By Lars Finanger, Inside Triathlon

United States Olympian Victor Plata followed in the footsteps of some of triathlon’s greatest long course personalities with his comeback victory in yesterday’s World’s Toughest Half in Auburn, CA, part of a weekend endurance extravaganza featuring a race distance and format for everyone. After competing in triathlon for eight years, in which he climbed to the highest level of competition, earning the third and final qualifying position on the three member 2004 US men’s Olympic triathlon squad in Athens, Plata hung up his Aegis bike frame and Swedish goggles in order to venture back into the world of academia as a fulltime law student.

As a present to himself for completing his second year of classes, Plata signed up for Sunday’s half-iron race, not exactly sure what the challenging and unforgiving course would throw his way. Exiting the 1.2-mile swim at Rattlesnake Bar Lake, the termination of the North Fork River, in 22:46, Plata started the bike to find his rear disc wheel was skewed.

“It sounded like a near-dead, moaning cat,” explained Plata following the race. “I apologized for the awful noise to each of the five or six racers who passed me during the bike portion.”

He figured out after the race, his wheel was not broken, but in fact was heavily underused as a result of his nine-month hiatus from the sport, and could be restored to good use again with the proper tuning and some lubrication. As a result of his minor oversight during his pre-race preparations, Plata finished the 56-mile bike featuring 5,000-feet of elevation gain, 12-minutes behind the race leader, and author of this article, Lars Finanger.

Fortunately for the Olympian, Finanger’s foot-speed over the 13.1-miles of trail and pavement would not match his race leading 2:45:48 bike split. Plata moved into the lead at the 11-mile mark at the top of the lung-sapping Cardiac Bypass hill, one of two dramatic hills on the course over one mile in length and contributing to the 1,325-feet of overall elevation gain.

Plata crossed the finish line in 4:51:03 after the day’s best 1:27:45 half-marathon split, only slower than a handful of predecessors including Tim Deboom and Clas Bjorling, over the challenging course that pits athletes against technical single-track, drawn-out climbs, and occasional obstacles like sun-bathing snakes and fresh horse patties.

Photo Credit: Lars Finanger.

Fourth-place Ironman Hawaii finisher Gina Kehr used the international race as a pre season tuner.

While 2006 Ironman Hawaii fourth place finisher Gina Kehr traveled from her Redwood City, CA home for the international event, Diana Hassel from Fort Collins biked away from her competition to win the half-iron event. The equine emergency surgeon and tenured track faculty member at Colorado State University, soldiered through the run with blisters lining the bottoms of her feet.”I made the mistake of forgetting to tighten my shoe strings,” exclaimed Hassel, pointing to her loosely tied kicks.

Hassel is no newcomer to this area having graduated from Vet School at University of California at Davis and completed a temporary stint on their faculty board. A former Ironman Hawaii age group world champion, Hassel has finished the World’s Toughest Half four times and volunteered on the course one time.

“I love the grassroots feel and I love Brad Kearns,” stated Hassel who won yesterday’s race in 5:33:52, over ten minutes ahead of her nearest competitor.

There is nothing easy about The World’s Toughest Tri. For starters, the name lends a maniacal ring even to the most cerebral and sane multisport athletes. Much like the host city of Auburn, the epicenter of the mid-1800’s gold rush, the multisport event has a mystical aura about it. While athletes can chose between an international, half-iron, or duathlon format, each race is difficult and features Auburn’s unparalleled network of hill climbs on both the cycling and running legs.

City officials passed a proclamation in 2003 naming Auburn as the “Endurance Capital of the World.” It would be difficult to argue otherwise. This tiny town of 12,000, ironically the same size it was in the years after miner Claude Chana first struck gold in 1848, is nestled at 1,300-feet in the foothills of the Sierra Mountains and sandwiched between the snowcapped peaks near Lake Tahoe 65 miles to the east and Sacramento 30 miles to the west. The town is home to no less than a 24-hour mountain bike festival, the finishing point of ultra-running’s World Series the Western States 100, the 100-mile Tevis Cup horse race, and for the last five years the World’s Toughest Half.

What the race lacks in total participant numbers (650 total participants this year), it makes up for field talent and athlete accommodation. In it’s current incarnation, the World’s Toughest Half has lured in the likes of two-time Ironman Hawaii world champion Tim Deboom, his equally talented wife Nicole, Swedish powerhouse Clas Bjorling, 2000 Olympic gold medalist Simon Whitfield, Xterra star Josiah Middaugh, 2002 Ultraman champion Gordo Byrn, and Frenchman Cyrille Neveu who lives on top of the famed Tour de France mountain Alpe D’Huez.

Owner of Bradventures.com and the World’s Toughest Half, former top-level pro triathlete Brad Kearns knows how to deliver an epic grassroots event. Kearns brings to race organization the same precision he applied to his own training in the 90’s, when he would often challenge and beat the world’s best multisport athletes like Mark Allen and Kenny Souza. While he no longer competes himself, Kearns now devotes his time to his own multisport business, along with directing a kids running program at local elementary schools (see www.runningschool.org), writing books like How Lance Does It, a look on how you can apply the seven-time Tour de France winners attitude to set and accomplish your own goals (see www.bradventures.com), and working on improving his high jumping skills. That’s right, Kearns has cleared 5′3 ½ and is ranked 17^th nationally in his master’s category.

Kearns likes the grassroots feel of his event and is committed to keeping athletes’ needs as his foremost concern.

“When I was racing, I was self-absorbed, but now I take tremendous pride in accommodating racers of all abilities, incomes, and walks of life,” admits Kearns.

This can be noted on Kearns’ website where he awards discounts to athletes who have competed in past World’s Toughest events, collegiate competitors and full time students, and any athlete who might have beaten him during his own professional racing career. And while this offer might seem generous, remember Kearns’ track record as one of the premier racers of his era.

For complete results from the Auburn International Triathlon, World’s Toughest Half, and World’s Toughest Duathlon, visit www.auburntriathlon.com.