Matty White & Tim Berkel 3rd and 4th at Ironman 70.3 Mooseman Triathlon

It looks like Matty and Tim are the perfect training partners based on these results. Perhaps they are too “in snych” now that they are living and training together in Boulder. O’Grady and Kriat just had a little more each in the swim and bike.

It was a truly international affair at Ironman 70.3 Mooseman this weekend as the Ukraine’s Maksym Kriat held off Graham O’Grady to take the men’s title. Matty White ran his way to third in the men’s race. Canadian Magali Tisseyre won the women’s race – Australian Kate Major also gained ground during the run, but came up 51 seconds short. Canadian Samantha McGlone rounded out the top three.

Tim Berkel’s Race Report

Matty White and I began our journey for New Hampshire on Friday morning. For the past two years, I’ve been traveling on my own, whilst staying in North America. It’s great to have Matty as a training partner, but also as a travel partner.

We had heard that the weather forecast was not looking very good for the weekend, but on Saturday we didn’t get the rain they were expecting. It was actually really hot, and I was looking forward to that as I like racing in the heat.

But when Sunday morning rolled around, we got the bad weather they were expecting. There was a wave start, so we didn’t have to contend with any age grouper’s trying to swim over top of us. The professional field wasn’t huge, but there were several really good names to look out for. I came out of the water in eighth place, in 25:20. Matty was with me as well as two other guys, and one guy was about 30 seconds ahead of us.

This was the first year they had the Mooseman 70.3, so all of the pros were in the same boat in terms of knowing the course. The bike course was tough, and there were a lot of hills. The hills themselves were not all that difficult but it was raining hard the entire time which made the descents pretty hairy. The cool weather and rain meant I was freezing. I’ve never been that cold during a race before, and I thought I was going to crack.

One of the guys that came out of the water with us was the eventual winner Maksym Kriat (from the Ukraine). He took off early in the bike, and we lost sight of him. Another American that came out of the water with me was Tyler Butterfield, and he rode along with Matty and I throughout the bike leg. We were going along at a really good pace, and about two thirds of the way through the bike leg, we could see that we are closing in on Kriat. He must have spotted us, because he really kicked up the pace, and ended up coming in nearly 5 minutes ahead of us at T2.

I typically have a good transition at T2 however I struggled getting my socks on. Tyler and Matty got a bit of a jump on me at this point. The boys were holding a really good pace in the early part of the run and Matty started to pull away from Tyler. After my deficit that I had created in the early part of the run, I started to close in on Tyler. Once the numbness had subsided a little bit, I started feeling my legs again, as I overtook Tyler. Not long after overtaking him I picked up Tim O’Donnell, who I thought was going to be the race favourite.

Matty was setting a blistering pace through the middle portion of the run, but I was starting to make up some ground on him. At one stage he had a 40 second lead on me, but I was able to get within 7 seconds of him as he crossed the line to take third place. I was happy to take fourth, in my first hit out in North America.

Matty clocked the fastest run of the day in 1:15:22, and I was the second fastest only 2 seconds slower. Not a bad result for the two of us considering the conditions we were racing in.

Later in the week we go to Boise Idaho to do the 70.3 there next Saturday.