I believe one of my teammates was scoring something similar. Until the testers realized they forgot the noseclip. Which was rather unfortunate. My team needs more talent. And people.
What was Lance’s VO2max?
Blessed are the genetic freaks for they shall kick your ass.
I think Lance was 82 or 84. Something like that.
It takes a lot more than a great VO2max to be an Ironman.
agreed. Lance, I believe, did get up to an 85-86. the highest ever recorded at US OTC in the Springs was a mtn. marathonger dude named Matt Carpenter. blew a 92 or something outrageous like that.
in comparison, our US Olympic skiers are in the high 80’s for VO2. these Norwegians are freaks or nature!
OK, with the right preparation, I’m also sure he could finish. I don’t think he could wake-up one morning and descide to pound-out an Ironman. He might need a least a year or two of swim/bike/run training to be competitive or even just finish. But then that won’t leave much time for cross-country.
Casey, you are right. Real XC racers ride and run more than we do when they are in their “off season” and we are training.
I am friends with a guy in Bend, former 3-time XC Olympian. He can put the hurt on Larsen on the bike (a few years ago, when Larsen trained), and running, he’s run something like a 8:45 3000 meter. My friend started Pac Crest 1/2 IM a few years ago and had a 5 minute lead off the bike starting the run (he dropped out due to foot issues). He told me he swam 3 times before the race and still swam a 28:something for 1.2.
Pound for pound, XC skiers are the toughest, strongest bastards on the planet.
Back in 1990, Dutch XC ski World Cup athlete Axel Koenders won Roth in 8:09. Teemu Vesala, a Finnish XC ski team member (this is like making the Kenyan 10,000 m team), won IMC in 1994, second to Mike McCormack in 95, and was top 10 at both Hawaii and Zofingen.
i knew Dev would come out eventually when XC was mentioned!
Dev, you freaking, sea-level dwelling flatlander who makes no bones about showing up at Royal Gorge and ripping off 100K in a day, how you doing? are you showing up in Placid this year??? SKIJUMPDEATHSHUFFLE!
Koenders was a triathlete who easiliy made the Dutch XC team. In a country where an overpass will be your longest climb during a 100 mile ride, that doesn’t surprise me much. He also had a background in speedskating and won pretty much every winter-triathlon (run-bike-skate) he entered.
Wow,
STO is in the house…
I “blew” 67 earlier this year…It hurt. Those OTC guys are unreal!
Cheers,
Puskas
YO JON! So I perused the results from South Africa a few weeks ago, and no Puskas??? What’s the deal? Where you racing this year?
Run- bike-skate. I love it. I can’t run. But skate? Oh man can I skate.
Susan,
No trips for me to Tahoe over the past few years to XC ski at lung busting Royal Gorge, but I did compete in a 100K Skate ski event in Northern Quebec this winter. You can read my article on fasterskier.com:
http://www.fasterskier.com/racing2090.html
As for Lake Placid, its not in the plans, but if I qualify for it at Muskoka, I might be foolish enough to go again. I’ve been focusing more on XC skiing and half ironmans for the past few years. I’m not terribly interested in doing the skijumpdeathshuffle these days :-).
Hope you are doing well !
Puskas, how are things in Oregon ?
Dev
No tris for me this year (unless I do Silverman in November).
I’m in San Diego with the Navy for the next 5 months and I’ve got my MTB, surf board, and running shoes so who knows what will happen at the end of the summer…
IMSA got moved to next March for Rachel and I. I simply needed a season off from an unbalanced focus on Kona which a “forced rest” afforded me. Now that I’m allowing myself to run again, I’m pretty excited to start training (I ran to work on the beach this morning and it was fantastic).
Cheers,
Puskas
OK, with the right preparation, I’m also sure he could finish. I don’t think he could wake-up one morning and descide to pound-out an Ironman. He might need a least a year or two of swim/bike/run training to be competitive or even just finish. But then that won’t leave much time for cross-country.
Trust me, an olympic level x-country skier could finish an IM will little or no prep. The engine is incredibly efficient for x-country skiers and the working muscle groups are very similar.
As long as he/she knows how to somewhat float and swim, I can see that.