After missing Kona ’cause she was getting married, Erin Snelgrove gets Nice spot in Florida
Canadian takes fourth at Ironman Florida
Photo by:
Patrick McDermott/ Getty Images for Ironman
Earlier this year we featured Canadian Erin Snelgrove in Triathlon Magazine, celebrating her breakthrough runner-up performance at Ironman Lake Placid (pictured above). It was truly a “how did I get here?” day for Snelgrove as she improved on her previous best ninth-place finish to the runner-up spot.
Snelgrove wasn’t able to take advantage of the big finish and qualifying slot for Kona, though – her wedding was planned for the same day as the world championship. She’s taken care of the worlds for next year, though – after a fourth-place finish at Ironman Florida on the weekend, Snelgrove was happy to let us know that since Jocelyn McCauley, who finished third, didn’t take her slot, the Canadian is off to Nice next September.
Snelgrove managed to run her way to fourth thanks to a 2:58 marathon split, which was also enough to get her one spot ahead of the woman who beat her at Ironman Lake Placid. Alice Alberts.
Finding triathlon
Like many of her peers in the Ironman circuit, Snelgrove was involved in other sports before finding triathlon. A rower throughout high school and part of her undergrad years at Western University in London, Ont., Snelgrove decided to join a triathlon club after leaving the crew team behind.
“Then I got recruited from that club to join the cross-country team,” she says. She proceeded to run at Western while she finished her undergraduate degree, then continued her cross-country career at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., where she received an MBA.
“After all that, I went back and played around in triathlon,” Snelgrove says. “Played around” may be a bit of an understatement, as she quickly found success in races across Ontario.
Breaking into the big leagues
Snelgrove made her Ironman debut in Mont-Tremblant. She had a tremendous showing, soaring to a sub-10-hour result and ninth-place finish in 9:56:49. While this was certainly a confidence-booster, Snelgrove’s finish was still well behind the winning time of 9:17:20 that day, which is why her result in Lake Placid was so thrilling.
Funnily, Lake Placid wasn’t even in Snelgrove’s plan for the season. She was originally set to race Ironman 70.3 Mont-Tremblant in June, but after its cancellation due to poor air quality caused by smoke from Quebec forest fires, she adjusted her focus.
“I was pretty bummed about Tremblant, but then I was like, ‘Well, whatever, I might as well get another race in,’” Snelgrove says. She landed on Lake Placid for a simple reason: it was close enough to drive. “That’s important for me since I’m busy with my job and can’t work remotely.” (Snelgrove is currently working at Bruce Power, not far from her home base of Port Elgin, Ont., and she is aiming to earn her professional engineering license.)
Snelgrove did also compete at the full in Mont-Tremblant this year, finishing eighth just over a month after her big day in Lake Placid.
A solid team
On the topic of her engagement, Snelgrove said the support she receives from her now husband, Aiden Schenkels, is a massive reason she has found success as a pro triathlete. (Fun fact: Snelgrove and Schenkels met after a collision in a local cycling time trial—perhaps the only reasonable way any future triathlon-focused romantic comedies should begin.)
“Aiden’s my number one cycling training partner, but he’s also a great cook,” she says. “I feel like that’s a secret weapon in my training, because I think if I didn’t have someone like him cooking all these healthy meals for me my training and racing would definitely suffer.”
Parts of this story appeared in the September issue of Triathlon Magazine.
