One of the great things about Minnesota R.E.D. is that we are much more than just a marathon club. We participate in a wide variety of race distances.  We’ve completed over 500 races and triathlons in 2011. We run and excel at every type of race, from one mile to ultra marathons. We do tend to focus our efforts towards one goal race or another, but we are versatile in competing at many different types of events.

The multisport athletes in Minnesota R.E.D. were busy again this year competing in triathlons and duathlons both locally and at destination events.  The sprint and Olympic distance triathlons were the event of choice this year, making up about three quarters of the events we competed in.  We had a number of members set PRs this year in a multisport event as well as several first time finishers.

Minnesota R.E.D. athletes saw a huge increase this year in our number of PRs.  Demonstrating again that we are much more than a one dimensional team, our runners were able to set personal records at a variety of distances and events throughout the year.  It’s a testament to the fact that we compete hard both with the competition and with ourselves, no matter what the event or distance of a race we run.

One of the easiest ways to see the success of individuals on the team is to look at the amount of PRs that we produce from year to year.  2011 was a great improvement in the rate of PRs set by  members of the team.  We had 182 individual PRs from the 556 races completed.  32% of the time one of our runners toed the starting line, they were able to produce a PR for themselves.  This is a great tribute to the hard work put in by all of our triathletes and runners.

Minnesota R.E.D. runners not only compete hard with each other and with our personal goals, but we are well represented in the running community.  In 2011, we had a dramatic increase in our overall and age group wins and top ten finishes.  We continue to be a force in just about every race that we run.

Lastly, we’ve got a breakdown of the average finishing time of all the distances that we competed at.  It’s important to note that some races are slower when run in less than desirable conditions or on trails or hills.  The first column shows the average finishing time of Minnesota R.E.D. athletes for each distance.  The next two columns have the average times for males and for females.