A quick congrats to Mareen Hufe, my favorite triathlon pro! She placed second in yesterday's Ironman Asia Pacific in Busselton, Western Australia. I "watched" via TWITTER (@IronmanAsiaPac) between a movie (Catching Fire) and a birthday dinner with the Spices last night.
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| Here She Is: Mareen Hufe in Kona 2013 |
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| Mareen Hufe on the Queen K 2013 |
I had the fortune to meet Mareen in November at IRONMAN Florida. Yoga Spice, Boss Spice, Dirty Spice, E-Spice and I were rehabbing in the outdoor hot tub with our next-door neighbors. We were sharing race stories with them and she told us that in the first few waist-to-chest-high rolling waves of the swim, she feared she had lost her goggles! Fortunatley, she realized they had only slipped around her neck. We made some off-hand comment about the mass swim start (3300 swimmers!) She admitted that she "got to start with the pros". Which meant she WAS a pro. This was the women's pro start:
We saw her later on the beach and she shared her story. She was a tennis player and equestrian prior to her tri career. Amazingly, she was not a runner until 2006! She joined a group of friends for marathon training. She did well and later added the bike and the swim. She became a pro in the past few years and qualified for Kona this year. Unfortunately, she had TWO punctures on the bike and dropped out of the race.
Pros qualify for Kona through a points system. The top 35 female pros at the end of each qualifying year qualify to race in Kona. So, she added Florida to her schedule and told us she was racing Ironman Australia to gain points. We've been pulling for her ever since. Her humility and her sense of humor endeared us immediately. Her amazing iron prowess was icing on the cake. We snooped later at the results and realized that she finished fifth overall in the women's pro division at Florida. Dude! She beat Miranda Carfrae - the World Champion of Kona!
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| Rinnie! She High-Fived Erica at Mile 22 and Signed My Shoe Pre-Race! I think she was getting hitched this weekend to Hottie Tim O'Donnell |
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| I Promise this Story Was Not Just an Excuse to Feature a Picture of T.O. on my Blog. |
Yesterday, Mareen finished second overall in the women's pro division. She finished fourth in the swim in 59:49. According to twitter, she passed the leader in the bike at the 80 mile mark. She finished FIRST on the bike in 4:47:53 with the second place cyclist (Lisa Maragon) more than three minutes behind.
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| The Bike Leader in Ironman Western Australia! |
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| First Out on the Run! |
In the first 10K (6 miles), American Liz Lyles (@lizlylestri) passed Lisa Maragon and closed in on Mareen. At the 11-mile mark, Liz passed Mareen and held it to the finish. Liz finished in under NINE HOURS! (8:59:44) and Mareen finished second at 9:08:00! So amazed by her.
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| Podium Glory |
Keep an eye out in future IRONMAN events for Mareen Hufe! Maybe she'll be an athlete profile right here in 2014!