WAIKOLOA — Ben Williams outpaced the men’s field by more than three minutes and Bree Wee easily added a sixth title to her resume at the 19th annual Lavaman Waikoloa Triathlon on Sunday.
“This is the most fun race in the world, and it lived up to that standard again today,” Williams said. “The course is beautiful and the atmosphere and volunteers are really the best.”
Hilo’s Chris Gregory took home runner-up honors in the men’s race, with Alaska’s Daniel Folmar rounding out the podium. Full results and times were not available at press time.
Both Williams and Wee came into the final sandy stretch with no competition in sight, coasting to victory.
“There were a couple little turnarounds where I could see where everyone was at, and I knew if I kept up a certain pace I was going to be able to hold onto that gap,” Williams said. “There is a difficult section of the run towards the end that you have to go slow. It’s nice to be able to bring your heart rate down because at that point your legs are just dying.”
Hometown favorite Wee came into the race fresh off a top 10 finish at the IRONMAN Asia-Pacific Championship in Melbourne, Australia last week. There she raced against the likes of 2014 IRONMAN World champion Mirinda Carfrae and two-time IRONMAN 70.3 world champ Melissa Hauschildt.
But even with minimal recovery time, Wee couldn’t stay away from Waikoloa.
“I didn’t have any hesitation about racing here, but my coach did. He tried to talk me out of it to recover from Ironman, but I convinced him I could do it,” Wee said with a laugh. “I had to go hard on the bike because I knew my run legs might not be there after last week. At the halfway point of the run I saw I had a little gap on the next girl so I tried to chill out a little bit. I was in a whole world of pain.”
Defending and three-time Lavaman champion Tim Marr settled for fourth after taking a seven month hiatus from the sport, but was graceful in defeat.
“There is no faking it in triathlon,” Marr said. “I knew I wasn’t coming here racing at my top level, but I didn’t want to miss it. I hadn’t done a triathlon in about seven months, but that is no excuse. All the other guys did phenomenal. I couldn’t hang today but still had a lot of fun.”
Williams was happy to have an athlete of Marr’s potential pursuing him on the course. The duo both live and train on Oahu.
“It means a lot to be racing with Tim,” said Williams. “I moved to Hawaii in 2009 and Tim has always been the standard to try to reach and be close to. I was glad to have him out here pushing me today.”
