Dan,
The Lake Constance area you described is where I am from in Germany.
Thus I know now that Clear Lake is very beautiful.
Herbert
Good cash to be won at 2/3’s the iron distance… why didn’t more A-listers sign up?
If Thompson and Cave win again today, do we start to think that the 101 distance might not be that much different than the 70.3 in that short-coursers moving up might have the advantage or is it too early to say?
It would have been interesting if Beke or Kehr would have raced today. They were both on the participant list.
Is WTC influencing the IM athletes to stay away from 101?
It sounds like it’s a beautiful day and beautiful place to race.
“If Thompson and Cave win again today, do we start to think that the 101 distance might not be that much different than the 70.3”
i think 70.3 is pretty much a sprinter’s game. historially, the “old nice” distance was the place where ultra athletes met sprinters on a level playing field. mark allen was unbeatable at nice after he became beatable at short stuff. paula could win at nice. but pigg was a good racer at this distance, including guys like ric wells, who won this race tho a pure sprinter and no good at IM racing. if you look at the top athletes over this distance, they tend to be folks who have plenty of ultra ability but who’ve also got speed in their legs. it’s sort of like our version of running’s 10k, where marathoners and 1500m runners meet for a showdown.
“It sounds like it’s a beautiful day and beautiful place to race.”
if i’m north american sports or WTC, i make a run at this place. it’s soooo much better than arizona, and probably half the venues where IMs are raced in north america. 101 needs to do what it ought to make sure this venue stays theirs.
“why didn’t more A-listers sign up?”
i don’t know. but i would guess that a LOT of folks are going to be at the woodlands.
I have to disagree with you about being better than Arizona. I think the thing that you and many people fail to realize is that convenience in getting to a race venue is important to many athletes. Flying into PHX, which is a big airport and having the race being 15 minutes away with plenty of places to stay, restaurants, etc. is really important to many people, especially first time triathletes. It is much more of a pain in the ass to fly to one place rent a car then drive to the middle of nowhere with a sleepy do nothing city.
Yes, there are other races and IM races that are in tougher to reach places, these races have the benefit of age (i.e., they’ve been around awhile) so people no about them. Just don’t see them as a good place to build one’s brand especially when there is so much competition in triathlons.
Cool coverage. Hope Jordan can hold on to 2nd!
Kevin
P.S. the forum link on the live coverage goes to the Bradenton thread, keeps confusing me.
Yeah I noticed that too. Maybe on his next loop past Slowman, Rappster can fix it for him:)
This race sound like a great event, I knew I should have signed up. Maybe next year.
Nice job DKT!!! What a great year for him so far!!!
Wish I were in half decent shape…it seems like a really fun race to do…
“Maybe on his next loop past Slowman, Rappster can fix it for him:)”
hey, i don’t need rappstar to fix this. i just fixed it. somebody alerted me to this earlier this morning, but i looked at all the links and thought they were okay. it didn’t dawn on me that it was this one. stupid me. but, now fixed (a little too late).
“Wish I were in half decent shape…it seems like a really fun race to do…”
you were probably in perfect shape for this, that is, in less shape than you’re usually in when you’re perfectly overtrained.
you’d have loved it here. best race i’ve been to in a long time.
is bigzach online right now? zachster, why aren’t you here?
zachster is putting in a training block and taking time to fix his awful aero position and swim stroke…and start running more than 3 hrs a week b/c now I can run only on grass and trails…
now I need to read what happened in the race!! and make a post about that :-).
Thanks for the live coverage, Slowman and Monty. Just your words made me feel like I was there! (Or at the Bodensee!)
-Danielle
Nice coverage of the race.
I was under the impression that the 101 series was going to bring better live video feeds and athlete tracking to the sport of triathlon. Was I wrong in this. I went to the site to look at the video feeds and athlete leaderboard and neither of these things ever seemed to work.
Without your blogging, I dont think any results would have been available near real-time.
Yes, IM races in beautiful out of the way places would never make it. Thankfully, I was able to fly into Lake Placid Int’l Airport and stay at the Grand Hyatt.
Only kidding of course, but I’ve done IMAZ and IMLP and as a venue, IMAZ sucks. The only people who know IMAZ is even happening are the ones racing and their family members. 1 mile from the start line in Tempe, no one in that area even knows a race is going on.
Sorry to hijack thread. Continue updates.
Well, I’m perfectly undertrained right now…trust me… 
Just got caught up on this, good coverage. Nice job by Rappstar too.
This is my favorite quote of the day: At least that’s Monty’s report as he watches the powerful Aas from behind in the Slowtwitch ice cream truck.
**
I don’t know if you meant it to read like that 
Dan, how many folks did the race today?
Dave