10th Annual Mini Triathlon a success
By DAVID MERRILL Sports Editor
Pictured above are the winners of the Maryville MAC Mini Triathlon. McKenzie Wallace (left) won the women’s division and Caleb Feuerbacher won the men’s division. The team of Caleb Feuerbacher, Amy Feuerbacher, Laura Feurerbacher and Ethan Stone (not pictured) won the team division.
Forty-six participants, including 5 teams of three, competed in the 10th Annual Maryville Aquatic Center Mini Triathlon on Saturday. The Triathlon consisted of three heats of participants competing in a 400-meter swim, 10K bike, and 5K run race.
Despite some early difficulties with the bike tires, Maryville Parks and Recreation Supervisor Shelly Hersh felt it went successfully.
“The weather held up and that’s really all I asked for,” she said. “I think things went pretty well. I don’t think we lost anybody and I can’t do it without my volunteers. They are really good at directing everybody. As long as everyone made it through, we’re good.”
Hersh has been in charge of the Triathlon since its inception and she has seen it evolve.
“We learned from the first couple years,” she said. “We’ve added some things to make things run a little smoother. A couple years into it, we started doing the vertical signs and started coordinating the biking color with blue and the running color with red. I think it makes it more visual for people and makes it a little easier. For the most part, our numbers are solid and good. A lot of people use this as training for a bigger one. If you have the guts to come out and do three different legs of events, kudos to you.”
Participants are charged 30 dollars to enter and the fees go toward the improvement of the Maryville Aquatic Center. This year’s funds allowed them to purchase a new public address system for the center.
Hersh isn’t the only one who’s been with the event since it’s inception. Jackie Ross is another volunteer who has been putting in the hours since the inaugural event.
She was also very pleased with the way the triathlon panned out.
“I honestly believe that everything went great this year,” she said. “Everything was very organized. We just had amazing volunteers. The nice thing is, we had deputies as volunteers, so when a guy’s bike tire blew, they were just able to take him back here. My husband also drives around and checks on people’s safety. I’m just really happy about how things went this year.”
Caleb Feuerbacher, a member of the Maryville High School cross country team, won the men’s division with a time of 47:37.00. He ran the 5K in just under 17 minutes.
Other than his normal running training, he added in biking and swimming workouts in preparation for the event.
“The biking is the hardest part for me,” he said. “I can swim fine, but I don’t have the strongest legs, but I was able to pass everyone running. A lot of fitness carries over between the legs, but you use your quads a lot more for biking and hamstrings a lot more for running.”
Feuerbacher, who was competing in this event for the first time, would have challenged the MHS cross country record if it had been a true 5K. He believes he would have broken it, in theory on fresher legs.
He has the school record in his sights for the upcoming season.
Feuerbacher also won the team division along with his sisters Amy and Laura as well as Ethan Stone. They completed the course in 58:01.00.
McKenzie Wallace, a Maryville native who is attending college at Colgate in Hamilton, New York and majoring in cellular neuroscience, won the women’s division with a time of 58:18.00.
It was her second time running the event. She won the women’s division last year as well.
“I run a lot and I’ve been on a swim team for a long time,” she said. “Mostly I just try and train throughout the summer a little bit every day. I alternate swimming biking and running and just try and do my best.”
While she doesn’t do triathlons or marathons in New York, she does plan on participating in more of them after she gets her degree.
Biking was also the hardest part of the competition for her.
“I was in New York and didn’t have my bike, so I rented one, but it was sort of breaking down all summer,” Wallace said. “I think the last time I biked was probably a month ago.”
The first part of the competition- swimming- can also be the hardest part for some participants — even for five-year triathlon veteran Laura Marriott, who finished in 58:16.00. She was the first woman to come across the finish line and had the best women’s time in her heat.
“Swimming is always the hardest part,” she said. “My goal was to get it under an hour.”
She offered some advice for some of the newcomers.
“No pain, no gain,” she said with a laugh. “Push yourself. The main thing is finish, even if you have to walk, it feels good to finish.”
She bikes and runs often and is also a frequent visitor to the aquatic center.
Jeremy Kramer was also a participant in the first heat. He is from Stanberry and a Army National Guard veteran of more than a decade. He finished in 57:09.00. His main goal was to beat his friend and co-worker Kermit Simmerman (which he did by about four minutes)
The water proved to be the biggest challenge for him as well.
“The swimming was the hardest part,” he said. “I only had a week to prepare, but I’ve always been a natural runner. I’ve run distance and everything, so the running isn’t too bad. The bike was a little different and hard to get used to because I hadn’t ridden a bike in maybe 10 years.”
Kramer had just returned from 42 Alpha School, which is a training school for military members.
