XTERRA Hammerman Race Report

By Jen Trapp, XTERRA Rep

Anchorage Alaska played host to the 7th Annual XTERRA Hammerman - an amazing race consisting of a .5 mile swim, 10.9 mile mountain bike, and 3.1 mile rail run in Kincaid Park.  This amazing race is the 3rd largest triathlon in the state of Alaska and, not so unbelievable, one few with a non-pool swim!  We must have hit it at just the perfect time (the 3 days of summer) because for our first trip to "The Last Frontier" the weather was amazing!  In the upper 70's during the day, down to a nice chill at night - and daylight for almost the entire day .  Now that was hard getting used to!

Race morning kicked off with a goofy body marking line where we chose to draw all over reigning champ and Co- RD Andy Duenow.  He was marked!  And there were some other racers coming after him!  The swim pitted 108 individuals and 17 relay teams together.  The lake was beautiful and the athletes were off!  There were a few stud relay team swimmers out first - but would their teams be fast enough to keep up with Andy - or some of the new up and comers?  Time will tell.

The almost 11 mile bike course is gorgeous - full of hills (lots of them) wild flowers, twists and turns, and quite a few mooses, er… meese, moosei?  Anyway - we saw lots of them out marking course - in fact XPS Manager Andrew Marsh almost ran into one!  And sure enough, it was Andy Duenow showing up into transition first.  He was on fire - but would he have enough to hold the lead.  Shannon Donley, another local, was the first woman off the bike - and she was on a borrowed bike!  She doesn't actually own a mountain bike - a bit of a roadie, she came out last year and won this event on her first try - watch out!

The 5K run is more of the same like the bike course - beautiful, hilly, fast, and fun!  But the real question was who would win?  The last bit of the course was a fast downhill that popped the runners out of the woods for a sharp right turn and through the finish chute.  And to everyone's surprise it was 18 year old Will Ross from Anchorage taking the win by passing 42 year old Andy Duenow with about a quarter mile to go.  In the local paper it said he gave his "older counterpart a pat on the back as a sign of respect" as he passed him to take the lead and the win in 1:15:14.  Duenow finished in 1:15:21 - just 7 seconds back.  What an awesome race!  Third place went to Reese Hanneman, also 18, in 1:16:13.

For the ladies it was 36 year old Shannon Donley keeping the lead and crossing the finish line in 1:27:37.  Congrats!  Second place went to Amber Stull (29) in 1:32:00 and the podium was finished off with Heather Williams (35) in 1:39:02.  And all of them were from Anchorage. 

The day was capped off with tons of awesome prizes, A LOT of pizza(which led to a pizza eating contest), and a final dip in the lake to cool off.
It was awesome to finally get to be up at this event.  Having an XTERRA event in Alaska is pretty amazing and we were thrilled to be a part of this one.  It is also great to hear that at least 11 athletes from Alaska will be present at the XTERRA USA Championships in Tahoe later this month.   Better watch out - they are used to the cold water!

Thanks to Andy, Jeannette, Bill, and Sheryl for the wonderful hospitality and awesome event.  Thanks to the volunteers, sponsors, and park for making this event so strong in the community.  I think everyone from the lower 48 should try and make it up for this race next year!

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