By Mike Maltais
A group of local triathletes who were planning to participate in the Try-a-Tri at the annual ChelanMan multisport event at Lake Chelan on July 19 – 20 ended up holding their own MethowMan version at Patterson Lake when fire and highway conditions made attendance at Lake Chelan questionable.
Lynette Westendorf of Winthrop took the initiative and quickly cobbled together a local substitute of the three-event Try-a-Tri, with its 400-meter swim, 13.1-mile bike and 3.1-mile run.
According to 11-year-old Liv Aspholm, who also competed in the Try-a-Tri last year, the local participants, fittingly named the Fire Team, swam 400 meters in Patterson Lake, biked from the lake up to Sun Mountain Lodge, a distance of about 2.8 miles, and from the lodge ran the Sunnyside Trail back to the Chickadee Trailhead, “about four or five miles,” Aspholm estimated.
Members of the Fire Team included Westendorf, Aspholm, Linda Mendro — at age 71, the oldest participant, Lisa Spitzmiller, Margo and Peter Aspholm, Richard and Xander Hart; and Hanz, Gretta and Stella Scholz.
