Anchorage's Jason Lamoreaux captured the overall victory and achieved a personal milestone to lead a large group of Alaskans that took a Hawaii triathlon by storm last Sunday.
Alaskans made up 10 percent of the field of 2,000 individual racers in 20th annual Lavaman in Waikoloa. Several earned age-group wins, but no one made a bigger impact than Lamoreaux.
He came from nowhere — actually, from the second wave of racers — to claim his first victory in his eighth appearance at the Lavaman.
The second wave started six minutes after the first wave, which was reserved for professional and elite-level racers. By the time Lamoreaux finished, the finish-line tape was gone and David Wild of Hawaii had been declared the winner and was accepting congratulations.
"Coming in, I had no thought of being the overall winner," Lamoreaux told the West Hawaii Today newspaper. "I thought maybe I could be on the podium because I knew I had a good race. But then to find out I won overall, that really brought the whole day over the top."
Lamoreaux, 39, had another reason to celebrate — his time of 1 hour, 59 minutes, 22 seconds marked the first time he broke the two-hour barrier in an Olympic-distance triathlon (1.5-kilometer swim, 40K bike, 10K run).
"My previous best here was 2:03:00 back in 2014," Lamoreaux said by email. "It was one of my biggest goals to try to go under 2 hours in this distance race at some point, but wasn't sure it would be reachable with my swimming speed holding me back a bit."
Lamoreaux wasn't among the top 20 in the swim, but he posted the fastest time in the bike (56:07) and the second-best time in the run (36:38). That allowed him to beat Wild by 48 seconds.
Wild clocked 2:00:10 to take second place ahead of Anchorage's Daniel Folmar, 41, a first-wave racer who grabbed third place in 2:02:56. Anchorage's Brent Lowen claimed 13th place overall in 2:14:18.
In the women's race, a pair of Anchorage racers made it into the top 10 — Amber Stull, 39, placed fifth in 2:19:03 and Rebecca McKee, 45, placed seventh in 2:34:34. Stull was 28th overall and McKee was 45th overall.
Taking the women's win was Hawaii's Bree Wee, who was seventh overall in 2:08:46. Wee is a seven-time Lavaman champion who recently retired from professional racing.
Lamoreaux, Folmar and McKee all posted the fastest times in their age groups. So did Ellyn Brown, 65, and Diane Mohwinkel, 75.
Brown's time of 2:59:35 was more than five minutes faster than the second-place finisher in the women's 65-69 age group and placed her 361st overall. Mohwinkel, the lone competitor in the women's 75-plus age group, clocked 3:51:36 to finish 928th overall.
Stull and Lowen had the second-fastest times in their age groups. But because both finished behind racers from the first wave — who were taken out of consideration for age-group awards — Stull, who was 10 minutes off Wee's pace, and Lowen, who was 14 minutes slower than Wild, were given the first-place prizes.
Similarly, Folmar was not considered the age-group winner in the men's 40-44 division, even though he was seven minutes faster than the man who collected the prize.
Three other Alaskans finished with the third-fastest times in their age group — Cole Abarr (2:35:00, men's 20-24), James McGowan (2:59:04, men's 65-69) and Jennifer Slaughter (2:42:16, women's 45-49).
One out of 10 finishers in the individual race hailed from Alaska, and the relay race also drew a number of Alaska racers.
"There are a few reasons that this is a popular race for Alaskans," Lamoreaux wrote. "First, it is springtime which is a great time to get over to Hawaii after a long winter. Also, with so many other Alaskans going, it is a very welcoming time to be there because you run into so many others you know. There is a lot of pride that goes with being part of the Alaskan group."