So how come the Ironman in Almere gets ZERO PR here in North America. It never has a super stacked field yet it has produced 16 of the top 100 Ironman times EVER…
http://www.xtri.com/res-imf.asp?offset=0
What gives. Euro ST’ers, does Almere get coverage at your end?
Those times are just sick fast…
Interesting even trying to find info regarding the race as well. It’s like a deep, dark secret…and I’ll admit I’d never even heard of the race until your post.
I’m sure there is no possibility the course is short;)
.
One interesting thing I noticed looking at that list is the 1996 times of Hellriegel. He went 8:09 at IMC then came back with an 8:06 in Kona. I don’t know how many weeks were between the 2 races that year but that has got to be one of the most impressive back to back performances ever.
I drove through by Almere last summer. I actually think the course is BELOW sea level! And hills… uh… possibly the flattest course on the planet.
Allan, you are right. Hellriegel was on fiire in 1996. Don’t forget he beat Reid at IMC and would have set a Kona World Record if it was not for LVL setting the record himself. Hellriegel likely had the two most “dominating 2nd place finishes in Kona ever” with that one and second to Allen in 1995. On second thought, Dave Scott’s 2nd place to Allen in 89 and second place to Welch in 94 are pretty up there too.
What country is Almere in? Website link?
Netherlands…So these times are not in Roth as someone suggested (but quickly removed the post)
.
The times up to 3 years ago are from Roth. Since then it shows up as Quelle Challenge Roth. This is THE RACE in Germany. Frankfurt is a lame imposter wannabee with an Mdot logo. Roth is the one with the pedigree.
http://www.almerehollandtriathlon.nl/uk/uk_index.html
Also a nice rweace report: http://www.gbrc.net/display_text_report.php?id=94
.
what’s weird about that is that IMFL is totally flat but the pros don’t do so well there in terms of record-breaking. The ST wisdom has been that all flat is like wetsuits in the swim–helps the weaker folks much more than the stronger folks. Why would Almere–which sounds IMFL-like in its flatness–not have the same issues?
IMFL might be due to heat and humidity. I can’t understand how a flat course would not help out the pros, it takes more energy to do hills than it does to do a flat course, it’s physics, there’s no way around it.
I don’t know the course or conditions, but I’m guessing FL doesn’t have the speed of other races because it is so soon after Hawaii…but what the hell do I know?
Interesting. I remember reading years ago how Indurain said he liked gently rolling TT courses because you built up speed on the downhills and held it on the next roller and then progressed like that.
It would be interesting to see how Bjorn and co feel about dead flat versus gently rolling courses.
they changed the bicycle course in 1999(??) to make it more interesting, i believe. it isn’t as fast as it used to be.
Actually, it does not take more energy to do hills than flat. If you are a pro, and you are doing 275W for the whole Ironman course, you are not going to go any harder on hills. In fact on a rolling course, you get to go 275W followed by 0-100W on the downhill. On a flat course, there are no breaks.
Going back to Almere, perhaps the course is mainly sheltered into the prevailing wind, and open when it is at your back…perhaps the run is on a hard packed dirt trail that does not take a lot out of your legs?
I posted an Almere race report on xtri about a year ago; search for ‘almere’ (it is also the one mentioned above, on www.gbrc.net). Happy to provide details from first-hand experience of the 2004 race.
Tjalling Ypma
Unfortunately it doesn’t work 100% like that. There may be vagaries about how the athletes physiologically recover that I’m not taking into account, which would allow them to post a faster time on a hilly course than a flat one. But my statement that a hilly course requires more energy, all other things being the same, is true. You do not get all the energy you spent going up a hill, you lose some of it in wind resistance on the downhill which is not linear, and also in thermal losses, etc. So you do expend more total energy, all other things being equal.
Hey, i agree that you use more energy overall in a hilly race than a flat one, but a hilly race breaks the thing down into manageable chunks of effort from which you can recover. A flat race has no recovery sections unless you substantially slow down. So for this reason, pros can post wicked fast times on hilly courses like Roth (if you don’t believe Roth is hilly go try it…) than they can on largely flat courses like Florida. Granted there are some aspects of the Roth course that may have been suspect, but I know my bike computer said 180K back in 1993 when it was 3x60K loop.