Triathlete of the Year!

Last Saturday was the annual Minnesota Multisport Association awards presentation.  This year I took home 3 of them!

This was the 5th year in a row I've been nominated for some sort of post-season award, but the first time I've ever actually won one.  Back in 2011 I was nominated in 4 different categories and still scored the goose egg.  I did however leave that night with 4 pairs of Minnesota Tri News socks, which were apparently a consolation prize for setting the record for the most nominations with zero wins.

To be fair those are some really bitchin' socks, and they make regular appearances on my feet to this day.

Still, sock quality aside, it's really cool to be recognized like this and bring home some hardware, so huge thanks to the folks in charge of handing these things out!

So here are my personal breakdowns of each category I took home:

Triathlete of the Year

I was up against Kevin O'Connor, Marcus Stromberg, Sean Cooley and Brooks Grossinger.  This one seemed pretty cut and dry since I raced all of these guys head-to-head at various points during the season and came out ahead each time.  Still, this is an outstanding group of guys and to even be listed among them is an honor.  To actually be singled out of the group for an award is beyond cool.

Long Distance Athlete of the Year

This one was a genuine surprise.  The other nominees were Michelle Andres, Dianne Hankee and Emily Kratz, all 3 of whom had outstanding results at the full-iron distance.  I, on the other hand did 4 half-irons which ranged from outstanding (New Orleans), to pretty-good-but-far-from-perfect (Liberty), to "meh" (Chisago), to a total shitshow (Vegas), plus my first foray into longer than half-iron racing, in which I showed up injured and made most every long-course rookie mistake possible but still bumbled my way to an OK result (Leadman 250).

If I had a vote I would have given it to Michelle.  I'm guessing there was a fair amount of disagreement on the committee regarding this one.  It will be interesting to see the reasoning behind my selection when it's posted on MTN later this week.  My personal guess is that I squeeked ahead simply because I raced more often.  Whatever the reason, my name is now engraved on the thing so I guess I'm keeping it!

Performance of the Year

Kevin and I each had 2 nominations in this category.  For me it was a 4:05 at New Orleans 70.3 and a 1:53 at BOUS.  For Kevin it was a 4:07 at Pigman Half and a course record win at Liberty Olympic.  Since neither of us raced head-to-head at any of the aforementioned races this one is about as subjective as it gets and I think a valid argument could be made for any of those performances.  I ended up taking the award for my race in New Orleans, which ironically I went into feeling completely under-prepared with correspondingly low expectations.  Just goes to show that how you feel in the days/weeks leading up to a race does not necessarily correlate to how well you do in said race.

Well, that's all I've got.  I'll just leave you with this sweet picture of my ass.