyn, who will be competing in her very first marathon in NYC!
The next day was the Diva half marathon. Jenn Chopra (Deepak’s wife) finished her first half marathon in incredible fashion! She hadn’t run more than 3 miles when we started up the plan in July! Jenn had an incredible race making it look easy…she looked great doing it too!
In all, we have been rolling along fantastically for season one of “Iron Fit Endurance”! It has been such an exciting season for me seeing all the Iron Fit Endurance jerseys out there training and racing! The many PR’s and podium placements are icing on the cake for me! Thanks SO much to EVERYONE!
It isn’t over yet though! We still have Ironman Florida, NYC Marathon and Ironman Arizona to come! Good Luck to everyone racing this November!
**In other news, I am starting up an “Iron fit Swim” workout on Thursday’s (8-9PM) at Suffolk County Community College in Brentwood! The swim will consist of a workout: a warm-up and stroke work, a “main set of the day” and a cool down. The group atmosphere is hard to beat for a swim workout and I will be there on the pool deck to instruct and push the group! I have over 25 years of swimming experience and over 17 years of coaching experience in swimming. It is one of my passions (along with triathlons) and I can’t wait to get started! Fees are $10 for Iron Fit Endurance athletes and $15 for all other athletes! All levels are welcome!
Happy Training and racing!
Dee