Ginter Has a Winning Workout in Newport Triathlon

Dolly Ginter was looking for a speedy workout before traveling to next month’s world long-course triathlon championships in Nice, France. The Huntington Beach resident found it Sunday at the Kring & Brown Newport Beach Triathlon.

Ginter, 36, won the women’s division at the 23rd annual event, which is billed as the longest continuously running triathlon in the United States. Ginter finished the half-mile swim, 13-mile bike ride and three-mile run in 1 hour 4 minutes 22 seconds.

“The only reason I’m doing this race is because there wasn’t another race for me to do between now and when I leave,” said Ginter. “I decided to do this one on Friday.”

Ginter and Ashley Cook of Venice Beach left on the bike portion side-by-side, but when they returned, Ginter had a 60-second lead on Cook. Ginter stretched the lead on the run, which she considers her specialty, and finished nearly five minutes ahead of Cook (1:09.02).

“On the bike and the run I usually make up some time,” Ginter said.

Next month’s world championship course will be considerably longer. The swim measures four kilometers, the bike 120 kilometers and the run 30 kilometers, which is three-quarters the distance of Ironman competitions. Ginter has never tried a race at that distance before.

“I like half-Ironmans and we’ll see if I like the distance for worlds,” Ginter said. “The worlds are kind of an unusual distance. I think it’s one of the only races in the world at that distance.”

Sunday’s overall winner was Ted Bramble of Encinitas, who won a close race with Kaley Parkinson of Danville. Bramble, 29, finished in 59:07, which was 17 seconds faster than Parkinson.

“I was chasing this guy the whole way,” said Parkinson, 26. “I thought I was going to catch him up on the hill [during the run], but he picked it up on the way down and coming through the dirt. We just had a great race. You just can’t ask for anything better than that.”