On October 27th, 2011 Nate Thomas, Chris Poulos, and Colin Cook headed down to Wilmington, North Carolina to compete in the Beach to Battleship Iron Distance race. The race featured an ocean swim with the current which translated to very fast swim times, a very flat bike course, but on a very windy day, and a lightly rolling run course. This was Chris and Nate’s first attempt at the Iron distance, but they did not disappoint!
Chris Poulos had an excellent swim and was amongst the front pack coming out of the water. Chris followed his great swim by battling the cold and wind and had the 24th fastest bike split on the day. As mentioned above, this was Chris’s first attempt at this distance and still ran the 32nd fastest marathon of the day to finish in a total time of 9:56:09 to finish 23rd overall! Absolutely incredible Chris!
Just topping Chris was Nate Thomas. Nate took advantage of the current and had a very respectable swim split. Nate then turned to his strength on the bike. Despite his arms turning blue from the wind and cold, Nate did a 5:07:16 bike split which was the 6th fastest on the day. Nate then followed up his great ride with a sub 4hr hour marathon for a total time of 9:52:43 to finish 22nd overall! You killed it Nate!
Colin Cook had a stellar day as well. Although Colin did not have his best swim, he was able to put in a very respectable bike split and ended up with the 16th fastest on the day. Colin then went on to PR his marathon with a time of 3:22 which gave him the 10th fastest run split. This cumulated to a total time of 9:27:09, a 7th overall finish, and an age group win!
NEMS is extremely proud of the effort of all 3 members. To have all 3 members finish in under 10 hours, especially considering 2 of them were completing this distance is amazing. This was an outstanding way to cap off the season for NEMS. Here is some video from the day: