Neil, Drew Repeat at Brewathlon

The Old Montauk Athletic Club was expected to receive about $5,000 from the proceeds of Saturday’s Brewathlon relay race in Montauk, a rowing, biking, running, rowing contest that originally was to have taken place at the Montauk Brewery on Oct. 27.

“It rained that day and rained again the next Saturday,” said the race director, Caroline Cashin, who, as a result, lost 10 of the 33 teams she’d initially signed up — the same number as last year. 

“Everybody looks forward to it,” she said of the Brewathlon. “It’s fun and challenging, though you don’t have to train all that hard. The distances are sprint distances. You go out hard and maintain.”

This year, she said, “We required that all the teams have two women, which, while it may have slowed the times a little bit, made it more competitive.”

As was the case last year, Neil Falkenhan’s Cobra Command team won, though it repeated without the help of Mike Bahel, who was jettisoned in favor of a female biker, Natalia Woodward.

“I won the first row,” Neil Falkenhan said, “but by the time of the run we’d dropped to fourth. Drew [Falkenhan, his brother] made it all up on the run, and Sara [Colletti, an East End Row instructor in Southampton] held on for the win,” in one hour, seven minutes, and two seconds.

“I can’t breathe,” Colletti said after getting up from the rowing machine and walking over to the curb, where she sat down.

(It was said that Neil Falkenhan’s 5,000-meter row time was only 18 seconds shy of the world record in his age group.)

Before the Brewathlon began, Sinead FitzGibbon, when asked if she’d brought down “any ringers from Maine,” as she has in the past, said, “No, but I do have one from Massachusetts who’s won two golds and a silver in world championships.”

FitzGibbon was referring to Jill Hathaway of Amherst, who was in 2015 the United States rowing masters champion, and who, in 1989, was the National Collegiate Athletic Association champion in that sport. 

With Hathaway leading off, and with Dan Roberts biking the 15K (9.3-mile) course, FitzGibbon running the 5K, and Ed Cashin finishing up with a 2,500-meter ergometer row, the Truth Training team wound up losing by 26 seconds to Cobra Command.

Bahel’s Silver Fox team was third, in 1:08.33. Blood, Sweat and Beers was fourth, in 1:08.38, and the top 10 was rounded out by OMAC (1:09.30), Montauk Brewery 2 (1:10.06), Railway Fitness (1:11.41), Don’t Be a Baby A (1:11.52), Team Kipper (1:11.53), and Don’t Be a Baby B (1:12.23).

Jon Jamet’s 15:47 was the day’s fastest bike time. John Broich’s 16:42 was the second fastest, after which came Mike Monahan (16:53), Jacques Franey (17:03), Roberts (17:03), Bobby Reich (22:40), and Kat Weill (25:20).

Asked about the recent New York marathon, which she ran for the first time, in 3:21, FitzGibbon said, “It’s as epic as ever. There’s no more exciting race than the New York marathon. . . . My secret weapon was that I slept nine to 10 hours going into it. I felt like a 28-year-old! I thought the wheels would fall off, but they never did.”

Beth Feit, one of FitzGibbons’s half- dozen Truth Training training partners, had been, by contrast, too keyed up, and consequently had suffered from “an adrenaline crash” coming out onto First Avenue from the 59th Street Bridge.

“This [5K] was hard, but better than the marathon!” said Feit a while later, confessing that she’d been “overconfident” going into New York, and had thus let her mind lead her astray. She would run a better race the next time, she said. Meanwhile, she was proud to say she, despite “hitting the wall” early on, had finished.

Henrika Conner of OMAC, when asked who the club’s honorees would be at its holiday dinner at the Palm restaurant on Dec. 3, said the list included Dan Farnham, as its male athlete of the year, Angelika Cruz, as its female athlete of the year, Ryan Fowkes, as its male youth athlete of the year, Rebecca Kuperschmid, as its female youth athlete of the year, and Ethan McCormac, as the first recipient of the William A. O’Donnell youth swimming award. The latter three are to receive $1,000 grants.

Billy O’Donnell, who died recently, at the age of 69, is to receive the Founders Award posthumously.