Vineman: Repeat winners for men and women

Dan Arlandson ran the mile in 20 minutes during P.E. class in high school.

As a prep wrestler, he kept putting on pounds to move up in weight class, hoping to find more success against slower guys. He was better at gaining weight than wrestling and, as a result, he weighed more than 200 pounds as a freshman at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota.

No, it isn’t exactly the type of stuff that foreshadows athletic excellence. But Saturday at the 20th annual Vineman Triathlon — a grueling test of athleticism and will — Arlandson again showed just how far he’s swam, biked and run away from that inglorious past.

For the second straight year, the 6-foot-1, 160-pound Arlandson, 32, cruised to victory at the Vineman, finishing the 2.4-mile swim at Johnson’s Beach in Guerneville, the 112-mile bike ride and the three-loop marathon course around Windsor in 9 hours, 13 minutes and 10 seconds. Arlandson, who finished 41 minutes ahead of the field last year, finished 12 minutes ahead of second-place Van McCarty of San Luis Obispo in the 510-man field.

In the women’s event, Whitney Henderson, 28, of Lafayette, Colo., a native of Ukiah, also defended her title. Henderson finished in 10:21.54 and beat runner-up Marie Protat of France by more than eight minutes in the 169-woman field.

But before Henderson crossed the finish line at Windsor High, Arlandson, who lives in Burnsville, Minn., was the first to bask in the spotlight.

A financial consultant with an MBA from Notre Dame, Arlandson stumbled into the triathlon after college.

“I started racing bikes and it turns out I’m a pretty decent cyclist,” he said. “Then I taught myself to swim and it turns out that I have a pretty good body for a swimmer. And running? I mean, anyone can do that.”

Particularly Arlandson, who is blessed with a high threshold for suffering. A finisher of 11 Ironmans, he routinely jogs several miles to cool down after logging the required 140.6 miles.

“I’m Scandinavian,” he joked. “A dull pain is a constant in the life of a Scandinavian.”

Genetics might help explain his success. At his first Ironman, the 2003 Ironman Wisconsin, he finished 42nd in a field of about 2,500. It was the first time he’d ever run a marathon.

He’s since finished eighth at Wisconsin and will compete at the Hawaii Ironman World Championships for the third time in October.

Unlike Arlandson, Henderson, an exercise specialist at a retirement community in Boulder, Colo., has taken a more traditional path into the triathlon world.

A swimmer at Ukiah High, Henderson took up track at Mendocino College, running the middle distances, and joined the triathlon team at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

She won her age group at a half Ironman in Lubbock, Texas, in 2005 and qualified for the Hawaii Ironman as a result.

Saturday marked just her third Ironman. And while she proved to be in a class by herself, her love-hate affair with the event was no doubt shared by many of the nearly 700 competitors.

“When I’m out there I ask myself, ‘Why do I do this? This is not fun,’” she said. “But then I finish and I’m like ‘Oh yeah. That was a blast.’”

You can reach Staff Writer Eric Branch at 521-5268 or eric.branch@pressdemocrat.com.