You… keemo saabi are right on…
2000 Kona Results:
1 PETER REID CAN 00:51:46 04:39:33 02:48:11 08:21:01 - 2 TIM DEBOOM 00:50:33 04:40:31 02:50:00 08:23:10 0:02:09 3 NORMANN STADLER 00:52:52 04:35:15 02:56:01 08:26:45
Only difference in times is the run time. You get two or three X-Champs get off the bike relatively close to each other and not wanting to give an inch…I see at least 5 minutes off the run time. Looks like it could get close to the good olde days.
What you need is good wind on the bike (and a rabbit) and two guys that can run. TB and PR are good candidates if heathly. 
<< Come September, they did a big huge volume push for Kona, and already had speed.
actually that is not entirely true. Those guys did huge volume year round. They would consistently do rides like the Henshaw loop (~115 miles) 3 or 4 times a month. Guys like Brad Kearns and Mike Pigg were doing 100+ mile rides all the time. Monty has some good stories of doing the Henshaw loop back in the day as he was one of those short course studs that also did Ironman.
Trevor, so what you are saying is that you need Faris out front, then Stadler joins him and they hammer each other into T2 (hopefully with Tom Evans who is actually one of the faster swim-bike “first man to T2” guys in the sport…but can also run OK). They start the run in sub 5:20 Reid-deBoom-Macca-Lessing chase into T2 and start the run at 5:30 flat. Now you need a 2;45 to win, 2:48 for second and 2:50 for third ?
I don’t think any of these guys can pull off a 2:40 flat. To me, the only candidate who has the raw capability to go near 2:40 is Lessing. He’s gone toe toe with Allen in Nice in 92 and he went sub 2:48 at LP running solo last year. Fortunately he shuffled a 3:18 marathon in Penticton, so his legs will not be trashed like running sub 2:50 does to your quads.
I wonder if we will ever see such a race again
"Could be this year…
With the right wind and two guys who can run (any of Reid, Deboom or Brown, Macca say…) coming off the bike together after chasing a guy like Stadler (you know they’re not going to let him get 20 mins this year) … Then they’ll have to feed off each other like Allen/Scott did on the run. Reid-Deboom, Reid-Deboom and Brown/Macca… it all looks good."
It couldn’t be this year. That race was “in the oven” for a long, long time.
Allen chased Scott for 6+ years! Scott trained to keep ahead of Allen. That race was a culmination of 6+ years of focus, determination and buckets of fricking sweat. It was much more than what occurred that day. They pushed each other to an unbelievable level.
True, I remember Molina telling me once (I think at the IMC 91 expo) that in his day in 85 or so they swam like elite swimmers, biked like pro bikers and then piled on 100 mile runs weeks and still raced short course sub 1:50 on the weekend. Insane !
Actually Scott chased Allen for years and Allen blow up all the time. Allen decided to stay with Scott that day.
On that day:
Look at the bike times. They had good wind. Take away the good wind you get 4:45ish. Now you’re back up to 8:17ish.
Allen stayed with Scott. Scott tried to get away from Allen. The rest is history.
However you do need two guys to come off the bike together and to battle on the run.
Ironman Oz '98: The second best ironman ever.
1 <u>PETER REID</u> CAN 00:48:45 04:39:34 02:52:08 08:20:27 - 2 <u>CHRISTOPHER LEGH</u> AUS 00:48:52 04:39:33 02:52:16 08:20:41
…salt water wetsuit swim in Forster…no wonder Reid and Legh both sub 49 swim…
I don’t think any of these guys can pull off a 2:40 flat. To me, the only candidate who has the raw capability to go near 2:40 is Lessing.
DeBoom is a pretty good runner when heathly. He’s with Lessing over the HIM distance. Peter has the guts factor. Brown can pull it off. So can Macca.
Reid and DeBoom are the only ones that have shown they can hammer each other in the heat.
It would be cool if we can still have Lessing-Reid-Macca-deBoom-Brown and Rutger Beke all within 500 m of one another at 23 miles. That would be awesome.
/The next year, the first year in Kona, Howard went 5:03, to win it overall, /
Hey Mike, my memory could be failing me, but I think Howard went 5:08 that year. I held him off until Havi, but what people don’t realise is that the bike course was 116 miles. I think they must have measured it in a car that was a bit off. There were two detours off the main hwy to Hapuna beach for weigh ins on the out and back( which were also calculated into your bike times), and the turn around was all the way to Havi, and then up a 1/2 mile hill for another weigh in. If you take the long course and the 3 weigh ins into account, then John’s bike time was smoking. He was after all a world class cyclist at the time, so it’s no suprise. All that on a road bike with 32 spoked wheels. I ended up with a 5:36 split, aid stations every 10 to 15 miles, warm hose water and the all new ERG you could drink…
BigBloke, I want to buy you a beer.
Make it a draught. 
Mike,
Did they normally do the Henshaw loop clockwise or counter-clockwise?
You need good wind on the bike and the runners together or chasing.
All sub 8:10 winning times:
Allen and Scott
Allen and Bustos
Allen chasing Kiuru
LVL and Hellriegel (8:04 and 8:06)
Monty, with the three weigh ins it must have been like T1, T2, T3, T4, T5. Did they have them on the run ?
Hey Geoff, we did it counter clockwise, every wednesday. Not sure why, except that my two German training buddies, Jurgen and Wolfgang, would not deviate from doing the same thing, over and over again. The only difference is that we had to do it faster and faster each time. Started really getting tough once we were averaging over 22 mph. I think Jurgen and Norman rode it over 23 mph one day…
It would be cool if we can still have Lessing-Reid-Macca-deBoom-Brown and Rutger Beke all within 500 m of one another at 23 miles. That would be awesome.
Every year I hope for something like that at the finish but it never seems to work out that way. Too long of a day in brutal conditions. Maybe this will be the year.
…actually it is LVL chasing hellriegel, catching him at mile 23. LVL was in the sin bin after they both came into T2. Hellriegel bikes sub 4:24 and runs 2:46 and still loses (if you can call it that)…classic.
Kona 96…the fastest ever…
1 <u>LUC VAN LIERDE</u> BEL 00:51:36 04:30:44 02:41:48 08:04:08 - 2 <u>THOMAS HELLRIEGEL</u> <u></u> 00:54:22 04:24:50 02:46:55 08:06:07 0:01:59 3 <u>GREG WELCH</u> <u></u> 00:51:23 04:35:43 02:51:51 08:18:57 0:14:49 4 <u>PETER REID</u> <u></u> 00:54:22 04:30:33 02:59:42 08:24:37 0:20:29
They had 3 weigh ins on the bike, and another 3 on the run. If you lost 10% of your body weight, they would pull you from the race. This was quite comical though. The first base weigh in was held the Wednesday before the race. I remember taking John Howard, Kim Bushong, Jeff Jones, and myself to the sauna before the weigh in. We skipped brekfast, sweat down for an hour or so, then weighed in. I remember Diana Nyiad commenting what a testment it was to us top athletes that we were actually gaining weight during the race. Of course by race morning, our actual weight was 10 to 15 pounds heavier, after getting fully hydrated and carbo loading for 3 days, than the Wednesday weigh in. They didn’t have a clue to what was going on, kind of like how it is today, still…
Hellriegel went 8:09 at IMC that year as well.