A brush with Olympians

A few weeks ago, the Lifetime Triathlon was held in Minneapolis. The Lifetime attracts some of the biggest names in the sport from around the world as it has a monster payout. ~2500 other athletes join them.

I was out of town for the Timberman, but a few days later, some notable folks showed up at my weekly Wednesday ride.

From Left to Right:
Simon Whitfield
2000 Triathlon Olympic Gold medalist
2008 Lifetime Triathlon Winner
2008 Olympic Triathlon Team Member- Canada
Paul Tichelaar
2008 Canada Triathlon Team Member- Canada
25 years old
Me
Relatively Awesome
Colin Jenkins
2008 Canada Triathlon Team Member- Canada
25 years old

It was an easy, friendly ride -- a serious departure from the usual kinda-wanna-puke hammerpalooza, but Paul did take off for a bit at a rate that may have been easy-moderate for his talent, but put a few chasers, including me, into the red zone.

I spoke with Simon for a bit, and he talked about how much he loved training in the area, and how awesome the architecture in the city is. But, I imagine they say that kinda stuff everywhere they go. They were definitely treated like rockstars around here. 60+ people showed up to ride that night.

They were all hanging out for the week in the cities, training for the next race on their tour ending in Beijing.