I met up with Paulo and Mariana early this morning for the swim start, which we pretty much missed because the wall of people was 10 deep to the fence and we’re all short. With 8 min to gun, Jaylew pushed his way by in a big hurry, and looking pretty stressed. I’ll say - he was outside with the spectators. 6 min to gun and a much more relaxed Jaylew trotted over the timing mat and down to the beach. That’s cutting it close!
After the pros took off we left to go stand on main street and watch the leaders come up as they headed out on the bike. We ran into Miranda, and she didn’t have any plans so she came with us. While we waited on main street, a guy named Greg came up to us and introduced himself. He didn’t say what his ST handle was. Solymosi rode by on the back of a bike, playing marshall again. The bike parked about 50m down, so he came by to chat as did a whole pile of other people. I’m not totally accustomed to not being able to walk around without seeing someone I recognize, but I guess that’s what a hometown IM will do for you.
Kieran Doe came tearing by, with a ~4min gap between him and the next riders - a (clean) pack of four containing Wolfgang Guembel, Markus Ressler, Torsten Abel and our very own jonnyo. Jamie Cleveland went by 2min later, and Rappstar was another min back. He then proceeded to scare the crap out of us by first dropping a bottle over a bumpy intersection and then crashing - going right over the bars! He got up quickly and Paulo ran out on the street and yelled at him to focus. He nodded, and was off - looking pretty good, considering. 2min later another (clean) pack came by with Scott Curry, Andriy Yastrebov and Kyle Marcotte. We timed the gap from jonnyo to Gordo (~4min), and then stuck around to wait for Jacquie. Once she went by and Paulo yelled at her, we took off to drive the course. Mariana stayed back to wait for Andrea.
The three of us piled into my car and took off for OK falls, but jonnyo had already gone by by then. At that point we were ok to drive on the actual course however, so played leapfrog with jonnyo, jumping ahead to pull over and yell encouragement. He was still in the group, with Kieran way out in front and Rappstar stuck in no-man’s land between them and the Marcotte/Curry/Gordo pack. I gotta say, **THIS **is the way to watch a race! It was awesome to be able to see so much of the leaders. Further back it gets hard with congestion on the course, but up at the sharp end the riders are few and very well spaced out.
Just outside of Osoyoos we stopped on a hill and Peter Reid was there doing live coverage. The ITU kids staying at jonnyo’s homestay were there as well, with four of them having written the letters to spell HTFU on their stomachs. Awesome. Jonnyo picked up a minute on Gordo, and we were off again.
Another stop at the Husky just before Richter Pass, where I saw Zulu go by looking strong.
We missed the leaders on Richter, so we burned rubber and stopped at the turn around where we walked up to see them come by for Special Needs. Kieran came screaming by, and then after a while we saw a lone rider in the distance. Rappstar surely couldn’t have bridged and dropped the chase pack so quickly… Maybe it’s just a cyclist out riding - a non racer. Then jonnyo appeared. All alone, and moving very quickly. After the race we learned that he had decided that he wanted the win, so he just took off and dropped everyone. I don’t remember the order after that, but Jordan had picked up a few places and appeared poised to chase jonnyo down. Back on the main road we saw Jacquie, who was having some mechanical problems. Nevertheless, she pressed on.
Up at Yellow Lake Paulo bet me that Jordan would get there first. I figured jonnyo could hold him off, and won the bet. Jordan was only a few min behind however, so it was going to be interesting to see if he could catch jonnyo before T2.
We ditched the car and all took off to get our bikes. I’m not really supposed to be riding, but I figured I wouldn’t be “really riding” - just tooling around. I even brought the 'cross bike, and no proper shorts to discourage any stupid ideas. We quickly rode down most of the guys we had been watching all day, with the exception of Jordan, jonnyo, and Kieran. Kieran was (still) way out front, jonnyo was slowly reeling him in, and Jordan was doing a fine job of limiting his losses. We did the leapfrog thing again, this time on bikes. Paulo on the Peter Reid bike, Miranda on her Cervelo and me on my 'cross bike. None of us in cycling kit, none of us comfortable. So much for an easy “tool around town”.
Kieran was looking like he just wasn’t going to be caught, but jonnyo also has a nice big gap between him and 3rd - where Jordan was valiantly hanging on. Then Chris Brown came tearing up the field, eventually passing Jordan for 3rd, but never getting closer than ~8min to jonnyo. Gordo wasn’t looking like the runner he can be, and there were reports of him having had some trouble. He was still back there though, and jonnyo surged when they passed each other.
Coming back in to town, Paulo and I rode 15-20m back of jonnyo just watching him as he kept a strong effort all the way to the line. Being the hometown favourite, the applause from the crown was just awesome. A very cool thing for jonnyo. As he headed down to the last out and back on Lakeshore, Paulo and I parked our bikes and stood by the inflatable arch - where the volunteer was pretty cool, but told us that he couldn’t let us run through the chute. I told him that we had no plans to hold jonnyo’s hand and run through together, and Paulo told him that just as they were professional athletes, we were professional spectators. Jonnyo came tearing up the stretch and we stepped out to High-Five him as he ran by. Instead, he ran over and gave Paulo a big hug, and then opened one arm and pulled me in as well. Paulo and I pushed him down towards the finish line, where he looked up to see that he was just seconds away from a sub 8:40 finish. He gunned it, and made it with I think 2s to spare.
Rappstar held it together for 5th place, and came over to thank Paulo for the pep talk after his crash. An awesome job by a guy who isn’t really IM trained (at least in focus) and just decided to do the race 2 days before. Kick ass!
Gordo came in 13th, with a 3:12 run for 9:03.
Jonnyo didn’t get the win he wanted, but running 2:55 for 2nd is pretty damned good. He also beat Gordo. Mission accomplished.
