Lyons, Rouse and Dwyer add recent top performances

     The Woodlands' Dana Lyons drew the world's best in the 50-54 age group at Sunday's USA Triathlon Long Course Duathlon National Championship, which was held in conjunction with the Blackwater Duathlon in Cambridge, Maryland.
     And it was a competitor that he had faced twice before.
     Last October in Gijon, Spain, Glen Allen, Virginia's Marty Steigmann won the gold in the ITU Standard Distance Duathlon (10-kilometer run, 40-kilometer bike, 5-kilometer run), but earlier in 2011, Lyons had gotten the better of Steigmann at nearly the same distance the two raced on Sunday.
     Last March, Lyons, 54, edged Steigmann, 52, by a minute and 40 seconds to win the 50-54 age group at the Powerman Duathlon in Birmingham, Alabama. 
     That day, Lyons covered a 10-kilometer run, 60-kilometer bike and 10-kilometer run course in 3:06:01, and bettered Steigmann in each of the race's three segments.
     On Sunday, Steigmann exacted a little revenge.
     Even with an additional 10 kilometers on the bike, Steigmann turned the tables on Lyons with advantages in both runs and the bike en route to a four-minute, 22-second advantage.
     Steigmann completed the distance in 3:09:04, 17th overall, while Lyons was just four spots back - second in their age group by almost nine minutes over the next closest competitor -- in 3:13:26.
     Between the two masters duathlete powerhouses was former Southeast Texas resident Peggy Yetman - who now calls Leesburg, Virginia home -- as she posted a national championship winning time of 3:10:29 -- just under 11 minutes ahead of the women's runner-up.
     Lyons and Steigmann were on the same course one other time as Lyons finished the Ford Ironman World Championship in 2008 in 10:46:34 while Steigmann posted a time of 11:35:36 in his second Kona appearance.

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     Susan Rouse's love of running and multisports is well-documented, and so is the Conroe native’s incredibly positive outlook on life.
     Just two weeks after finishing a Memorial Hermann Ironman Texas physically challenged a bit more than the other 2,100 finishers after a pre-race training accident, Rouse, 54, was off to Wyoming for the Casper Marathon -- and to check off another state on her quest to finish a marathon in all 50 states.
     And she registered state number 43 on Sunday in fine fashion by finishing fifth overall in 4:03:42 -- winning her age group by more than seven minutes over Ogden, Utah's Susan Armstrong.
     Rouse narrowly missed going under four hours in her 40^th state, but says that getting to the 50 state finish line is more important.
     “I’ve got good reasons for the ones that aren’t,” Rouse laughed.  “I’m not sure once I get finished that I’ll make the attempt to go back, plus future ones won’t be.”
     State number 44 comes next month as she’ll travel with a group of women to the Dances with Dirt Devil’s Lake Marathon – a trail race -- in Baraboo, Wisconsin.
     She said her other over 4-hour marathons included Ironman Florida, managing a stress fracture, a 50K trail race and she laughed about Sunday’s race saying, “this one … healing bones!”
     Rouse will toe the line in January for her 28^th consecutive Chevron Houston Marathon and, yes, all but one of those were sub-4 hour marathons too.

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     Inadvertently overlooked in this week’s athlete recap were performances from Texas’ largest triathlon, the Memorial Day classic Capital of Texas (or CapTex) Triathlon.
     The Woodlands’ Michael Dwyer, 63, used a three-minute advantage on the bike and another two minutes on the run, to win his 60-64 Olympic division in 2:29:11 – nearly six minutes ahead of Round Rock’s Vit Ragula, 60.
     Another 60-something, Phillip Deprang, 61, of The Woodlands, captured the 60-64 Sprint Division in 1:23:44 – more than three minutes ahead of Austin’s Ridge Williams.
     One name that popped up in the middle of the Elite Amateur men’s field was former John Cooper School and Texas-Arlington cross country star Jody Broccoli-Hickey.  The 27-year-old was 11^th in 2:05:45 – good enough to be in the top field of the 31-finisher division.
     To no one’s surprise, his 10K run leg of 32:48 was second – to Austin’s Joe Thorne -- among the elite amateurs.
     Broccoli-Hickey has dabbled in both triathlons and ultra-running since his collegiate career ended four years ago.
     He was 11^th at the Bandera 50K in January 2011 and 2^nd in the 25K this past January, as he outsprinted multi-discipline endurance athlete Jamie Cleveland to a 19-second advantage.
     In addition, he has a 4:38:12, 9^th place age group to his credit from Vineman 70.3 two summers ago.