THURSDAY

The Ironman finish today came down to a hair. To the victor's relief, Brendan has no upper body strength and Matt still easily vaulted the wall, finishing in 13:35, by far the fastest time of any individual competitor this week.

Otherwise from the photo, one might think it was a close race.

As expected, the Triathalon (yes- spelled with an "a") club coed team and Triathlon Club (this team captain used spell check) men's team won overall. The men's team had less than 10 minutes rest between heats this afternoon and finished in 13:03, a bit behind the 12:47 that they ran earlier in the day. The 13:03 was good for second place, but to be fair I'm pretty sure the 12:47 stands as the fastest time on campus all week.

Jen tried to stall the swim start for the coed final as long as possible, pretending to lose her goggles and faking an asthma attack. An irritated lifeguard eventually started the race. In the end, the team still managed to come in just over 13 minutes (13:03). Barry had to complete 18 near consecutive laps of the bike course, with a brief interlude to be pulled over the wall.

Individually, Jen had a very fast swim for the Ironwoman final as well; finishing some 20 seconds ahead of Karin. Kelsey finished right in between the two, after one of the most efficient wall climbs of the week. Her wall man deserves a cookie. He also did a very good job of holding her bike. The times are somewhat hard to read for the women's final (in the 30 minute range)because an ambulance and firetruck had to take the least direct, most congested route to Buchannan. The girls were left to shiver in wet bathing suits and were only allowed back on the course after a 15 minute delay with 1 or 2 laps of the bike route left to be completed. Victoria finished second overall, a minute in front of Jen.

Although from Jen's smile one might think it was still Monday preliminaries.

Also finishing the individual finals, John (14:52) and Drew (15:25) ran their fastest races of the week and are relieved that the previously mentioned bark-mulch-in-Speedo contest was called off at the last moment.

All REC volunteers and wall men deserve a huge thank you after this week, they put in just as much time as the competitors but end up being in far less photos.

This gives Matt three victories for the week and a lot of new T-shirts in his wardrobe. He was seen headed to Ikea immediately after today's last event to buy additional hangers for his closet and a really fancy iron. A photo of Matt is also the current leader in the Storm the Wall photo contest, although it will be the photographer who gets the real credit. So Matt still has a very good chance of winning 4 events this week. Needless to say, it has been a good week for the club President. Nathaniel points out that he is still a worthy leader as he beat Matt in the 2010 final, by nearly two minutes if he can recall correctly. As club president, Nathaniel will be expected to win at least 3 or 4 events for the 2013 edition of Storm the Wall.