This was about as perfect an inaugaral event as you can get. The volunteers made the day. They came out in numbers, were incredibly helpful through all parts of the race.
Swim (1h10)
I wasn’t a fan of the time trial start before the race but all credit to Steve Macfessel for having a Plan B and the courage to go with it when it proved necessary to ensure a viable swim. By my calculations we swam .825 miles against the current in a zone that was more protected that the Plan A version and 1.575 miles with the current. I reached the turnaround in 30 minutes (= net 1.65 mph) and got home in another 40 minutes (2.4mph). I’m not a great swimmer but I was in the top 25% on the day. I would imagine that there would have been a disaster if plan A had been followed. GREAT CALL STEVE.
Bike. (5h32)
Good course and great reception at LaGrange. The combination of the time trial start and the rolling terrain eliminated any possible advantage from drafting and I saw nothing of it at all
Run (3h51)
We caught a break with the weather and some good periods of cloud cover. Feed stations were very well positioned, organised and staffed with unbelievable volunteers! A hellish prank by the course designer to bring us within yards of the finishing chute before sending us out on the second 20K lap. But finally a great finish experience as the atmosphere builds up as you get back into town. The covered finish area doubles the decibels and is awesome.
Final 10h46. A Personal best by 20 minutes and most unbelievably I got 103rd overall, 16th in my AG and snagged the 6th and final Kona slot. Words can’t describe how I felt a few hours ago when that happened. AWESOME.
Great job! I read your analysis of Kona qualifation and found it interesting as well. Do you know what the roll-downs looked like at Louisville? Looks like your AG rolled down quite a bit - you were 16th and snagged the 6th slot. Do you know what the other AG’s looked like?
I’ll update my analysis very soon. However on initial feeling from Lou, I caught a very lucky break. The other categories did not roll down like M40 at all!!
Wow…incredible race and congrats on the Kona slot. M40-44 is a weird one…on the one hand, everyone who wants to go has or can find the money to make it happen (unlike 20-24 or 25-29). So logic would say “no roll down”. On the other hand, by this age, lots of fast guys have gone or have professional obligations in the fall that make going to Hawaii a tough proposition…so then you can have massive rolldown…it just depends on the year.
Very nice indeed. I may also have to look a bit closer at your Hawaii Qualification Analysis, even though I think I already set my heart on IM Wisconsin.
Great analysis of the race and Great job nailing it yourself…
Your comments on the volunteer support were SPOT ON!..All the enthusiasm and willingness to help was welcome and amazing!!
Uber congrats on the Kona invite! I too was in the top 20 but in another AG where we only had one slot to roll and obviously it didn’t go far…after hearing your AG roll so far I was holding out hope but alas the coach turned into a pumpkin for me
What AG? I’m in the 35-39 and I thought we were the only one to have 6 slots. I came in 10th and I found out that 2 guys ahead of me had already qualified so I knew only 2 had to turn down their slot. I was in luck and I’m going. I got the 5th slot. The guy in 12th who was 5 minutes behind me got the 6th slot. For the record, I went 1:14S, 5:15B, 3:35R (10:18 total).
I was in 40-44. WE were initially told 5 slots but I presume that based on the starting AG numbers it was revised to 6 places. I was very lucky.
side note: I wanted to run with my Garmin Forerunner rather than the polar with the foot pod. I trust its accuracy more and need that average speed to keep me on track. However the Garmin battery can not last an IM, and in a new town it takes about 10 mins to locate all the sattelites. SO, only solution was to put it on the bike and switch it on 10 minutes before the end of the bike. I did this and then forgot to take it off the bike before I handed it off. I decided that I absolutely need it so I ran out of the changing tent back into the bike park to retrieve it. Bottom lline is that I burned an additional 5 mins in T2. This would have moved me up one place, so I’m relieved that the 15th guy didn’t take the final slot. I would have been kicking myself then!
