Joe Bonness captured his third Great Floridian win in today’s GFT in a time of 9:56:43. The women’s winner was Lisa Purul in a time of 11:02:23. Conditions were warm and humid with overcast skies. Two hours are still left on the clock and athletes are currenlt practicing the Minneola Shuffle as they circle around lake Minneola to the finish line.
Joe Bonness rocked!!! He came in 10 min down on the bike and ran the guy down. Normally the bike is his best event, but he won on the run today and only 6.75 days after kona (not quite a week because of the 6 hour time difference)
Steven Gust of Naples also did fantastic.
I guess if Naples is at risk of a direct hit of Wilma it might as well celebrate some of it’s best athletes cleaning up at the GFT.
Bonness is an endurance freak. Good lord, the guy is not human!
Is it it just my computer or is the results site down?
not working for me either
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i couldnt get the results either
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Sorry about that, we had a server glitch. The page is working fine now.
http://www.sommersports.com/results/2005/greatfloridian/
I’ll be posting expanded results and a bunch of photos this afternoon following today’s GFT awards brunch.
Fred
Nice to see the penalties. (maybe not). Someone appears to be doing a good job of officiating. Bust those drafters!
thanks to the super sprint awards being 5 deep I got one…made my day.
4th in the 45-49 , and if my damn chain hadn’t fallen off it would have been third…
i know it’s no big deal in the grand scheme of things - but to this slowpoke it is 
Wow, Joe also came in 14th in his age group in the Florida Challenge Half Ironman. That’s a full day’s work!
This confirms he is unreal.
Mark
Not all penalties given out are for drafting. 2nd place overall women (edit: in the half) was given an outside assistance penalty. She was leading the race and the mountain biker was leading her on the run. The official, obviously confused, thought he was pacing her. Everyone tried to explain the situation but he refused to listen. He then later changed his story saying the biker was riding with her for 2 minutes (she had just moved into the lead, so this was a total fabrication, he had been leading the other female leader). Anyways, it didn’t change her overall position, but I just wanted to let you know that just because you see a penalty by someone’s name doesn’t mean they were wheel-sucking the entire race. And officials aren’t always correct.
Thank you Fred.
BTW I had a great time at the race. You did a tremendous job, especially in consideration of our friend Wilma. You answered a couple of questionms for me even when you had numerous other people and issues to deal with.
Again, great, well run race.
Ken
Nice to see the penalties. (maybe not). Someone appears to be doing a good job of officiating. Bust those drafters!
Yeah bust those guys drafting at 11mph up a hill. I got a penalty for “drafting” because I passed two guys going up a hill, they didn’t drop out of the “draft zone” and then passed me back near the crest. The marshall was riding behind us writing us all up. What a joke.
The guy that should have gotten major penalties didn’t to my knowledge. He got a replacement wheel from his own personal sag wagon…who kept driving past everyone, parking at the side of the road…when he comes by this kid hops out the sunroof and cheers. The jackass did the entire race course like this until someone stopped next to him up Sugarloaf and bitched him out. He was tailgating people up Sugarloaf (I could see it from where I was at the bottom of the hill). IMO he should have been DQ’d for being a #$%#@$ and being a hazard to the rest of the field.
athletes are currenlt practicing the Minneola Shuffle as they circle around lake Minneola to the finish line.
Ha! I did the Minneola Half Shuffle, all right…when I wasn’t walking. The Half Shuffle is like the Full Shuffle, only wimpier. I thought aliens had stolen my legs. Johnny Pham in his trademark speedo passed me on the out-and-back looking strong.
Joe and a couple of the other leaders in the GFT passed me on the run; they made it look nearly effortless.
Great volunteers throughout the course, and I am glad to have finished my first half. Now my goal is to make the next one hurt much, much less…or at least finish faster to justify the pain.
Great job! You did awesome! Glad to hear you finished TriGuy…
Kimbo said she saw what you saw…honda element sag?
Kimbo got a penalty in the half for outside assistance off the lead female bike in her run that Fred Sommer assigned…if thats possible… This will probably come back to haunt me…but please explain your call USAT Tampa Ref John Meyer… Poor Marty G. got caught in the middle of this…
As for me…read if you care to…thanks those of you for asking…
Got through 60 miles on the bike. Wasnt there…back killing…legs fried…and very dizzy… Went from 8th/9th place to 30th in about 15 minutes. Went too hard too early trying to bike down some strong bikers in front of me. Just stupid. Went for the win. No “manned” aid stations till mile 35/40.
I will re-evaluate what i am trying to do for IMFL… Hopefully it will go better and I will race within myself and not get greedy like yesterday knowing that i can’t possibly win there. i race about every weekend as you know and usually race to win in these short sprint/ int. races. I wanted to be in contention for the win so badly yesterday and probably more so than i cared about having the race i was capable of… Looking back…I dont know if I would change anything as I really wanted to win even though I probably wasn’t capable. I see how pro’s can bury themselves now trying to win…
Next Race, IM Florida 05
Yeah bust those guys drafting at 11mph up a hill. I got a penalty for “drafting” because I passed two guys going up a hill
Ouch, that sucks. I think there should be a minimum speed required for a drafting penalty. As you say, how much of a drafting advantage is there climbing a hill? And if people are supposed to “drop back”, what if going any slower means losing balance? 
There were times on highway 19 I rode up on somebody, but couldn’t pass due to traffic. I didn’t want to slam on the brakes to get out of the zone, so I eased up to match them until space opened up. I’d have been pissed getting a drafting penalty when I was there for exactly as long as it took for the road to clear.
K
Brutal day out there for just about everyone. Go get em at FL.
great job! you did awesome! glad to hear you finished kimbo said she saw what you saw…honda element sag? kimbo got a penalty in the half for outside assistance off the lead bike…if thats possible…
Actually I saw several personal sags…the element, the silver mercedes SUV, a silver late model Camaro, and one other I only saw two or three times. There were several that were showing up at a few places…two cute blondes :)…but they weren’t driving on the race course and being a hazard passing people on Sugarloaf. I think Kimbo passed me around mile 40 and was moving pretty fast. I paced with the 2nd place women’s biker (#1028?) for a while…she was moving damn fast too.
Got through 60 miles on the bike. Wasnt there…back killing…legs fried…and very dizzy…
Yeah I swear that I saw you going the other way around the lake. I was trying to eat half a banana at the time. I just glanced up to see #4 going backwards. I was looking for you today to see what happened. If I hadn’t taken it easy on the last 15 on the bike and the first 13 running I might have been faster…but I might have totally blown out my knee too. I almost quit at T2 but decided to give it a shot. With no more races for me this year it wasn’t a big deal if I ended up injured. With IMFL coming up I would have been doing the half, and not trying to win. 
Sorry to hear about your problems though, it sounds like what happens to me if I drop 4-5lb in water. My legs start a generalized ache, I sometimes get a headache, and my speed drops about 2mph, all just like someone flipped a switch and turned me off. I’ve learned to recognize the warning signs early, so if that was your problem the solution is pretty easy. Without manned water stops that could easily have been it. Not that a slug like myself should be giving you advice on winning an IM race. I definitely I bring a scale with me to transition so when I get off the bike I can make sure I’m not in serious danger. It’s no help in the middle of the bike of course.
Hey Kev;
Sorry to hear about the bike problems on the course. I also “heard” you on my second lap going in the reverse direction around the lake. I didn’t get a chance to glance up since my eyes were so tuned out with the road and the race pace “zone”.
Yup, the cops were definately out there this past weekend. A lot of penalites were being dished out but given my slow speed on the bike (Avg 18 mph for the full), I didn’t really notice any personal assistance during the race. Kimbo passed me on Sugarloaf…
But given how things went, the winds were relatively calm and conditions were as generous as they could get for Saturday! It was sure humid and warmed up fast but it was manageable if one trained for those conditions. But I definately bonked after Mile 12 on the marathon. I never walked but my mile pace fell from 8:30s to 9:30s and finally my “trot” was down to just over 10 min. But I convinved myself not to walk the marathon and still finished with a smile on the face! Great event and weather was great considering where it stood prior to the race!
Jerry is the man! You did awesome as you know and you should be very proud of what you did this weekend. Hope to see you sign up in two weeks for Ironman Florida.