Heather Wurtele Sets New Course Record at Ironman 70.3 Campeche; Mauricio Mendez Dominates at XTERRA Chile

Starting the season off with a bang, 21x Ironman 70.3 Champion Heather Wurtele (CAN) took the top spot by setting a new course record at IRONMAN 70.3 Campephe, while Trevor Wurtele (CAN) claimed eighth at the same race. World Champion Mauricio Mendez (MEX) returned to Chile for the second time in three months, but this time for the win at XTERRA Chile.

IRONMAN 70.3 Campeche

Returning to one of her favorite venues, Team Wurtele’s Heather was focused on a repeat of her 2017 performance in Campeche.

Heather demonstrated why she’s one of the most consistent long course triathletes in the world. She was second out of the water with a 27:48 swim (1.2 miles), with a 3:45 gap to make up on uber-swimmer Lauren Brandon. It did not take long to catch Brandon, as Heather dominated the bike course with the fastest time among the pro women with a split of 2:22:47 (56 miles). With only a forty second lead coming out of T2, Heather once again proved her run ability with the fastest run of the day with a time of 1:24:37 (13.1 miles) to secure the win by more than nine minutes. Heather crossed the finish line first with a new course record of 4:17:23.

“Well that was a great day! Happy to go two for two with a new course record on a hot and windy day,” Wurtele said following the race.

“Even though we’re used to it, it’s always nice to see Heather start the year off with a win. She mentioned her training is going really well and her performance on Sunday proved that,” said Michael Cardoza, of Human Interest Group.

XTERRA Chile

Mendez, the reigning XTERRA Pan American Champion, lead wire-to-wire to win the second annual XTERRA Chile off-road triathlon.

Mauricio came out of the water only three seconds ahead of eventual third place finisher, American Branden Rakita, with the fastest swim of the day (16:36). Riding together, Mendez made his move as the pair of athletes entered the first hill of the bike course, and never looked back from there. Also recording the fastest bike (1:22:44) and run (36:09) times, Mendez comfortably took home the win by four minutes with a time of 2:16:31.

“I’m happy for how it went today and excited to start my 2018 season like this,” Mendez told XTERRA in an interview following his win. “The event was incredible, the course is amazing, and I’m so appreciative for the opportunity to participate in XTERRA races like this around the world. I’m really going for the World Championship this year, so this is a good start, and I look forward to the rest of the season.”

“Mauricio was recently in Europe with a sponsorship obligation and the travel can be physically taxing, so we were very interested to see how he performed over the weekend. Clearly he had no issues and dominated the trails like we know he can. We can’t wait to see Mau race more this year as he continues to grow and improve year over year,” added Cardoza.