Who's Christie?

---

---

---

Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

The number #1 element to winning Kona is your ability to race 8 to 9 hours in that heat, without slowing down because of it. Physiology to absorb calories and liquid with an innate ability to not sweat like a hot dog eating champion, nothing else matters without those qualities.

After that of course you have to be fast, tough, and suited to racing 8+ hours...

How many greats have we seen in Kona over the years, never live up to expectations of a super dominate season, or career. All thwarted by the heat there..

Christie is autocorrect for Chrissie. I will edit.

---

Team Zoot So Cal

I just did Honu and Kona way back in your days and yup the ability to survive those conditions should be at the top of the list.
Lange and Kienle seem to adapt. Sanders is a probably too.
Yet even Molina figured it out one year, so can all the other hopefuls?

---

Team Zoot So Cal

Most importantly, less competition. Newer sport, smaller pool of people to compete against.

Some of that is true, but the times from the good old days aren’t far off.
But we digress, what made them consistent winners? Who has those characteristics this year?
Ryf is a good pic.

---

Team Zoot So Cal

 

Could it be they trained to win?



Not to do well such as finish top 3 or top 5 but rather to win. They did not plan on others having a bad day at the office, they expected the competition to show up ready to race and have no flaws in the execution of their race plan.

Just a guess on my part.


.

---

Once, I was fast. But I got over it.

Yup, the times back in the 80s were outstanding especially considering the sport was in it's infancy, lack of technology on the bikes, nutrition etc I think they figured if they'd had timing mats in the 80s, Mark Allen would still hold the run split record.

They all definitely trained to win. In the early days, there were no coaches or plans and they learned by pushing themselves harder than they guessed the others were training. There is that winning attitude also, but I think there are 10 or so men that have that.
Not sure how many women believe they can beat Ryf?????

---

Team Zoot So Cal

Lucy Charles can beat her and she has enormous self belief. On paper Ryf should win, but if Charles boxes clever she could beat her.

I think with athletes like Chrissie Wellington, she had some very rare natural affinity for endurance sport. She achieved an enormous amount, very quickly, despite being very inexperienced. She won the ITU worlds on an old road bike and won her first IM on a road bike as well. Which in some ways puts her above athletes like Ryf whose endurance/racing background goes back to when they were kids.

It would not be a huge surprise to see Lucy Charles win, may be more likely next year though.
Chrissie is my all time favorite. Talent with a smile.

---

Team Zoot So Cal

It took a long time for people to beat Allen’s run record or Van Lierde’s course record. On the men’s side, there was plenty of competition, at least after 89 when we started to see more than the Big 4 at the pointy end of the race consistently.

On the women’s side, perhaps you can make the argument that the competition was thinner in PNF’s victories. But you’d have to discount the Puntous twins, Erin Baker (maybe the best runner in IM until Chrissie, Rinnie, and Daniela), and Karen Smyers. And she beat Natascha in her last win. There is also Fernanda in the mix there, but I never thought Fernanda raced at her very best in Kona. I’d guess it’s because Rio hasn’t quite hit the hot part of the year yet, and it wasn’t common back then for top pros to spend weeks in Hawaii acclimatizing. Anyway....I don’t see tremendously more depth in the field of women who have solid shots at winning. There are more in the field that compete for 5th on down, but those athletes only claim outside shots at winning if all of the top athletes falter.

I can't speak from experience and I will never come within a country mile of qualifying but I have heard from basically everyone who has gone there that you can't fathom the heat until you experience it. Heard it is just unreal.

I was wondering this, but some of their times, stand the test of time.

I wonder if Crowie's 3x and Peter Reid's 3x fit in as equally huge achievement....and what about Natasha Badmann? Peter Reid had 3 wins, 3 second place and one third at Kona. One of those second place days was 2004 on that crazy windy day when even Peter Reid biked > 5 hrs but he backed it up with a 2:46 run. Not enough to close on Stadler, but still an amazing day.

Dev

I meant to include Badmann. Yes on Reid and Crowie too!
There are a number of excellent guys that were one and done too! A few on Slowtwitch have hinted that Frodeno was “too” fit at 70.3 World’s. I wonder how close to injury you have to be to win a championship?????
So, is durability the key? Dave was Mr October. I think Peter Reid did the same and had that single focus.

---

Team Zoot So Cal

Most importantly, less competition. Newer sport, smaller pool of people to compete against. //

How do you figure that, old days "ALL" pro were allowed to pitch up, 120+ in the mens fields, similar big fields in the womens too. There was no qualifying like there is today, just one and done, then you could focus. Over half the mens field has to race their guts out all season to get one of the 50 spots, so they are toast before setting foot on the island. Imagine if all pros were allowed today, then you might have a leg to stand on.

Other thing was all the pros had to race all the great AG'ers too. Sure most were not there at the end, but it made of some good racing up to about 6 hours or so, imagine top AG'ers starting with the pros today. To say there was less competition just shows you know nothing about how this race has been conducted, at least before you started watching it...

While it was not my post you replied to...I used wikipedia to see the top 3 going back to the first race...then looked at the individual years (only goes back to 2005) that have links to the top 10 times and came to the same conclusion that there are far more pro men finishing closer to the winner now than there were before.

Your points about how pro racing is now compared to before may be valid, but there is no doubt that there are more pros impacting the race today than there were when Dave Scott won his 6 titles.

Yes, there are more pros at the pointy end of the race. And there was no “prize” money at Kona until the mid 80’s. But a win at Kona is always worth a ton more than the prize money.
But Dave’s times in the later 80’s are not much different than today (depending on heat and wind).
So I go back to the original point, what makes these athletes winners and how can we look at those qualities to get a glimpse at this year’s potential winners.

---

Team Zoot So Cal

Mental toughness.

Mental toughness is huge! Being able to focus and be positive for 8+ hours, is big too. I see guys like Sanders having these qualities, but get beat in the last x miles of the run. (I am not a Sanders hater or fanboy). Hope he wins someday.
I remember PNF saying how at an Ironman the focus is not on your competitors, but on yourself. Who are those this year that can do that?

---

Team Zoot So Cal

But if you look at the times from back then, then factor in that today's pros have aero skinsuits, aero helmets, advanced nutrition, aero wheels, aero superbikes with no cables, shielded brakes, electronic shifting instead of freaking downtube shifters, and the "old timers" times were actually on par, if not faster, than today's top times...

Be neat to see a wind tunnel test showing how much of a watts/time saving a p5, skinsuit, wheels, aero helmet, etc would provide against the old setup of a speedo, steel road bike, and non aero brain bucket. Calculate the total time savings on the bike (I'm guessing it's be on the order of tens of minutes at the same power), and then account for all the advances in nutrition science...

Basically a virtual Frodo vs Allen vs Scott vs Reid, vs any other noteworthy name race normalized for tech. I find the idea fascinating.

There may not have been as MANY pros back then, but the top tier then could hang with, if not beat, any pro today, IMO. And no, I'm not a homer for the good old days, just pointing out the obvious.

No competition[/reply]

---

Mark Kolding - Rookie Pro 2019 Blog

LOL

---

Team Zoot So Cal