Thompson cruises to fourth straight tri title

 Editor’s Note: To find the full half-triathlon results, please visit www.itiming.com. Due to space constraints, we’ll only highlight the winners and local competitors in this space. Full sprint triathlon results begin on this page and run through page 16. Men Has one man ever made such a grueling test look so easy? St. Paul’s David Thompson won his fourth straight Chisago Lakes Triathlon, breezing to the finish line over six minutes ahead of his closest challenger, and he had a smile on his face as he did it. Thompson again set a blistering pace early among the group of 379 competitors, and no one was able to catch up to him throughout the four hour race. He was first out of the water, finishing the swim in 25:09, over a minute faster than the second place paddler. Without the riff raff around him, he transitioned to the bike seamlessly, his strongest event. Thompson, of Gear West in Long Lake, MN, kept a 25.2 mile an hour pace during the 56 mile ride. He completed the portion in 2:12:55, fastest on the course by almost three minutes. With a sizable lead heading into the run, Thompson knew he could just run a solid pace and hold off the competitors behind him. He kept a 6:12 pace on his mile throughout the winding 13 mile course and finished in 1:21.21, giving him a total time of 4:00:59, besting last year’s time of 4:05, but nowhere near his personal best of 3:45 a few years ago when he had competitors pushing him throughout. It came in from the course that Thompson had even walked a complete mile during his last leg.

Dan Hedgecock of Minneapolis finished in second place, moving up from his third place finish last year, in a time of 4:06:19. Women The final jump was the most satisfying for Ruth Brennan-Morrey. After finishing in third place last year among women in the Chisago Lakes Triathlon, Brennan-Morrey finished the job this year, winning the race in 4:25:55. Due to a problem with her chip, the Rochester, MN natives splits weren’t recorded. She bested a field of 149 women in the field and was 11th overall in the event. Jackie Arendt, who won the event two years ago, finished in second place in 4:33:19 Local Runners The top local runner this year was Chris Judson of North Branch. The 36-year-old finished the event in 4:54:10 in 48th place. He was sixth out of 73 finishers in the Male 35-39 Age Group. Judson performed well in the biking and the running, finishing in 47th overall in the biking and 45th overall in the running. Thomas Krenz, who had been the top local finisher the past few years, still performed well, finishing in 4:56:45 in 56th place at the age of 51. Krenz, of Chisago City, killed the swimming. He finished the 1.2 mile swim in 29th place in 31:40. He continued to perform well on the bike, pedaling to a 22.7 mile per hour average and a 33rd place finish in the leg. But Krenz started to struggle a bit in the running portion and he finishin it in 1:54:01 in 121st place. Still, Krenz finished in second place in the whole tri in his age division, a heck of an accomplishment for the local resident.

Other local runners include Aaron Wilson of Forest Lake finishing in 5:17:22, Jon Lauritzen of Chisago City in 5:59:11, Jake Lewis of Chisago City in 6:49:58, Jill Timm of Center City in 7:04:43, Craig Timm of Center City in 7:04:44, Joe Virga of Lindstrom in 7:12:20, Mark McCollough of Forest Lake in 7:20:01, Tim Chisolm of North Branch in 7:51:22 and Brad Nye of Lindstrom in 7:51:24 In the relay triathlong, a few local teams performed well. Jim Gillach, Ben Lewis and Eric Stang finished in 4:59:43, Jack Lundberg of Chisago City, John Renaker of Lindstrom and Dan Charpentier of Scandia teamed up for a finish of 5:24:56, Nicole Groschen, Dena Johnson and Bryan Koch, all of Lindstrom, finished in 5:54:17, and Sarah Button of North Branch, Dani Neilson of Forest Lake and Abigail Trowbridge of Lindstrom finished the race in 8:15:15.