-Just returned from the Mark Mellon Memorial Triathlon near Gaylord, Michigan. In its 24th consecutive year the .6 mile swim, 31 mile bike and 6.2 mile run is the oldest continuously run triathlon in Michigan.
Cheryl Klotkowski and Eric Fernando (efernand on this forum) did the double and won the women’s and men’s overall, both with commanding margins. Joe Deighan second overal, Pete Bolen third and Adrianno Rosa fourth.
Perfect race conditions, nice swim. Rolling bike course with a flat run.
This is a small, community supported, well run race in Memory of Mark Mellon, son of Dr. Dennis Mellon. Mark died tragically in a motorcycle accident over 24 years ago.
Mark Mellon is a race that always comes off well and is very simply run. Scoring is by popsicle sticks, not micro chips. The field is small and the setting is nice and informal.
This is an example of a very quaint, but challenging small local race at its best. A very fine event.
My associate Marcie the Mermaid and I raced and had a fine time. My girlfriend is still out of town so she missed out on the fun.
If you’re in northern lower Michigan in the first week of August looking for a nice race, check out Mark Mellon. It is the salt of earth of triathlons.
Cheryl was in command of the women’s race, I on the other hand was running for my life. I had close to a 2 1/2 minute lead coming off the bike, but Joe erased all but probably 30 seconds of that with his warp speed run. It was painful but good, he pushed me to negative split the 10k run 18:59/18:29. That was my fastest 10k ever, tri or otherwise.
It is always an exciting moment for me to see you coming back on the bike with a big lead. That was cool. It really did envoke images of Bjorn Andersson at Ironman New Zealand. Very cool.
Joe looked good but I sensed he knew he would not be able to catch you. He had a look of desperation to him. I think for the rest of the group it may have been comforting to have an official with them. I saw them twice on the bike and they were in close proximity.
No problems- you can legally take pace from three bike lengths and that is likely what they were doing since they are each fine sportsmen. However, there were no marshalls on the course that I saw.
I rode with Tony Cece. Tony is a fine athlete from my bike racing days and I have race on the bike with him before. He put in an excellent performane and we definately worked together on the bike by taking pace. Really good.
Cheryl is such a refreshing and delightful athlete. Some athletes take themselves waaaayyyyy too seriously. Cheryl has won a ton of races and beat some of the best names in the sport and she is utterly unaffected by it. She is still always smiling and poised- 1st place or 5th place, it doesn’t matter.
It is always fun to watch you guys race. I really enjoy it.
Great race, great fun. Also, nothing better than hot dogs and chips after a race, get kinda sick of the yogurt, bagels, fruit crap that is good for you spread.
Decided to do this race at the last minute and had a blast. Lot of good dudes out there. Nothing better than Dave Peterson telling me at the 10k turn around- “I’m coming to get your ass.” Similar to Eric F’s comments, this inspired me to maybe one of my better 10k finishes ever- as I held Dave off by a few yards. However, it left a mark as this mornings run was a bit slow- cripes, ridiculously slow. Good stuff. Everyone should do this race at least once- nice and laid back.
Great race Eric, and Cheryl. You guys are rockin this year!
You guys need to put a team together and race the Lansing Legislator. It will be good fun. Matt D, Cullen W and John S will be racing as the Wolveriine B Team, and Eric N, myself, and Joe D will be racing as the Wolverine A team. Although Eric, as fast as you are right now, you could probably beat both our teams on your own.
MMMT was a lot of fun. Great weather. I think that was my 3rd or 4th time doing it…and it’s one of my favorite races. I hate to piss on the parade…but that was not a 10K run. I’ve done enough of these to be able to tell what is accurate and what is not. That my friends was an honest 6 mile course. Add about 1 minute and 19 seconds to your run time…and there is your 10K. The bike…now that could have been a bit long. : )
Great race EF. You were flying on the bike. What was the order of the top swim finishers?
I agree with you Jack, nice to have some real food afterwards. Be back next year! They are going to be using the chip…no more baby baggies & popsicle sticks.
Good report–thanks. Can you explain (in specific or approximate terms) how they score with popsicle sticks? I have heard of systems like that, but have never quite understood how it is/was done. Does the racer carry the stick with him/her for the whole race or for the run or?
I’m not sure how that works with the popsicle sticks. We wore this little tag in a small Ziploc bag pinned to our race belts. When we crossed the line they took the tag and handed us a popsicle stick with, presumably, our race finish position. I honestly don’t remember what happened with the darn popsicle stick.
(never did this race, but I’ve been handed popsicle sticks at the finishes of many a race). Someone marks down the times, in order, of every finisher; this is done either manually, electronically, or mechanically (I’ve seen it done by reading numbers into a tape recorder). After the finish line, someone hands you a popsicle stick with a number on it; this represents which place in the order of finish times is yours. You hand the bag (in most cases, it’s the little tear-off section of your race number) with the number that identifies you to someone along with your popsicle stick; these two items now identify you with your finish order. Now the race officials have all the info they need to associate times and racers.
For those of us who ran x-country in high school, that is how they they scored the meets. Somewhere I probably have a shoe box full of popsicle sticks.
Quit pissing on my parade. I am very content to think that I ran my fastest 10k ever.
Joe came out of the water just behind me. He passed me during the long run to the bikes, but I had a slightly faster bike mount and started down the road slightly ahead.
One minor drawback to popsicle sticks: The darn results aren’t up on the web yet and when they are I doubt we will be seeing any splits.
They’ve never posted splits before, so I wouldn’t count on it this year.
I was thinking the same thing about the popsicle sticks. Only I remember them as tongue depressors. Probably had some assistant coach going through the trash at a doctor’s office
