Triathletes and other endurance athletes often regard their striving and straining, their honing and training--all of the excesses that they put themselves through in order to reach goals that relatively few even set--as metaphors for life. Then events like those on that darkest of days, September 11, remind us that these are only metaphors--dreams--after all. Still, it seems a good thing that we dare to dream, especially dreams of doing heroic things. In the aftermath of the horror, we can both be inspired by and aspire to heroic action. It is likely that in such dreams lie the seeds for action--for triumphs in even the darkest parts of the real world--if we are ever forced to contemplate them.

Multisport races stimulated some dreams as triathlon season draws to an end. The typical abundance of races occurred in our region despite the pall cast over our region and nation by the events in New York, the DC area, and Pennsylvania. There were many events promised in the last column, and so we begin with...

The Riverwatch Triathlon
Look out men! The women are coming, the women are coming! In the first leg of this tri, contested on July 29 in North East, MD, DC's Isabelle Andress (32) emerged from the 3/4-mile swim with a 48 second lead over the entire (male and female) 524-member field, even besting previous collegiate male swim scholarship holders. She rapidly became a non-factor in the overall women's race as Hope Hall of Ashburn, VA ran down Laura Macaluso for first-place honors (36th overall) with a time of 1:24:04. Macaluso (29), who had the fastest (16-mile) bike split of the day (male or female), dropped to third as veteran Julie Caprio (40), the master's winner from Baltimore, also caught her on the three mile run, finishing 46th overall in 1:25:17. Macaluso, from McLean, finished a scant five seconds back in 48th place. Cindy Eckert (42) of Fairfax held off Sue Butler (45) who made up over half-a-minute on the run to garner second masters laurels. The two finished in 1:05:15 and 1:05:59 (46th and 48th places overall), respectively. Erlene Michner of Lincoln University was the top grand-master (50+) in 1:15:54 (201st place).

The top three males made their second-, third- and fourth- fastest bike splits count as Arlington's Don Martin (36) used the second-fastest swim and bike splits to hold off the hard- charging Otho Keller (24) of Timonium in a time of 1:14:31. Keller was able to run first-place master Robert Hartman (41) of Harrisburg to the ground. Keller took second place in 1:15:49 to Hartman's 1:16:28. Frederick, MD's Herb Spicer III (46) was the second master in fourth-place in 1:16:57. It is noteworthy that Spicer had the fastest run split and also nearly ran down Hartman who had started the run in second-place overall. Spicer's wife, Karen, finished just out of the money, earning fourth-place among the women masters. Baltimore's Craig Propert (40) rounded out the male masters field in 1:21:45 (19th overall). James Vadas (61) of Bel Air took top grand-masters (60+) honors in 1:49:19 (329th place), besting Bethesda's remarkable Harry Bratt (73). The race was another winner for Brad Jaeger of the Triathlantic Triathlon Club.

To The Point Triathlon/Duathlon
Maryland hosted its second half-Ironman tri of the season on September 23 as Brad Jaeger's Triathlantic club welcomed multisporters to beautiful St. Mary's County and Point Lookout State Park. The 226 triathletes and 32 duathletes who started endured some heat and high humidity as they competed at these trying distances.

The triathlon featured a 1.2 mile swim, a 56-mile bike and a 13.3 mile run. Mark Lambrides (35) of Oak Hill, VA defended his men's title, posting a 4:29:17 clocking. Lambrides staved off Tommy Nelson of Hyattsville, who turned in the fastest run split in 1:29:57. Nelson's 4:29:31 showing beat Daniel Labarca (37). Talk about split-second timing, after 70.5 miles of racing, 17 seconds separated the first- and second-place finishers. Labarca of Ashburn, VA left the bike-to-run transition area in eighth place and posted a 1:31:14 run (identical to Lambrides' and fourth-fastest of the day) to take third place in 4:32:58.

The women's race featured this column's nominee for "rookie of the year." If she works on the biking, this woman will be awesome. (Remember we did predict great things for Desiree Ficker in her rookie season.) In her first year of triathlon, Debi Bernardes (43) of King George, VA took top honors by posting the seventh-fastest run overall. Starting the run in 83rd place, she hunted down twenty percent of the women's field, picking off the last few by not stopping at the final water stop. Bernardes's 5:04:15 showing edged Jordan McAmmon (at 25, 18 years her junior) of Gaithersburg by the same slim (fifteen second) margin that decided the men's race. Reston's Sarah McCarney (26) posted the second-fastest bike split among the women (39th overall) to take third place in 5:05:11. Among the male masters, Robert Cole (40) of the Patuxent River Naval Air Station turned in a strong (fourth-fastest) swim and (twelfth-fastest) bike to take the men's honors with a 4:41:46 clocking, good for seventh place overall. He held off the charge of the Mazurs, Frank (44) from Lusby, MD (4:48:26 and 13th place overall) and John (42) from Arlington (4:51:25 and 14th overall) who both ran well. For the women masters, Bernardes (who won the race) was followed home by Lisa Coleman of Sykesville who also ran well (20th- fastest run split overall). Coleman finished in 5:20:48 in 65th place. Third-place honors went to Amy Walker-Casey of Chevy Chase whose 5:39:30 clocking carried her to 98th place overall. In the duathlon, a 6.2 mile (10K) run replaced the initial swim in the triathlon. The rest of the race was contested along the same bike and run course as the triathlon. Jimmy Parrott (27) of Virginia Beach garnered the best time (4:33:32), besting two men who are ten years his senior. Although second-place finisher Dwayne Neal of Frederick turned in the fastest initial run, he lost ground to Parrott on both the bike and the second run to finish in 4:41:46. Neal started the final run in third place but could not close on Parrott. Wayne Vartabedian of Long Beach started the final run in fifth place and earned third place honors with a time of 4:48:59. In the closer masters race, Bruce Flye (47) turned in consistent splits and a strong second run to take twelfth place overall in 5:50:05. La Plata's Mark Reem (42) had a good lead until he slowed on the second run, allowing his elder to Flye in. Reem who was clocked in 5:58:15, finished in 13th place. Ed Brierchek (50) of York, PA was the third male master with a time of 6:19:25 in 18th place. Brierchek was 32 seconds behind women's winner Lisa Nasoff of Rockville Center, NY. Nasoff (40) helped the masters women to sweep both the tri and the du. Her strong runs bested Deanna Perry (42) of Abingdon, MD who actually had a better second run than Nasoff, but lost ground on the bike and initial run. Only 26 of the 32 starters finished this race. There were no other women finishers. Neither the triathlon nor the duathlon had a finisher in the grand-masters category.