Here is the thing. The body type that often does well in cooler races which is many of the qualifiers races generates too much heat for Kona itself. You can't escape the physics of each joule of energy that turns to mechanical energy in the bike or run creating 4 joules of heat in your body at the same time. The reason many pros (not all) are fast elsewhere and Kona is because they produce so much energy in cold weather races that they don't actually get that cold, but they have enough surface area to volume (read they are tall and skinny) to dissipate the heat in Kona because on the run, their pace is high enough to generate a bit more cooling air flow than your average age grouper (keep in mind that wind resistance scales with the cube of velocity so even running at 4 min K vs 5 min or 6 min K is a dramatic amount of additional cooling in Kona heat provided that the ambiant air temp is cooler than body temp of 36.xx C...after that you're injecting heat into your body, but it's always cooler than that on the Kona run). In cooler weather qual races, someone who generates a lot of heat at low speed on the run has it sucked away by ambiant air (kind of like a facebook data center in Sweden that uses cooler ambiant air than a data center in Dallas).

I bet you if Lionel loses 5-8 lbs and goes slower on the bike he can go dramatically faster on the run. Lange is 140 lbs, Lionel is 165 lbs. The heat that Lionel generates is dramatically higher (if they go at the same watts per kilo on the bike or run, Lionel is generating in the order of 40W more of mechanical work, which is 160W more heat....or around 1.6 extra 100W lighbulbs heating up his body). I doubt Lange can touch Lionel on a cool day in Arizona just because of the physics at hand.

Related to this I would counsel Tie3 to find the hottest mountaineous race he can find to try to KonaQ. That boils down to Nice in June (assuming he can technically handle a bike in the mountains) or show up again in Whistler and hope for a 35C climb out of Pemberton and a scorcher on the run. Or maybe a sauna humid hot day in Cabos or Malaysia or Taiwan.

I raced in 2002 and 2003 in my early/mid 20s. Cratered both times. After 2003 I felt done with the race and ready to move on. I continued racing triathlons for a few more years then took a long break. Got back into the sport a few years ago and qualified again this summer. I had been secretly dreaming for years about going back and redeeming myself and thought this was my big chance. Once again I imploded, this time worse than 2002 and 2003. At this point, I'm not sure how I feel about trying to go back again. On the one hand, just executing a solid race there would feel like tremendous accomplishment. On the other hand, it's starting to feel a bit like banging my head against the wall and I wonder if I should just let it go. The heat is the easy and obvious explanation for my inability to perform, but outside of Kona I've race well in the heat (granted in half-IMs, haven't done any really hot full IMs besides Kona). I'm just not sure what I'd do differently to give myself a better chance of success if I went back.

Which are your thoughts on this?:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...erformance_P6463588/

I had an extended break from IM and did my first Kona in early 2000s. Performance was not a big factor for me then, only finishing. I wanted to compete this time but it’s just a different league there, you get what you get. You get pounded from the moment the cannon goes off, relentless wind and searing heat. I finished well with the sun still out, but no where near “competing” with the AG. I think that has a lot to do with it. You bust your ass all year to get into the best shape of your life, then race day delivers an ass whooping and you land in the 30% range (or whatever). Is it a fair trade? That’s the big question. It takes so much to get there, then factoring in all the overhead across the board. For me, I was proud to get there and still have IM aspirations going forward and want to podium in my events. But for me, the Kona box has been checked.

I've raced 13,15,16,17. I got a spot by roll down 3 of those and made it for "real" once. Joking on the for real but this is slowtwitch. All of those qualifying races were late in the kq season and all on hot hilly courses. I am small and these courses suite me.

Every kona race I have had a great week vacation leading up to the race but did not give a hoot about the results. For me kona was about celebrating the year and spending time with family out there. All of my kona results go figure were prettty crappy.

After the race 2 weeks ago I decided to not try to go back until I can kq a year ahead of time and properly train and see what I can do. I realize that this could take a while, I think the pointy end is a lot sharper a year out than in August.

So for me the answer was 4

Three.

First just because I wanted to prove I was worthy.

Second, to prove the first wasn't a fluke.

Third to prove kids won't slow me down.

Kid's HAVE slowed me down and the drive and passion are missing. It's just not fun anymore to train 8 hours on a Saturday. I don't think it ever was fun, just a way to kill time when I didn't have kids.

Ken

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"the trick is to keep losing weight until your friends and family ask you if you've been sick. then you know you're within 10 pounds. if they start whispering to each other, wondering if you've got cancer or aids, you're within 5. when they actually do an intervention, you're at race weight." - Slowman

I've got family in Hawaii so I use it as an excuse to visit. I do race well there and can deal with the heat. I also like vibe and of course the bragging rights. I just qualified at Maryland for my 7th time. So I'll have a year to set it up and be at younger end of my age group. I'm still hoping to figure out the bike there so I still have a challenge. My wife likes Hawaii and I have training partners and teammates who also accumulate frequent flyer miles on Hawaiian Air flight five O.

If you just had a great race you go to the Awards Ceremony to get your trophy, which is followed by role down. If you qualify and you're surrounded by people thrilled that they KQed it is hard to pass on the slot. This doesn't get old and I want to be part of the action.

-Bifff