Will Lessing win? Does Llanos have a chance?
Don’t have a clue who will do what today…but just noticed there was a 15-minute gap between the pro start and the age groupers. Hadn’t heard about that until now—very interesting.
Despite Lessing DNFing Kona and CDA, still going for him…fantastic athlete.
anyone noticed that Vucokic was racing?? olympic silver in 00…pretty interesting field.
my guess is that it will be between Llanos, Lieto for 2nd and 3rd and Lessing 1st.
Lieto is looking strong…
…and first off the bike in an new course record - started the run 3 mins up on Simon - anyone know how many pro slots for the men - I suspect all Simon want is a slot - not to kill himself
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Would like to see Lieto do well, he’s been battling injuries the last couple of years…seemed to ride very hard (4:25ish) while supposedly Lessing was taking the hills fairly easy. Interesting marathon in progress…
What’s really interesting (and cool) is that ST-poster (and 2-time IMC winner) Michael McCormack is 9th off the bike. At 45 yrs old. Go M2!!
VERY long (relatively) T2 for Lieto. Gave back almost a minute to Simon in transition. Is this a bad sign?? Also seems a bit surprising Chann McRae wasn’t faster on the bike… I think Simon wins it.
Chann McRae…now, there’s a name I’ve not seen in a while! Good for him, as well as McCormack.
From Ironmanlive.com:
Lessing takes the lead!
Simon Lessing had made up two-minutes on Chris Lieto through five-miles, and as they head to the seven-mile point, we’re assuming that Lessing has taken the lead.
We’ll hope to confirm that in a few minutes.
06:18
I italicized “assuming”…interesting reporting. “We’ll assume and hope to confirm, but we’ll lead with the headline that what it is that we’re trying to corroborate is indeed true.”
Someone French must have taken over the Ironmanlive keyboard…!
(kidding, kidding, kidding) (sortof)
how about the women? Karen H had a great bike… but sounds like Desiree is going to catch her… she already make up 1:30 on the 6:55 deficit…
we shall see… sounds like Lieto got his second wind at mile 17.5… I hope he holds Lessing off 
Maybe… Lessing certainly should have plenty of gas in the tank to cut into that lead if he chooses. Kona has to be the ultimate goal, though, and I certainly think it’d be tough to fault Lessing for just cruising in. Digging deep in the marathon can be costly in Kona. Peter Reid said something along the lines of it being very, very difficult to win both…
Yes we shall see…again, good for Lieto. Sounds like he’s having a good day thus far; interesting to know what Lessing might be thinking—is he really saving something for Kona since he already has a built in excuse to do poorly there by racing today? I would like to see him (Simon) do something at IMH since I’ve admired his racing for many years and I thought it was cool for him to make the jump to the IM distance.
But it just looked like he wussed out in Kona last October.
fairly sure Lessing is cruising it to keep some for kona…
If Simon is within a minute or so that last few kilos, he’ll go for the win…IMO.
Yes, I think it is pretty certain. He ran the first 1/2 in 1:30. I’m pretty sure that is the same pace that he uses to get the paper in the morning in a pair of slippers and a bathrobe…
well…maybe not…he lost 5min now…
No doubt Lessing is in relative cruise mode…and I hope that he is saving something for IMH. If it is still close in the final km’s, it will be interesting—I think Lieto needs the win much more than Lessing does, though they both have some wounds that would be salved just nicely thank you with a win.
Welchie just got on the live feed saying that Lieto is now walking, however still in the lead.