5 miles short now based off a podcast and exaggeration?

Time will tell. Looking at race map suggests sweet f all difference to last year's 110miles.

I do think Starky will go sub4. Be it 107, 108, 110 or 112 miles. Man is a biking genius.

Too bad it's not a bike race.

and there it is.

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80/20 Endurance Ambassador

3:54.

Over under on measured course distance, or the run he can put together now?

Someone said they googled it earlier and it looked to be a couple short from last years short course, so maybe 109?? I would also take the under on that, just by a hair.

Funny thing is that they will no tout this as some Ironman bike record, Starky might get a few bucks from sponsors for it, but in the end he has to hate that they took away all those miles where he could put more time into the runners. If he loses the race or a place by a small amount of time, there it is, right in those 4 or so short miles where he would have padded his lead and had the runner put some more hard bike miles on those running legs..

Don't get me wrong... I'm a fan and I want this guy to crush the 4h mark. He's definitely capable of doing it but he needs to do it on a legit 112mi course. This unfortunately will alway have a * next to it. I wish he hadn't hyped it up over on Twitter yesterday. This ain't no Roger Bannister moment.

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What's your CdA?

Triathlon preview show said an out and back was moved shortening the course a bit more than last year with little gor options to make it up elsewhere they could see.

This is one thing that can be disappointing when it comes to “records”.

Agree 100% thus the over under on actual distance comment!

We HAVE the technology, not like they can’t afford proper course measurements

It’ll be interesting to see the Strava file for the course. He went 4:01:14 on the 110 mile course last year. If it’s 107 miles this year like some local folks are thinking, you’d need to add ~7 minutes to his time to equal to correlate to last years course (so he rode about the same time). Add about 11.5 minutes for a legit 112 miles. So about a 4:06:30 for 112 miles? Just all depends on how short it is.

Hanson was 6 minutes faster from last years course. Will Clark was 12.5 minutes faster. Matt Russell was 7 minutes faster. Ackerman went 4:03 which is a 9 minute PR from his Barcelona time (which is a fast course).

So yeah, I’m thinking it was probably 107 miles. What a joke that the “North American Championship” is 5 miles short...

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Matt

Right, it's usually more to do with a land use problem then anything. Can probably only run so many permits, shut down so much of the tollway, exits. etc.

Looks like(if you can believe IM splits) that Starky is losing a little one 30 seconds a mile to Matt Hanson, so with about 18 miles left he has around 12 minutes in hand. He is outrunning 2nd place at this time, and the others are further off and not running as well as Matt, so that seems to be the match up at the moment.

So if both hold their paces, Starky wins with a margin. But of course we all know that is not how it is going to play out, these guys are gonna see each other at some point, and it will be close. Hope they both keep running well, blow ups are so boring...(-;

Who cares about Starky, Lauren Brandon crushed all the men in the swim. THAT is the story.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

From what I understand they can have a 10% variance on course distances so this should easily be within the rules. If it bothers you that much, you should write WTC and USAT to request a rule change. Oh and good luck with that.

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Madison photographer Timothy Hughes | Instagram

Matt rarely has a bad run so he has this one in the bag. The russian dude is also pretty fast but I don't think he'll hang.

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What's your CdA?

Great swim but a non-factor since Kim Morrison passed her on the bike. Kim looking very fast on her Plasma.

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Madison photographer Timothy Hughes | Instagram

Matt rarely has a bad run so he has this one in the bag. The russian dude is also pretty fast but I don't think he'll hang. //

How are you doing your math? It looks like 11 minute gap with 18 miles to go, thus far he is now gaining 35 seconds a mile. You are right in that I don't think Matt blows up, but he certainly is pushing his limits right now. Starky on the other hand took off slow, and has picked it up, something you get too do when you have 15 m minutes in hand off the bike. To me it looks like Matt will need Starky to slow down for him to win, at these paces Starky hangs on..


Not saying this is what happens, but right now at these paces, Matt does not have it in the bag as you put it..The bag is out there for him, but he will need some help..

they got room to move the cones on the turnarounds. i bet it was just a plain old error. last year was 110.9 on my file.

Los cabos 110.5 with a 26.4 run in 2014. Maryland was 111.0. FLA and Kona are exact.

I'd be interested to know where that rule is. But just because you can do a shoddy job doesn't mean you should. What I actually find more frustrating with the short course itself is the fact that ironman (or perhaps the race director) just disregards it. From the course description on the Ironman website:


If you know the course is short, just state it. Don't lie. I mean at least with Ironman Choo they are honest and state it's 116 miles. There just doesn't seem to be any reason to not just put the honest distance or at least within a 1 mile.

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Matt

Starky is already running 8 min pace. He went on a suicide mission running 6:20s when he's never run faster than a 3:57 or something.

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What's your CdA?

Bike was short, he passed 161km at 3:35 and finished the bike 19 min later. So if he averaged around 45kmh it would make it around 177km. This also means he would likely have gone sub 4 on a correct course as well.

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Terrible Tuesday’s Triathlon

Starky almost walking it seems, pace dropped to 8 min/mile...

Starky is already running 8 min pace. He went on a suicide mission running 6:20s when he's never run faster than a 3:57 or something. //

Ok, that is new information, was it a particularly hard part of the course, was it a measured long section? We will know shortly when Matt hits that marker, but I never trust those mile measurements that ironman puts up..

Starky almost walking it seems, pace dropped to 8 min/mile... //

So the two chasers splits came in for that section, 7 flat per miles, so it is a long or hard section. But it does show that he is bleeding more time than before, if it was a hilly section it would make sense too. Or he could just be fading, but it looks not to be a real 8 minute mile section..

Tactics become a bigger and bigger part of racing - no need to waste the energy on the swim if you already in the front pack. Maybe Lauren wants to put as much distance on her competitors but I suspect most of the top contenders want to save as much energy as possible. Again just be in the front pack.

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