Burhed wrote:
dmh wrote:
There were 4 slots for M45-49, and I was 5th. Missed 4th by 3 seconds :-(. Congratulations to the guy that got me at the end - I had nothing left. All 4 took their spots.
I saw this when looking through the results since you are my age group. Sorry to hear!
As somebody else mentioned, it would good to read a race report if you are up to it. Did you know your position at the end of the race? Anything you look back on that you could have made up 3 seconds?
Everybody loves a sad story and it would make for some good reading (sorry, that should probably be in pink, I don't mean to make fun especially since I'm at least an hour off your time!).
OK I've been watching this thread with some interest, and if you really mean this (underlined above), I can fill in some details from the group of 3 that finished within 40 seconds of the final Kona spot in M45-49 and 2017 IMWI. I was the poor sap watching the other 2 gradually pull away from me over the last 2 miles.
I can't speak for dmh, but when the eventual 4th place finisher passed us - dmh and I were running side-by-side at that point, somewhere near Camp Randall, maybe, on the way to the finish, roughly 3 miles to go - I did not know his age group due to a calf sleeve covering up the marking. I suspected he was in our age group, but honestly did not care since I thought we were all well out of Kona hunting territory. I don't believe any of us knew that there was a Kona slot waiting for one of us.
I had been running alongside dmh for all of the first 17 miles, until a percolation in my stomach caused me to jump into the nearest port-a-potty ("never trust a fart in an Ironman," fool me once...) From there dmh and I traded places due to bouts of nausea (dmh) and walking a few aid station (me), and ran together for a few more brief stretches. Since we'd been running together so long, and chatting a bit, I am pretty sure dmh was unaware of the situation at that point as well. Sorry if I was being a pest, dmh, but I was just trying to divert my attention from my legs and garner some sympathy for my own tale of woe from the bike segment of the race!
Since you all love sad stories, here was the tragedy I shared with dmh over those 17 miles (well, mostly over the first 10, after that we settled into am "I'm just trying not to die, here" kind of silence):
Once upon a time there was a middle-aged, balding, triathlete who was unaccountably feeling very fit as he began an Ironman race in a far-away kingdom of cheese and beer. After finally dragging himself out of the murky soup (1:11 -ugghhh), he climbed aboard his trusty steed, where he exalted in the prospect of slaying fast-swimming dragons (like dmh). Only, as our daring hero passed the mystic Alliant Energy Center, there was a crunching sound, followed shortly thereafter but a metallic tinkling that disappeared behind him.
Sometimes it takes a minute or two to recognize the feel of a flattening tire, for example. But when your saddle is dislodged from underneath you, one tends to take notice fairly quickly. Thus, our hero stood alongside the rode and threw his beloved BMC TM01 (a bike, parenthetically, which utilizes a clever saddle clamping mechanism that relies upon a single bolt that is threaded into one of 4 locations on the top of the seat post) into a nearby shrubbery.
His anger vented, the brave triathlete, veteran of a mid-life crisis or two, took a deep breath and kindly requested of a bike course volunteer to please radio for mechanical support. After several minutes of standing idly by as fast-swimming demons heartlessly left him in the dust, our intrepid hero re-mounted his saddle-less steed and began once again to make forward progress down the road.
For 16 grueling miles, our hero persevered. Over hill and valley, round corners and past annoyingly bunched-together clans of cyclists. 16 miles out of the saddle... errr, out of the seatpost (as there was no saddle). Until he arrived in fair Verona, where a saintly mechanic awaited.
The mechanic toiled over the decapitated bicycle like a shaman. Our hero stretched his aching back, and ate a bar, and drank heartily of the Gatorade. Finally, a saddle was ready. Not the original, for the replacement bolt required access from the top to tighten, so the Fizik Arione Tri2 was replaced by a wholly dissimilar ISM saddle of some exotic persuasion. The saddle was too far forward (necessitated by the availability of only 3 of the original 4 bolt holes on the top of the seat post), and a centimeter or 2 too high. (Slowman can probably attest that small modifications to bike fit like this are unlikely to cause any detriment to the rider's performance over the course of the remaining 94 miles.) But our hero had no time to be picky.
And, so with the evil swim-demons irrevocably out of reach, our never-say-die (until your saddle pops off) hero pedaled off to face the mighty Mt. Barlow of Doom.
And he finished the race, somehow, and lived in the agony of a festering saddle sore ever after.
The end.
P.S. There you have it, my first post on the famous Slowtwitch forum!
