We have a weekly team meeting at Coeur where we discuss the state of the company, what’s going on in the industry and anything else that may be relevant. From time to time, we discuss topics that seem worthy of a blog post. We know that many companies that have a blog narrow the range of topics down to a very small list. It’s either something about their gear and why you should buy it or something about how awesome their gear is and why you and your friends should buy it.
Occasionally, they’ll mention the awesomeness of their gear and how you might want to have your family members buy it too. Now to be clear, we get it and tend to do the same. After all, we do want to sell stuff and we also think we’ve got some amazing products. And while we know Coeur gear isn’t inexpensive, we do think we’ve got the best value on the market (oh…and did we mention free shipping?). Anyway, I digress. The point is that I promise we do try to cast a fairly wide net with respect to blog topics and hope we don’t say the same thing over and over.
To that end, one of the things we talk about a fair amount is our team. This is the group of women who wear Coeur and are the embodiment of our values. Despite our efforts at diversification, it seems that about every other week, many of them put in performances that compel us to do a post and share their amazing results.
So with that as context, we have to say that honestly, we had planned on a different blog post today. We don’t want to run the risk of the blog equivalent of PDA’s as we constantly brag on this amazing group of women. But then…yesterday happened! So, we ask that you’d please indulge us one more time as we share a recap of an amazing weekend.
Renata Bucher is one of our Xterra Athletes and she has probably logged more miles in the air than almost anyone else on the team. Now, our ITU girls may be up there as well but there’s no doubt Renata is a very frequent flyer. She was in Italy over the weekend and took 4th place at Xterra Italy. Eventually, she’ll work her way to Hawaii and we look forward to watching her race “Worlds”.
We think Michelle Simmons wins the contest for the most interesting post-race picture. Speaking of “winning” she won her age group at the Tinman triathlon. Part of the prize was getting to stand with this shiny fellow.
Does he use motor oil as sunscreen?
There’s a saying with Ironman that your first is an “event” and then the next one is a “race”. Lisa Holt decided to throw that idea out the window as she grabbed 7th in her age group at Ironman Lake Placid which was her first Ironman. Lisa is one of several ladies on the Coeur team blessed with the “running gene”. She has the most beautiful form and she used it to throw down a 3:43 marathon at Placid. Congratulations Lisa!
Lisa has perfect running form even after 112 bike miles in the saddle
We’ve got some very good friends from Canada and they are some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. So, we’re kinda scratching our head as to why a country full of such nice people could allow a course to be so darned hard. It’s beautiful, yes…but wow is Ironman Canada tough. Not that any Ironman is easy. Not by a long shot but Canada’s 6,000 plus feet of climbing on the bike plus another 800 or so on the run can make for a brutal day. Fortunately, the Coeur girls were equally tough and they made it through. Congratulations go out to Andrea Astudillo, Katie Hart Morse and Debbie Fritzer for finishing Ironman Canada. We have to give an extra shout out to Andrea. She had been dealing with a significant foot injury and she missed a large percentage of her training. But if you know Andrea, you know that deep down inside, she is pure steel. Rather than miss out, she decided to take on Canada and use heart to offset the missed training. She dug deep and we actually got to see her run down the finishing chute online. Congratulations Andrea! We think we know how hard you had to dig and we’re incredibly proud.
How can something so pretty be so difficult?
Speaking of running, congrats also go out to Jennifer Hellickson who won her age group and PR’d at the Beaverton Sun Run 10K and to Kendra Lounds Kneer and Stephanie Morris for knocking out a trail marathon over the weekend.
Congrats Jennifer
Let's do the marathon on trails...just to make it harder!
Ok, with over 50 ambassadors, it’s impossible to recap everything that happened over the weekend but we’ve got to finish with this.
You probably have heard us use these descriptors more than once…”humble, nice, considerate but an absolute hunter on the course.” Sound familiar? We thought so. We’ve said this about several of our Coeur Athletes including Katie Hursey after her win ITU win, Beth Shutt when she earned a spot on the podium at Muncie 70.3 and Jess Smith when she took 3rd at IMCDA. Even so, we’ve got to say it again.
Not that she needs an introduction but let us introduce you to Coeur Athlete Kim Schwabenbauer. Kim is, humble, nice and….well, you know the rest. But it’s true. We met Kim last year when we were just getting started as a company and she took a chance on us. Over the year, we came to love and absolutely respect her and her incredible professionalism.
We knew she could be in the hunt for a Kona slot if she had a good race at Ironman Lake Placid, so we made sure to log in early so we could follow the race all day.
Kebby was nervous but Beau knew she was having a great race!
Kim came out of the swim in sixth place and we have to admit, we were a bit nervous. Well, we shouldn’t have been. Do you recall that we said she was a “hunter”? The teeth were bared on the bike and she laid down a 5 hour 18 minute tour de force. This was the fastest women’s pro bike split and when the dust settled, she had moved up to second place.
She followed up the bike with a 3hr 10 minute marathon and after a 9 hour 38 minute workday, she was done, on the podium in second and she had punched her ticket to Kona!
Perhaps, most of you know this but only 35 professional women get to Kona. We’re thrilled an honored that along with a big group of Ambassadors, we’ll also have representation in the Pro Field on the Big Island.
So, Congratulations to everyone that trained and raced with heart and courage this weekend. We hope you have a great week and we look forward to cheering for you all next weekend!
Your friends at Coeur