From the local coverage of the race:
http://www.journaltimes.com/...b6d3d35742293024.txt Saeger prevails despite problem with timing chip BY PETER JACKEL
pjackel@journaltimes.com Monday, July 20, 2009 12:17 AM CDT
RACINE — A phantom champion is what Adrienne Saeger was.
After almost deciding to bypass the Spirit of Racine Triathlon following an uninspiring (for her) race, Saeger traveled to Racine from her Naperville, Ill., home for Sunday’s event. The plan was to sort of cool out from some recent frustration at the Hyvee Marathon in West Des Moines, Iowa, by entering as an age group athlete instead of in the elite class and just allowing everything else to take care of itself.
Afterward, she was trying to explain how she won her first-ever half triathlon with a body that seemingly responded effortlessly to all she asked of herself. That is, after she and her husband, Andy, convinced race officials that she had, indeed, won the race.
The 30-year-old Saeger won the women’s portion of this event, which started and ended at Racine’s North Beach, with a time of 4:22.57. Michelle Lanouette was second (4:23.35) and Loren Schechter was third (4:23.57).
“I raced Elite the last two races that I did and this race, I decided to do just last Monday,” said Saeger, who operates her own yoga studio in Naperville. “I didn’t taper for the race. I was using it just as a training race so I said, ‘I’ll just run age group because I’m not rested for it and I’m just using it as training.’ ”
If Saeger wasn’t at her best mentally, she sure was physically.
“The whole time I was on the bike, I kept saying to myself, ‘Is this seriously happening?’ ” Saeger said. “Every time I would go a little harder and think my legs were going to burn out, they’d just snap right back.”
But even after such an impressive morning, which included placing 44th overall in the bike race (2:21.44) and 75th in the run (1:33.27), Saeger didn’t initially realize she was the women’s champion.
“When I finished the race, my husband said, ‘I think you won,’ ” she said. “I said, ‘OK, cool!’ So we go and look at results and my name wasn’t on there at all. So we went over to the race director and he said, ‘There just might be a problem with the timing chip.’
“My husband asked if he was going to be able to finish that by the time awards were done. The race director said, ‘I’m not sure,’ and my husband said, ‘It’s kind of a big deal because we think she won, like the whole race.’ ”
Saeger was eventually verified as the overall women’s champion. She finished nearly nine minutes ahead of the next runner in the Female Elite Division — Catherine Lee of Minneapolis, Minn., had a time of 4:31.30 and Julie Hull of Farmington, Minn., was just behind her in 4:31.41.