OK OK...enough jokes about Cam beat profamateurs in the 40-44 group....how about some love for Cam. How many of you have done the same IM 20 years in a row and won it 13 times and now in your mid 40's you're cranking out a 2:42 and not even lost a step.

I think it is amazing. Frankly, if I were to sit down with someone in triathlon for say a lunch, I think the person I would most like to talk to is Cam. To be performing at such a high level for such a long time is truly impressive.

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I agree with you. I think the ultimate race that I "watched" Cam do was IM Melbourne 2012. He comes off the bike with Crowie, Van Lierde and Llanos. Out of T2 it was like ITU. All these guys were running 3:30 K's trying to break each other with no one backing down. This lasted something like 30K with pace only marginally decaying. Every time someone at the front slowed down, one of the other guys would surge to the front trying to break the others. It seemed like an endless series of attacks. I was up till around 2 am watching the live coverage shaking my head thinking all these guys would blow into a walk and end up running 3+ hours, but it kept going and going.

Eventually Llanos and Van Lierde drop off...but no explosions just a gradual fade. Cam was basically driving Crowie the entire time. I believe that was Crowie's only sub 8 and only time sub 2:40. Cam was very close to Crowie in the end and even though the bungee chord broke very late in the game, all you needed was a single Crowie cramp and it was game over. If you recall in 2011, Crowie set the Kona record and was stopping many times at the top of Palani to stretch. Crowie said he never wanted to go that hard again, and that Cam Brown was the King of March race prep.

I am looking at the IM NZ 1999 results and he actually ran 5 minutes faster THIS YEAR. He ran 2:47 in a very narrow sub 1 minute "loss" to Tim DeBoom that year in 8:32. This guy is unreal.

I don't know enough about the course and conditions over the year but his fastest IMNZ was last year when he set the record I think. That's impressive enough for me right there.

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He has 20+ years in triathlon of just training and racing. Most if not all have jobs and a family and triathlon comes 2nd. I do this for fun and to push my body to see how fast I can go.
So all the pros I beat should stoping racing pro, which probably all younger than me?

I remember when Cam Brown was 2nd behind Hellriegel in the 2000 Ironman New Zealand, Thomas Hellriegel said this about Brown:


I would say that Brown was indeed quite the "prospect".

http://www.xtri.com/...temId.511706680.html

I am pretty sure that Cam is in a different genetic zip code from most in M40-44. Same with Crowie. Both have family responsibilities and a lot of business obligations. I'd bet that if Cam got a regular day job, he'd still be beating most to all of the 40-44 crew solidly. It is just the way it is. Its just like you will beat most of the other M40-44 because you have a decent genetic starting point....if most 12 hour IM guys did the exact same training as you, they won't come within 90 minutes of your times. That's just the reality of sport. Genetics play a part in this.

Also I am certain Cam has been racing triathlon much longer than 20 years. That was his 20th IM New Zealand, but he was doing tri longer than year 1 of his first race in Taupo (or was it still in Auckland then, I can't remember).

By the way, I don't believe you're anywhere in even remotely close to the profamateur crew that Publiusvalerius was referring to. You got your head down and just show up at races and get it done.

In any case 2:42 is insane, whether he has income from a regular job or income from his businesses and is training a lot around that is kind of secondary given that he beat a lot of younger pros that likely have less family and biz obligations.

I don't know about last year but conditions *this* year were tough. Strong wind all day. It made the swim pretty rough, and it was in your face coming back up from Reparoa.

Dan, not sure if you really know the ins and outs of Cam. Fwiw, I know of one single pro who doesn't work outside of sport and even he started coaching this year. Nearly every single pro is working even if it doesn't seem like they work. Frankly, I have trained with a few trust fund kids. They always quit. It takes a certain mental ability to abuse yourself like triathletes, and the trust fund kids I knew didn't have it.

There are a bunch of pros who probably shouldn't have a pro card but they do. Frankly, a lot of them do it for the *resume* add or to help build coaching business. I know plenty of pros who aren't that great at triathlon, will never make a pro podium, but make more than you would think in triathlon due to coaching.

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nice - to run that off IMNZ bike course conditions (or any other) is phenominal at any age

OK guys, sorry, I realized I stirred the pot on the M40-44 but you can't help but be impressed by Cam at 44. Every so often we get a generational athlete that keeps going forever. Dave Scott was 5th at Kona around age 43. Karen Smyers just kept going forever. Same thing with Natasha Badmann. Same thing with Cam Brown and Crowie (half IM for him).

As for training around a regular job being tougher, I am not sure that's harder or easier for everyone. If your 9-5 job is not 100% commission, having a regular pay cheque takes off a lot of pressure during racing. Some will perform better when they don't have to worry about groceries, car payments and mortgage. Others will perform better when they are hungry for a payout or a podium which gives them a platform to generate revenue elsewhere. Scott Molina once said, "All you guys who think training and racing pro is a cakewalk and we're just lucky, how about turning in your MBAs and law degrees and steady jobs and just try living off this grind". I think the fact that Cam has made it work for 20+ years is also impressive. He's definitely the king of March in the Southern Hemisphere races. He's got that dialed in totally!

I understood your point as you intended it. Ie, how good Cam still is after a lifetime of high-level exercise. He didn't just pick up the sport in his mid-30s, he has had the wear and tear.

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But he was heard to say that he can't afford to slow down too much because it hurts! He keeps going because he doesn't want to hurt!

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Those conditions yesterday were tough. It was my first IM so I've got nothing to compare against. But a couple of age groupers I chatted to briefly on the run said that the swim was one of the roughest and the wind back from Reporoa was the worst they had experienced. The other thing I found out was that the run course is actually really tough as wel, basically all up and down. I'm not sure how that compares to other courses, but it wasn't an easy run course. The swim/bike conditions plus the hilly run course makes that a remarkable run split.

Is this the race crowie said he was never really the same from again? Dug too deep he reckoned

From the sounds of some interviews with you that I have read, it kinda sounded like you were pretty much a full time triathlete, except you raced age group? Is that not the case? ie you have a full time job etc?

Cam Brown does it still because he loves it and he enjoys it.

Someone needs to remind Cam that you are supposed to slow down as you get older.

Must be all those meat pie and coke stops he has on long rides. ;-)

In 2012 Melbourne was the Asia Pacific Championships. So Cam went over to Melbourne to make Crowie suffer. He also did IMNZ that March but I can't remember why, but it was shortened to half IM

Didn't Dave Scott run 2:42 as a 42 year old?

Here are you top 20 from Kona 1996 when Dave was 42....yeah, he out ran Hellriegel, Welch, Peter Reid, Peter Kropko (generally one of the fastest runners in Kona back then) and Mike McCormack. Not that bad for an ancient guy. Look at the ages on the list, and he had 10-15 years on most of the guys in the field:

1 Luc Van Lierde 27 Belgium :51:36 4:30:44 2:41:48 08:04:08
2 Thomas Hellriegel 25 Germany :54:22 4:24:50 2:46:55 08:06:07
3 Greg Welch 31 Australia :51:23 4:35:43 2:51:51 08:18:57
4 Peter Reid 27 Canada :54:22 4:30:33 2:59:42 08:24:37
5 Dave Scott 42 Colorado :53:16 4:49:55 2:45:20 08:28:31
6 Alexander Taubert 27 Germany :55:31 4:42:52 2:52:22 08:30:45
7 Peter Kropko 33 Hungary :54:14 4:48:12 2:52:29 08:34:55
8 Jean Moureau 33 Belgium :55:40 4:41:55 2:57:54 08:35:29
9 Jan Van Der Marel 28 Netherlands :59:48 4:37:54 2:58:14 08:35:56
10 Matthias Klumpp 28 Germany :56:57 4:47:12 2:51:59 08:36:08
11 Jurgen Zack 31 Germany :54:20 4:30:58 3:11:25 08:36:43
12 Michael McCormack 36 Massachuset :54:19 4:34:35 3:09:30 08:38:24
13 Cameron Widoff 27 Colorado :51:30 4:40:29 3:07:41 08:39:40
14 Rene Rovera 28 France :59:54 4:46:21 2:53:39 08:39:54
15 Ken Glah 32 Pennsylvani :51:28 4:37:20 3:13:48 08:42:36
16 Pierre-Alain Frossard 30 Switzerland :57:26 4:45:28 3:00:01 08:42:55
17 Juergen Hauber 28 Germany :59:46 4:49:34 2:55:48 08:45:08
18 Lothar Leder 25 Germany :53:29 4:51:21 3:01:05 08:45:55
19 Markus Dippold 28 Germany :55:37 4:50:32 3:00:29 08:46:38
20 Alexandre Ribeiro 31 Brazil :57:27 4:54:20 2:58:19 08:50:06

A few more, Tom Evans went 8:08 winning IM Florida at the age of 40 in 2008, beating Torbjorne Sindballe. Tom's times: 48/4:19/2:57. Not in the same running zone as Cam Brown, but still a solid day. It MAY be the fastest ever IM time by anyone in 40-44 range. I'm not sure through. Cam was still 39 when he went a touch over 8 hours at IM Melbourne 2012 (5 years ago).

Also in 2015 as a 39 year old Andreas Ralaert was 2nd in Kona. Last year in 2016, he would be "USAT 40 year old' being born in 1976 and was kind of jogging the IM Copenhagen course to get a KQ validation and did an 8:29 (3:21 run) for 7th place with a 4:13 bike. The guy in 6th place? Cameron Brown in 8:17.

A dentist too....

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Sure - and then let us all get on the track with Jimmy Johnson (he's 40), or on the baseball field with Jeter, or the football field with Elway. I'm sure we would stand a chance against any of them either.

But put him them the dentist office, criminal court, accounting profession and I'll bet we do better than them.

We all have our profession and our game.

Exactly....the best guys at any area of competition are just good. But in football or baseball you don't have any separate category for M25-29, M30-34, M35-39, M40-44 world champions in parallel with the pro division. In triathlon we do. Once you get a bit later in life in 45-49 you have guys like Thomas Hellriegel to race, or 50-54, you have to race guys like Jurgen Zack and Ken Glah (and they get beaten) and in 55-59 you have Molina (gets beaten) and in 60-64 you get to race Dave Scott (and you have a former pro Moat but I digress). Seriously though, I don't really see the point of so many age groups under 40 though. We sould have a pro division (subject to pro rules, pro card, pro anti doping requirements) and then just an open amateur division maybe 24-39 minimum, but perhaps 24-44 is fine too as its totally possible to sustain performance well past 40 in long racing.