Nate Riess, a retired professional cyclist who raced on the same team as six-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong, obliterated the course record for the triathlon on his way to beating Peter Oakley of Langley by over three minutes. Oakley had won the last four runnings of the race and set the previous record of 1 hour, 29 minutes, 17 seconds. Riess finished in 1:27:17.

�I felt bad unseating the king,� said Riess after snatching the victory from Oakley.

As Oakley had predicted before the race, the victory came down to the cycling leg. After taking almost a minute out of Riess during a half-mile swim in a weedy Lone Lake, Oakley could only maintain his lead through the first major hill climb of the ride and into Langley. An experienced solo rider, Riess rolled by Oakley as the race exited Langley on its way back to Lone Lake, then proceeded to gap the former champion by three minutes as he headed toward the bike-run transition in the South Whidbey Community Park. That lead he would further widen in the 3.8-mile trail and road run that followed, leaving Riess all alone as he crossed the finish line in the park.

Riess, who is in his first full season as a competitive triathlete, was also one half of a winning couple. His wife, Marti Reimer-Riess, won the women�s division of the race handily, finishing in 1 hour, 38 minutes and 21 seconds, 11 minutes behind her husband�s overall winning time. This is her second Whidbey triathlon victory in a row and comes after a five-week training hiatus brought on by a knee injury.

The couple had lived in Clinton for the past three years, before moving to Bellingham in July.

Race local and win

Throughout the remainder of the 258-athlete individual field, similar connections to South Whidbey seemed to boost local athletes into nearly every top age group and division slot at the end of the half-mile swim, 19.8-mile bike ride and 3.8 run Saturday. Including the Riess�, South Whidbey triathletes won nine age group divisions in this, the eighth-annual edition of the race.

Beyond the dual between Riess and Oakley, the only real drama in the race came from competitors who made big splashes in their first appearances in the race, or who made dramatic improvements over prior performances. The top example of the latter was Langley triathlete Challis Stringer. In the midst of training for September�s Ironman Canada, Stringer sliced more than 20 minutes from her previous best performance in the Whidbey race, making her biggest gains in the lake and on the rolling bike course. In the process, she won the 25-29-year old women�s division and was a top-10 female finisher.

Also making big leaps over previous performances was 50-year-old Kurt Johnson. The Freeland resident recorded times on his swim, his bike and his run that would have been good enough to be a top-five finisher in the Whidbey Island Triathlon in its early years. As it was, he crossed the line in 1:37:52 to take 17th among all men.

Several other South Whidbey triathletes proved that older and wiser translates into better in their sport. In the women�s 50-54 division, Pat Buchanan of Langley capped her most consistent training season in fifth years of competition, winning her division by more than 10 minutes and placing 13th among 118 total women.

She said her improvement came down to the little things, like a faster run.

�It�s just a combination of doing speed work, transitioning, and knowing my way around the course,� she said.

One age group higher, 56-year-old Frazer Mann of Clinton continued an impressive, multi-year run at the Whidbey Triathlon, winning his age division and setting a personal-best time of 1:47:45.

Both the oldest and the newest South Whidbey competitor in the race, Blake Willeford of Langley, won the men�s over-60 division. Having started training for the race seriously last year, Willeford recorded the best time set by anyone in his division in three years, 1:57:01. Saturday marked Willeford�s first crack at the sport of triathlon � a broken collarbone suffered in a bike crash last summer delayed his entree to the sport by a full year.

Willeford, a longtime windsurfer, said he looks forward to more years of serious training.

�I guess I�ll keep doing it as long as my body lets me do it, and my wife,� he said.

Other South Whidbey first timers who found success included 16-year-old Dale Freundlich, South Whidbey High School graduate Ryan Reed, masters swimmer Diane Mattens, and former cyclist Erin Simms of Langley. Freundlich won the 19-and-under division, placing 41st overall; Simms was a 12th-place finisher, while Mattens was 31st.

Reed, who is competing in his first full season of triathlon at age 25, took fifth place on a time of 1:32:30. A 1997 South Whidbey grad, who is still the 2-mile run record holder at his alma mater and was an NCAA Division III national runner up in the steeple chase, Reed clocked the fastest run time ever on the course, 20 minutes, 28 seconds. He currently lives in Seattle, but his parents still live on South Whidbey.

Other top placers in the triathlon with local connections included Trif LeBaron and Pedro DeGuzman.

Likely taking the award for the most joyful triathlete post race was Rick Hill of Clinton. A competitor in the over-200 pounds Orca division of the Whidbey Triathlon for several years, Hill won his first-ever medal in the race, taking third in his division. Having taken up triathlon to get in shape and reduce trouble with high blood pressure four years ago, Hill said he looks forward to losing enough weight to drop out of the Orca division for next year�s race.

�Now, I can diet happy,� he said Saturday after getting his medal.

Several South Whidbey teams also placed in the triathlon. A team lead by Heidi Bryan of Clinton won the total-age-over-99 division in 2 hours, 16 seconds. On the men�s side, a team headed by Jen Fankhauser took the over-99 division in 1:43:13.

A mixed under-99 team including South Whidbey residents Matt Johnson, Heidi Hammer and Katy Gordon took third place in 1:57:06.

Most of the top-placing South Whidbey triathletes at Saturday�s race are members of the South Whidbey Endurance Athletic Team, or SWEAT. The group holds timed bike rides every Tuesday and train together throughout the year.

In all, 275 people started Saturday�s race. Six did not make the time limit on the swim portion and were pulled out of the race. About 100 volunteers helped with the race, which was put on by the South Whidbey Parks and Recreation District.

Whidbey Island Triathlon

Individual men � overall

1. Nate Reiss (Bellingham) 1:27:17

3. Peter Oakley (Langley) 1:30:26

5. Ryan Reed (Seattle) 1:32:30

8. Pedro DeGuzman (Seattle) 1:34:19

9. Curt Gordon (Clinton) 1:34:27

17. Kurt Johnson (Freeland) 1:37:52

20. Trif LeBaron (Seattle) 1:40:30

25. Frank Jacques (Langley) 1:42:04

27. Bob Thome (Langley) 1:44:46

34. Frazer Mann (Clinton) 1:47:45

62. Blake Willeford (Langley) 1:57:01

80. Rick Hill (Clinton) 2:02:15

88. Ed Stringer (Langley) 2:03:24

122. Chris Voglesberg (Langley) 2:24:19

Individual women � overall

1. Marti Riemer-Reiss (Bellingham) 1:38:21

4. Challis Stringer (Langley) 1:47:49

12. Erin Simms (Langley) 1:56:30

13. Patricia Buchanan (Langley) 1:56:47

27. Sherry Mays (Freeland) 2:03:44

31. Dian Mattens (Freeland) 2:05:50

41. Dale Freundlich (Clinton) 2:10:15