Thanks to Kevin Harrington of A Shot On Site Digital Photography for images from the race. To see the collection in our gallery, please click here.
The Muskoka Chase Triathlon was back for another year on June 17th. The race held in Ontario around 3 hours North of Toronto and 3.5 hours east of Ottawa, is the traditional “season” opening event in Ontario. To some extent it signals the start of summer. Many local athletes come to this event with their A game. With Ironman slots on the line, the competition is fierce drawing some of the best athletes from Canada and the US North East. However, the big ticket on the weekend really is the chase format pro race, this year featuring both 70.3 World Champions Samantha McGlone and Craig Alexander. Muskoka is no stranger to World Champions. The sight hosted the ITU World Championships back in 1992, when the gold medalists were Simon Lessing and Michellie Jones!
Contested over a unique distance of 2K swimming, 55K biking and 15K of running in a non drafting format, the pro women started with an almost 18 minute lead over the pro men, largely based on the previous year’s spread between top female and male. The spread often takes into account the relative seasons the top billed pros have had to date. In the field was local pro Tereza Macel, last year’s winner. On the men’s side, Simon Whitfield was not back, choosing instead to race for the $200K prize purse in the Iowa World Cup, but there was a host of strong Canadian professional content to push Alexander. Fortunately for athletes, the early Ontario summer had come to heat up the chilly Fairy Lake, but on race day, the oppressive Kona like heat and humidity characteristic of this part of Canada in June, held off, yielding unseasonably favourable temperatures.
Once the race started, Tereza pulled out of the water a minute ahead of McGlone and slowly pulled away on the hard technical bike ride. Last year, she used a similar strategy to win. But with the steep hills on the new course, would she have enough run legs to hold off McGlone and the men? McGlone was just off a 70.3 showdown in Honu, Hawaii, with Ironman World Champ Michellie Jones and after beating Jones, had shown that she had some of the fastest legs over middle distance triathlon in the world. The confidence of a 70.3 World Championship last November at Clearwater certainly did not hurt either. McGlone had used her visit to Hawaii to also scout out the course in Kona and spend an extra week after the Honu 70.3 on the desolate lava fields. After this, the lush green forested bike course of Muskoka just felt a lot easier for her. Despite that, someone else found it easier. Macel had grown her lead to 2.5 minutes out of T2. McGlone did have some work to take the women’s race.
Further behind the men were already chasing the ladies. While all eyes were on Alexander, there was no shortage of Canadian Pros, who would do their fair share of the towing in the swim. Up in the lead were Len Gushe, a physician and former top age grouper, still racing pro despite being a master’s athlete. Pulling with him was Jamie Stephenson, a former top 10 finisher at Canadian Nationals. Out of the water, Gushe and Sean Bechtel were up on the road with a small lead over Wolfgang Guembel and Alexander. Wolfgang had won the Peterborough Half Ironman last year and had a breakthrough top 15 at the Disney 70.3.
Although he was several minutes behind Alexander on the bike at Disney, he felt that he was ready to match the World Champ’s bike pace. Emerging from the water in the vicinity of Alexander was a benefit. At Disney, Alexander gapped Guembel in the swim and would enter T2 a “time zone ahead.” In Muskoka, having contact changed things for Guembel. On the return segment of the bike, Alexander and Guembel reeled in an “on form” Sean Bechtel who had already posted a 7th overall at St. Anthony’s in April, and by T2, they had almost caught Gushe.
The women have owned the men in Muskoka for the past two years, but perhaps having Gushe’s torrid swim-bike lead out, provided Alexander with a sufficient carrot to bring the men into T2 in striking distance of the ladies. By T2 they were down by less than 7 minutes on Macel and just 4.5 minutes back of McGlone.
McGlone got the time splits for Alexander. She felt that she needed to have 7 minutes on him to win the chase. However, overtaking Macel was still very much in the cards and holding off the other men was possible. By the turnaround she was in the women’s lead, with Macel fading to a pace >4 min per K. The men were now settling into their final order. Alexander and Guembel had surged passed Gushe out of T2 and were closing on the women. By the top of the hill at 2K, the gap between Alexander and Guembel grew to 100m and despite Wolfgang’s hopes and attempts, he would never close.
On the return toward the finish line in the dual of 70.3 World Champion’s it would be Alexander’s day. He was able to pull off the feat that Whitfield was not able to do for the past two years, which was to cross the finish line ahead of all the women, passing both McGlone and Macel. True to form, the second spot on the podium was claimed by ladies 70.3 World Champ McGlone.
Guembel just ran out of real estate to catch McGlone. Meanwhile Macel was fading back, allowing some more men to move up the standings. Bechtel squeezed by, but she did hold off 2000 Ironman Florida Champ Jamie Cleveland and 2005 Ironman Canada 3rd place finisher Nigel Gray.
We talked to the “pocket rocket” McGlone about what keeps her coming back to Muskoka and it seemed like more of a holiday than work. She replied, “I love coming to Muskoka - my parents and I make a weekend of it and enjoy a little cottage life. It’s a fun format and great to race in Canada since I race mainly in the US now. Mitch Fraser puts on a great event and that is why the pros keep coming back. But now the men have had their turn, let’s get the time spread back up a bit for next year!”
When asked about his breakthrough podium performance just a few minutes behind Alexander, Guembel replied, “I was very happy with this race. I was pleased with every element and mostly with my mindset and my management of emotions and stresses on the body. It was very exciting to test my skills and fitness against two World Champions. It was a tremendous learning experience for me”.
As for the winner, Craig Alexander is simply on a torrid streak of wins and podium performances at all distances. He’s been unbeatable at Clearwater, St. Croix and Disney all at the 70.3 distance. At the Olympic distance, he finished 3rd at St. Anthony’s against short course specialists Matt Reed and Greg Bennett. Rolling back over the past 6 months he’s also posted a 3rd overall 8:38 at his debut Ironman Australia, and going back to the week after his 70.3 World Championship last November, he flew from Clearwater to Canberra to take the ITU Long Course World Championship silver medal on his home soil. Can he compete with Norman, Macca and Faris in Kona in October? We’ll have to wait a few months to see.
With Ironman slots to Lake Placid, Wisconsin and Ironman Canada, a sprint tri and duathlon, over 1500 athletes competed at the various races over the weekend. Race director Mitch Fraser remains committed to the excitement of the chase format as long as his sponsor, Subaru Canada, sees the value in the excitement.
About the Author: Devashish Paul, is a master’s triathlete based on Ottawa Canada. He is a frequent contributor to xtri.com and is also an avid racer and mentor of triathletes. He raced for the 13th time at Muskoka and was 3rd in the men’s 40-44 age group, although as he points out, he really was 5th if you include Dave Harju (9th Pro men) and Len Gushe (11th Pro Men).
Final Race Results, Courtesy www.sportstats.ca
2007 SUBARU TRIATHLON SERIES
MUSKOKA TRIATHLON & DUATHLON
June 16-17th, 2007
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1 02:42:12 CRAIG ALEXANDER
2 03:00:41 SAMANTHA MCGLONE
3 02:44:01 WOLFGANG GUEMBEL
4 02:46:48 SEAN BECHTEL
5 03:04:34 TEREZA MACEL
6 02:47:34 JAMIE CLEVELAND
7 02:48:15 NIGEL GRAY
8 02:50:26 CHARLES PERREAULT
9 02:50:37 JEFF BEECH
10 02:51:05 BRENT POULSEN
11 02:51:15 DAVE HARJU
12 02:51:37 JAMES HADLEY
13 02:51:53 LEN GUSHE
14 02:52:23 JAMIE STEPHENSON
15 02:52:37 R.J. ROSS
16 02:52:55 DAVID SHARRATT
17 02:54:10 DAVID JAMES TACHE
18 02:55:14 GORDON HENDERSON
19 03:13:09 SUSANNE RUSSELL
20 03:13:56 TARA NORTON
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