The top two finishers at the 27th annual St. Albert Triathlon have strong local connections to the race.
Ian Elm placed first overall in the sprint distance (750-metre swim, 20-kilometre bike and five-kilometre run) in one hour, two minutes and 16 seconds and Adeline Maunder was the runner-up at 1:05:12 on Sunday morning.
“I’m a Sturgeon boy so this is kind of like home to me. It’s like having home-court advantage,” said Elm, a former Sturgeon Composite High School teacher. “I really like this race. I know some of the people that put it on (with the St. Albert Road Runners and Triathlon Club) and they do a very good job year after year. I try and come back whenever I can because I have a lot of fun at it and it’s a really good family fun race, which I really like.
“It’s also a tough course. It’s hilly so it burns the legs. It separates people.”
Maunder, 20, is another avid supporter of her hometown triathlon.
“I’ve always loved doing this triathlon. It’s awesome,” said the Paul Kane High School graduate who started in the sport with the St. Albert Kids of Steel. “I’ve done this 10 times at least. I really like this course.”
Overall, 70 males and 68 females completed the race, compared to 192 triathletes last year.
Aidan Paetsch (1:05:32) of Edmonton and Riley Stuermer (1:05:39), a Grade 12 St. Albert Catholic High School student, placed third and fourth, respectively, as a pair of U19 competitors and Marshall Kronewitt (1:07:19) of Stony Plain was fifth.
In the women’s division, Ashley Zutz (1:09:24) was second for 10th place overall, Tari Kelly (1:12:22) of Sturgeon County was third for 16th place, Michelle Spadafora (1:12:44) was fourth for 17th place and Andrea Bowman (1:13:03) was fifth for 20th place.
Elm, 38, battled through an injury to go the distance as the race winner.
“It was good but it hurt. I was hit by a motorcycle actually about two months ago to the day so I spent the last four, five weeks recovering from some cracked (right) ribs. My swim (11:20) was much slower than I wanted it to be but I managed to get the legs back for the bike (32:06) and the run (18:51),” said the Edmonton firefighter.
“My time was a little bit slower than I wanted but on a windy day I’ll take it.”
Maunder was all smiles over her time.
“I was very happy. It was a fast time. I would’ve liked to maybe even go a little harder but considering I’ve been racing the past four weekends in a row this is not bad,” said the Edmonton Triathlon Academy racer for four and a half years. “It was a fast swim (10:38). I had one of my teammates in my lane and that was really good because it kept me going and I pushed myself a little bit.
“I’m a strong cyclist so I had a really good bike (33:53) but unfortunately I didn’t bring my aero bars so I wasn’t able to go as fast as I would’ve liked and I would’ve liked to have pushed myself a bit more on the bike.
“With the run (20:42) I have been having some issues with my shins and my feet so I had a pretty good run considering that.”
Maunder recently retired from competitive speed skating while based in Calgary and is now in Edmonton focusing all her energies on the triathlon.
“It’s the environment. I love the people. They’re just so encouraging and fun to be around people,” said the double medallist at the Canada Games as a two-sport athlete: two bronze in long-track speed skating at the 2015 winter games in Prince George, B.C. after two silvers as a triathlete at the 2013 summer games in Sherbrooke, Que.
“It’s not as stressful as it is for skating. Skating is so technical and it’s a very mental sport, where as triathlon is kind of like you don’t have to be amazing at all the disciplines. You can be good at one or you don’t have to be the best and it’s nice not to have that pressure of if you’re not good at the whole thing you’re never going to get anywhere.
“I can never get enough of it. I’m so passionate about triathlons.”
Maunder was coming off a strong showing at the Ottawa CAMTRI Triathlon American Cup last month for 11th place as the eighth-highest Canadian in the elite women’s division.
“It was really fun. I was able to keep up with the pack that I wanted to stay with,” said Maunder, who hopes to compete at an international meet in Colombia in October.
In 2013 she ranked 25th overall in junior women at the Vila Velha PATCO Triathlon Pan American Championships.
“It was good to get myself out there and get an idea where I was in comparison to the other women in Canada.”
Elm used the St. Albert triathlon as another tune-up for the sprint distance worlds next month in Cozumel, Mexico.
“The sprint distance is fun because it’s short and it’s fast. It’s also hard so you’ve got to go all out to your max the whole time. There is no room for error,” said the Edmonton-based Athletes in Action club director. “It doesn’t take all day and at the end when you get your breath back you can look back and say that hurt but it was fun.
“The longer distance it’s a little bit more mental. You have to stay focused and stay pushing through the whole thing.”
Worlds are draft legal, unlike the St. Albert triathlon.
“It makes for a different race when it’s not draft legal,” said the former rugby coach of the Sturgeon women’s team. “This bike course has those couple of hills and it was a windy day so it was good for me to have to dig really deep.”
Elm’s goal before the injury was a podium finish at worlds.
“I’m not sure that is going to be possible now but I’m still going to give it a shot. My swim is not as good as it should be right now so that’s going to be my biggest weakness,” said the seventh-place finisher in the 35 to 39 male division at 2:05:16 at the 2014 ITU World Triathlon Grand Final in Edmonton.
Last month Elm competed at Ironman 70.3 Calgary and ranked 27th overall as the 21st male finisher for third place in his age division at 4:24:53.
“It’s a different race but I like it. I actually think in the Olympics they should have the Olympic distance but then they should also have half ironman or ironman as well.”
FAST TIMES: The winner of the try-a-tri (250-metre swim, 10-kilometre bike and 2.5-kilometre run) Sunday out of 18 finishers was Christopher Lee (46:51) of Edmonton and Amanda Gnenz of St. Albert (47:41) placed second.
In the sprint team relay, MacLean (1:04:58) beat out The Feds (1:09:57) for top spot in the six-team competition.
Visit www.resultscanada.com for results of the St. Albert triathlon.
