Wrapping Up the USAT 2013-2014 National Challenge Competition!

A couple of months ago, I wrote about the USA Triathlon (USAT) organization's National Challenge Competition. This is the competition that the USAT hosts to keep triathletes motivated and active during the “off-season” by inviting triathlon clubs from around the country to go head-to-head from December to February by logging training miles in all three disciplines.

There are three sessions, Swim (December), Bike (January), and Run (February. During each session everyone trains in all three disciplines, but awards are given for the team and athletes with the most mileage for that month’s discipline and again for the overall competition.

First, I have to say that the competition works as the USAT would hope for me, personally. I do find that I am more motivated to complete my training because it will benefit the club! Evidently, a good number of my fellow Division 1 (The largest division in the competition!) club members felt the same way! I’m happy to report that the team I was on, Gulf Winds Triathletes Team 1 (We were large enough to have two teams this year!), recorded the following finishes:

Swim: 4th Overall with 8,842.09 weighted Swim miles.

Bike: 6th Overall with 14,638.56 weighted Bike miles.

Run: 4th Overall with 10,848.78 weighted Run miles.

And drumroll, please…. Overall: 3rd with 93,619.03 weighted miles.

Again, I think the NCC was great motivation to keep training and I’m happy to report I contributed the following, unweighted miles:

28 Swims: 34.56 miles.

29 Rides (Bike): 560.09 miles.

36 Runs: 204.08 miles.

I am probably most pleased to report that the overall winning athlete of the entire competition was my team’s very own, Chuck Kemeny, with 10,448.20 weighted miles. If you start to ask yourself how someone could put up that many miles, you have to understand that it was done on his way to a Ultraman World Record performance of 21:38:32 at the inaugural Ultraman Florida, February 21 - 23, 2014! 

And… if you’re unfamiliar with what an “Ultraman” is, that’s 6.2 miles swimming, 261.4 miles biking, and 52.4 miles running across three days!!! Just… WOW!

See ya next “off-season”! LOL… “off-season”!!!