Always loved that woman......class with a BIG smile

She is awesome, unfortunately those timing mats are again completely wrong. Dont really understand how can that be so difficult, almost every race they're completely off.

Hopefully I did no jinx her as her chip is not showing splits past the second run split.

Anyway, interesting to see that her bike was only 7 minutes slower than Holger Lorenz. Back in the day when Holger was racing pro (currently in 45-49) he actually lead the bike for part of the way in Kona! Holger was first off the bike in 45-49. Pretty tough crowd if you are in that division. In my division (50-54) one of the Austrians is off the bike in 5:50 race time with a 4:36 bike split. These guys can fly!

Looks like Van Vlierken and Kaisa Lehtonon may end up going sub 8:50 and under 50 min delta to the top men's time (David Plese 8:02)! VV may go 8:45!

She is amazing, hopefully she holds up on the run, no timing data on her coming in after the first couple splits. Petr Vabrousek…………….what can we say about him? And, not to forget 48 year old Andreas Niedrig. Bring back Chris Hinshaw for crying out loud!

Fast course. My friend of mine Allan Hovda just went 8.36 and got 20th place.
Lots of fast running. 2.43 for the winner.

Amazing speed among the women.

And most of all. Barcelona is one great city.

Looks like Badmann dropped out as there were no further splits for her!

Top 2 women end up sub 8:50. Pretty awesome.

Vera fast race as always, Men 40-44 top 4 all 8.50, top 7 sub 9...!

And those top 4 separated by 42 seconds. There are lots of fast bike splits and I can't imagine it being any flatter than Florida where you don't see that many sub-5 splits.

She will always be my favorite pro Triathlete...and I don't really follow them. I always enjoyed chatting with her at Eagleman and she always gave high fives during her race. I love to see her still doing so well.

That is seriously fast at any age for either sex.
Was she still riding the Cheetah ?

Cheers,
Terry

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"You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream" - Les Brown
"Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment" - Jim Rohn

I would guess so, thats what she was riding a month ago in Vichy (rode 4.56).

She has the fastest bike split, any news as to why she dropped out after 7km, wish she did well, that would have set her up nicely for another Kona in 2016

My guess is because she had the fastest bike split.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

Good guess :, but she has more experience behind her than anyone else, so i can assume that she knows how to pace? But being near 50 can hurt more i guess

A lot of pros ride beyond their means on race day. It's certainly not just in the amateur ranks.

For them it's a little more taking a gamble on strategy than it is riding like a complete idiot but it's still overbiking however you want to look at it. She probably felt her only chance of winning was to throw down on the bike. If that's what she did the gamble obviously didn't work. Like you said, being 15-20 years older than her competition certainly does not help.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

Even world champions can fall foul of their own egos (or should that be especially world champions?). Perhaps she went our too hard because she was trying to prove that she still "had it"? It's easy to forget that you don't quite have as much in the tank as you once did - the sensations are familiar, but the muscles just can't back them up for as long as they used to.

Thanks Markko.

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"You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream" - Les Brown
"Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment" - Jim Rohn

The T2 entry mat was shortly after the bike dismount point. Then you racked your bike. Then the T2 exit mat was *in front* of the changing area. So T2 times were incorrect / fast, and time spent changing was added to the first leg of the run. I didn't notice or expect the mat before the tent, so I was wondering if I accidentally ran the wrong direction at first.

If I remember correctly every second split during the run was also like that, here are the winners splits, I dont believe they actually oscillated like that 3-3.5min difference per 5k. It was same for everybody.

1.7 km 4:14/km
6.8 km 3:18/km
11.8 km 4:02/km
16.9 km 3:28/km
22 km 4:09/km
27 km 3:31/km
32.1 km 4:15/km
37.1 km 3:39/km
42.2 km 4:29/km

Hm yeah I think mine were the same way. I don't know what they did though. My watch is in miles so I couldn't easily match it up with the touchpads. I do know the overall course length IS legit, despite how fast it was.