(11-9-05) The 2005 TRI NorthWest Rankings are now complete! Both the ranked duathlons and ranked triathlons in the TRI NorthWest rankings have submitted their results and the calculations have been made. Included are categories for Sprint, Olympic, Long Course and Best Overall.
Congratulations to all ranked duathletes and triathletes for 2005.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE RANKINGS FOR 2005
Race Report: Ironman Hawaii 2005, Through the Eyes of an Age Grouper
(11-9-05) Submitted by Erik Blachford - How I Spent My Long Weekend in Hawaii...
I came to Ironman Hawaii here in Kona with a few goals. First, I wanted to finish the race. Second, I wanted to have a good strong run, avoiding the horrendous experience I had during the second half of the marathon at Ironman Canada two years ago. And third, I thought there was some chance I could run better than a four-hour marathon, something I'd not been able to do in Canada.
You'll notice that none of these goals had anything to do with my overall time, nor with my placement in the field or in my age group. I didn't care much about my time because I didn't know what to expect from the course, with its notorious hills, winds, and heat. And for me to worry about where I placed in a field dominated by people who had qualified for this race by placing in the top 5-10 of their age groups in some other 2005 Ironman event...well that would be silly (I, um, "qualified" by buying my spot on Ebay).
How did it turn out? Well. Very well, even. I finished, felt great throughout the marathon, and posted a marathon time of 3:59:20.
I checked in at the start around 5:30am, got my arms marked with my number - 1348 - and headed over to my bike to pump the tires one last time, put on my water bottles, and load up my little food pouch with energy bars. Sunrise wouldn't come until almost 7am, but the early morning glow was enough to see by. I half-believe that even absent that, the nervous energy on the Kailua Pier would probably have produced enough electricity to light the place up.
In most Ironman and half-Ironman races, there are a small handful of people who believe they can win their respective age groups. In mine, men 35-39, a large and very competitive group (can you say, "midlife crisis?"), there might normally be 10 people who arrive at the start prepared to battle hard for the win, or for the top 5 position that will win them a qualifying slot to Ironman Hawaii. They are all psycho, of course, but perhaps that goes without saying.
Now, imagine taking the people from the top 5 spots from all 17 worldwide qualifying races, and putting them all into one race. Instead of 10 people battling for the top few slots (and associated bragging rights - this is the World Championship after all), there are more like 100. It's intense. People don't smile a lot on race morning, and there's very little joking around.
In fact, there wasn't a lot of smiling for the few days preceding the race. Everyone was out on the roads, biking and running to work off nervous energy, without a lot of the little smiles and waves that constitute basic politeness back in the real world. And at the swim venue, where the buoys were already partly set up, the point seemed to be as much about strutting low body fat percentage as about warming up for the race to come.
Anyway, race morning was calm and warm as the sun rose over the hills, and the assembled field waited for the starting cannon. The pros started at 6:45am, just before the dawn, in a flopping froth of arms and legs. It's incredible that more of them don't end up with broken noses, teeth, and cheekbones from flying feet.
At 7am, after an aloha-tinged national anthem, the cannon went off for the age group field, and away we went. Or rather, away they went. I stayed treading water for a slow ten-count, reasoning that it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference to my time, but might help me avoid getting kicked in the face.
I took the swim easy, mostly because I'm still such a pathetically slow swimmer that there's no point in pushing it and wasting a bunch of energy. Still, 2.4 miles in the ocean with no wetsuit is a bear, no matter how easy you take it, and I emerged an hour and 41 minutes later much the worse for wear. As my stepfather-in-law Stu said later, I didn't look too good as I changed and hopped on my bike. Yep, that's because I didn't feel too good.
You triathletes will also appreciate how odd it felt to come out of the water, into transition, and have fully 95% of the bikes gone already. I had been expecting it, doing the simple math on my swim time and the quality of the field, but still, it's hard not to let that get to you just a little.
But hop on my bike I did, for an 11-mile loop in Kailua before heading out onto the Queen K highway for the long ride up to the turnaround at Hawi. It was still early, and not hot, so it felt great to get a little speed going. Most of the bikers were well past by the time I got to various checkpoints on the course, but there were still massive numbers of spectators yelling and cheering. It was amazing, really, that they kept it up even for those of us at the back of the pack. Though I suppose in hindsight I realize that during those early stages of the bike leg I was only about 40 minutes behind most of the pack - the gap would only get wider from there.
All along the route leading up the turnaround, I could see the real field coming back in the opposite lane. Faris Al-Sultan, the eventual race winner, was blazing along at the front, followed by a few follow packs then miles of age group winners from around the world. It was a hell of thing to watch, actually. Even from the other side of the highway you could see that they were setting a blazing pace.
Somewhere in there, I passed Sarah Reinertsten, who you might remember from last year's NBC coverage of the race (she races on a prosthetic leg, and last year wasn't able to finish). Talk about inspiring. I don't know how she kept her cool with the film crews hovering around her all day, but she was just cranking away with a smile on her face. Very impressive.
The 112-mile bike course in Kona is known for its hills (check), its heat (check, though this wasn't an extreme year, just average), and wind (not bad at all this year). I like to treat these events as adventures, so don't spend a lot of time scouting the courses in advance. That meant that I didn't have a great sense for just how many hills there were on this course. There are many, including a steady uphill the last 20 miles to the turnaround, which happened to be the only place where we hit any significant headwinds. Which also happened to be about the hottest part of the day. You get the idea.
The return from Hawi was easier, back down that 20 mile hill, then along the Queen K to town. The views from the top near Hawi are superb, making it into the kind of ride that you would love to do at a more leisurely pace with a bunch of friends. Though I suppose in that case you would start from the Four Seasons Hualalai, pedal up to Hawi, have lunch (perhaps a macadamia nut crusted mahi mahi with a crisp Chardonnay?), then cruise back down for a dip in the pool and a Mai Tai. But I digress.
Seriously, just as we were passing the entrance to the Four Seasons on the way back into town, I happened to be near another biker, and I said, "damn, wouldn't you just love to be in that Four Seasons pool about now?" She kind of frowned at me for joking around. I wanted to say, "Lady, I hate to break it to you, but we aren't going to win." Her look made me keep my mouth shut.
At least I got a couple of chuckles out of the volunteers at the aid stations by asking for a cold Heineken. Only time all day they heard that one, I'd wager.
By the time I got back to Kailua, the field was well along on the marathon, and the really fast racers were finishing. In fact, Faris Al-Sultan's time was about 8:14, which meant that he had won the race before I had started the marathon.
I felt great coming off the bike, and didn't even notice what my time split was, as I'd been paying much more attention to my heart rate than to my time (I later found out it was a little over 6 1/2 hours). My basic bike plan was to keep my heart rate from spiking up too much, conserving my energy for the run, when I'd really need it. There's something liberating about watching a number other than speed on the bike, especially when you are battling a headwind while going uphill. And it saved me a ton of energy that I would normally have put into trying to maintain my speed at the wrong moments.
Just before I finished the bike course, I saw Maryam, Jake, Stu and Roberta, and was able to pull over and have a quick chat, take a photo, and tell them I was doing fine. It was so great to have that kind of support out on the course. Jake had spent much of the previous afternoon working on special signage, including a huge sign saying, "Go, Ironyman!" I think he'd had some help from his mother on that one...
I swapped my bike clothes for running gear in the changing tent, then headed out on the marathon. I saw my "support crew" again about a mile in to the run, at which point Jake asked me, "Dad, are you coming home to the hotel with us?" Sorely tempted, I explained that I had some running to do first, but would see him back at the hotel after that.
As it turned out, the run was great from start to finish. I never faltered, never felt bad, never stopped eating. It's a beautiful course. Early in the marathon, running along oceanside Ali'i Drive, I looked out to see surfers catching breaks off the beach. Shortly thereafter, a surfer dude on a cruiser bike on the other side of the road was pedaling slowly along, then reached up into a flowering tree, pulled down a blossom and took a deep smell of it as went, without breaking pedaling rhythm. Despite the intensity of the surrounding event, Hawaii is still Hawaii.
(One moment on the marathon will always stick with me. It happened at about the 17-mile mark, when the course turns down towards the ocean for a final turnaround before heading back towards town and the finish line. Incredibly, I hit the turn right at the moment the sun started to set, perfectly lined up with the end of the road. I was literally running straight down into the setting sun for about three quarters of a mile. If I remember one thing about this whole race, it will probably be that stretch of 5 minutes or so.)
On the way back into town, running in the dark under an almost full moon, we all had to wear glowsticks somewhere on our bodies. At first I thought it was to keep us safe from cars, but quickly saw that the real threat was other runners coming from the opposite direction, still heading out to the turnaround. With no streetlights at all, all you could see were glowsticks bouncing up and down. I made a couple of Burning Man playa cracks to those immediately around me, but for some reason that didn't get a laugh. Hmm, maybe not too much crowd crossover between Burning Man and Ironman?
But back to those goals I mentioned at the outset. I realized at about mile 20 that if I picked up my pace I could potentially finish my marathon in under 4 hours. Reasoning that I'd always regret it if I didn't try, I dug deep and ramped up the pace. I found I had no trouble, so ramped it up a little more. Then a little more, this time uphill to the turn onto Palani Road.
By the time I saw Maryam about a mile from the finish I was running like I was in a 10km race, just hammering along. Then - boom - the turn onto Ali'i Drive for the finish, insane crowds and noise, little kids running alongside to high five me, people yelling and cheering from every direction. Pandemonium, after all those miles alongside the dark highway. Charge into the finish alley, stadium lights shining down on the bleachers and the crowd going crazy for those of us coming in four hours after the winner! Sprint by the woman greeting her kids, the guy blowing kisses to the crowd, hit the finish at a dead run with the biggest smile I've ever smiled... into the arms of waiting volunteers who prop you up, walk you around, get you water and a slice of pizza and steer you to
"You are an Ironman," yells the announcer as you cross the line. And man oh man do you ever feel like one in the moments after the race is done.
After we'd picked up my bike and gear, we stopped before going back to the car. We climbed up into the finisher bleachers and watched some other athletes come in, to the same deafening noise and excitement, watched the expressions on their faces and the sudden, if fleeting, spring in their steps. And it felt perfect.
I came to Ironman Hawaii here in Kona with a few goals. First, I wanted to finish the race. Second, I wanted to have a good strong run, avoiding the horrendous experience I had during the second half of the marathon at Ironman Canada two years ago. And third, I thought there was some chance I could run better than a four-hour marathon, something I'd not been able to do in Canada.
You'll notice that none of these goals had anything to do with my overall time, nor with my placement in the field or in my age group. I didn't care much about my time because I didn't know what to expect from the course, with its notorious hills, winds, and heat. And for me to worry about where I placed in a field dominated by people who had qualified for this race by placing in the top 5-10 of their age groups in some other 2005 Ironman event...well that would be silly (I, um, "qualified" by buying my spot on Ebay).
How did it turn out? Well. Very well, even. I finished, felt great throughout the marathon, and posted a marathon time of 3:59:20.
I checked in at the start around 5:30am, got my arms marked with my number - 1348 - and headed over to my bike to pump the tires one last time, put on my water bottles, and load up my little food pouch with energy bars. Sunrise wouldn't come until almost 7am, but the early morning glow was enough to see by. I half-believe that even absent that, the nervous energy on the Kailua Pier would probably have produced enough electricity to light the place up.
In most Ironman and half-Ironman races, there are a small handful of people who believe they can win their respective age groups. In mine, men 35-39, a large and very competitive group (can you say, "midlife crisis?"), there might normally be 10 people who arrive at the start prepared to battle hard for the win, or for the top 5 position that will win them a qualifying slot to Ironman Hawaii. They are all psycho, of course, but perhaps that goes without saying.
Now, imagine taking the people from the top 5 spots from all 17 worldwide qualifying races, and putting them all into one race. Instead of 10 people battling for the top few slots (and associated bragging rights - this is the World Championship after all), there are more like 100. It's intense. People don't smile a lot on race morning, and there's very little joking around.
In fact, there wasn't a lot of smiling for the few days preceding the race. Everyone was out on the roads, biking and running to work off nervous energy, without a lot of the little smiles and waves that constitute basic politeness back in the real world. And at the swim venue, where the buoys were already partly set up, the point seemed to be as much about strutting low body fat percentage as about warming up for the race to come.
Anyway, race morning was calm and warm as the sun rose over the hills, and the assembled field waited for the starting cannon. The pros started at 6:45am, just before the dawn, in a flopping froth of arms and legs. It's incredible that more of them don't end up with broken noses, teeth, and cheekbones from flying feet.
At 7am, after an aloha-tinged national anthem, the cannon went off for the age group field, and away we went. Or rather, away they went. I stayed treading water for a slow ten-count, reasoning that it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference to my time, but might help me avoid getting kicked in the face.
I took the swim easy, mostly because I'm still such a pathetically slow swimmer that there's no point in pushing it and wasting a bunch of energy. Still, 2.4 miles in the ocean with no wetsuit is a bear, no matter how easy you take it, and I emerged an hour and 41 minutes later much the worse for wear. As my stepfather-in-law Stu said later, I didn't look too good as I changed and hopped on my bike. Yep, that's because I didn't feel too good.
You triathletes will also appreciate how odd it felt to come out of the water, into transition, and have fully 95% of the bikes gone already. I had been expecting it, doing the simple math on my swim time and the quality of the field, but still, it's hard not to let that get to you just a little.
But hop on my bike I did, for an 11-mile loop in Kailua before heading out onto the Queen K highway for the long ride up to the turnaround at Hawi. It was still early, and not hot, so it felt great to get a little speed going. Most of the bikers were well past by the time I got to various checkpoints on the course, but there were still massive numbers of spectators yelling and cheering. It was amazing, really, that they kept it up even for those of us at the back of the pack. Though I suppose in hindsight I realize that during those early stages of the bike leg I was only about 40 minutes behind most of the pack - the gap would only get wider from there.
All along the route leading up the turnaround, I could see the real field coming back in the opposite lane. Faris Al-Sultan, the eventual race winner, was blazing along at the front, followed by a few follow packs then miles of age group winners from around the world. It was a hell of thing to watch, actually. Even from the other side of the highway you could see that they were setting a blazing pace.
Somewhere in there, I passed Sarah Reinertsten, who you might remember from last year's NBC coverage of the race (she races on a prosthetic leg, and last year wasn't able to finish). Talk about inspiring. I don't know how she kept her cool with the film crews hovering around her all day, but she was just cranking away with a smile on her face. Very impressive.
The 112-mile bike course in Kona is known for its hills (check), its heat (check, though this wasn't an extreme year, just average), and wind (not bad at all this year). I like to treat these events as adventures, so don't spend a lot of time scouting the courses in advance. That meant that I didn't have a great sense for just how many hills there were on this course. There are many, including a steady uphill the last 20 miles to the turnaround, which happened to be the only place where we hit any significant headwinds. Which also happened to be about the hottest part of the day. You get the idea.
The return from Hawi was easier, back down that 20 mile hill, then along the Queen K to town. The views from the top near Hawi are superb, making it into the kind of ride that you would love to do at a more leisurely pace with a bunch of friends. Though I suppose in that case you would start from the Four Seasons Hualalai, pedal up to Hawi, have lunch (perhaps a macadamia nut crusted mahi mahi with a crisp Chardonnay?), then cruise back down for a dip in the pool and a Mai Tai. But I digress.
Seriously, just as we were passing the entrance to the Four Seasons on the way back into town, I happened to be near another biker, and I said, "damn, wouldn't you just love to be in that Four Seasons pool about now?" She kind of frowned at me for joking around. I wanted to say, "Lady, I hate to break it to you, but we aren't going to win." Her look made me keep my mouth shut.
At least I got a couple of chuckles out of the volunteers at the aid stations by asking for a cold Heineken. Only time all day they heard that one, I'd wager.
By the time I got back to Kailua, the field was well along on the marathon, and the really fast racers were finishing. In fact, Faris Al-Sultan's time was about 8:14, which meant that he had won the race before I had started the marathon.
I felt great coming off the bike, and didn't even notice what my time split was, as I'd been paying much more attention to my heart rate than to my time (I later found out it was a little over 6 1/2 hours). My basic bike plan was to keep my heart rate from spiking up too much, conserving my energy for the run, when I'd really need it. There's something liberating about watching a number other than speed on the bike, especially when you are battling a headwind while going uphill. And it saved me a ton of energy that I would normally have put into trying to maintain my speed at the wrong moments.
Just before I finished the bike course, I saw Maryam, Jake, Stu and Roberta, and was able to pull over and have a quick chat, take a photo, and tell them I was doing fine. It was so great to have that kind of support out on the course. Jake had spent much of the previous afternoon working on special signage, including a huge sign saying, "Go, Ironyman!" I think he'd had some help from his mother on that one...
I swapped my bike clothes for running gear in the changing tent, then headed out on the marathon. I saw my "support crew" again about a mile in to the run, at which point Jake asked me, "Dad, are you coming home to the hotel with us?" Sorely tempted, I explained that I had some running to do first, but would see him back at the hotel after that.
As it turned out, the run was great from start to finish. I never faltered, never felt bad, never stopped eating. It's a beautiful course. Early in the marathon, running along oceanside Ali'i Drive, I looked out to see surfers catching breaks off the beach. Shortly thereafter, a surfer dude on a cruiser bike on the other side of the road was pedaling slowly along, then reached up into a flowering tree, pulled down a blossom and took a deep smell of it as went, without breaking pedaling rhythm. Despite the intensity of the surrounding event, Hawaii is still Hawaii.
(One moment on the marathon will always stick with me. It happened at about the 17-mile mark, when the course turns down towards the ocean for a final turnaround before heading back towards town and the finish line. Incredibly, I hit the turn right at the moment the sun started to set, perfectly lined up with the end of the road. I was literally running straight down into the setting sun for about three quarters of a mile. If I remember one thing about this whole race, it will probably be that stretch of 5 minutes or so.)
On the way back into town, running in the dark under an almost full moon, we all had to wear glowsticks somewhere on our bodies. At first I thought it was to keep us safe from cars, but quickly saw that the real threat was other runners coming from the opposite direction, still heading out to the turnaround. With no streetlights at all, all you could see were glowsticks bouncing up and down. I made a couple of Burning Man playa cracks to those immediately around me, but for some reason that didn't get a laugh. Hmm, maybe not too much crowd crossover between Burning Man and Ironman?
But back to those goals I mentioned at the outset. I realized at about mile 20 that if I picked up my pace I could potentially finish my marathon in under 4 hours. Reasoning that I'd always regret it if I didn't try, I dug deep and ramped up the pace. I found I had no trouble, so ramped it up a little more. Then a little more, this time uphill to the turn onto Palani Road.
By the time I saw Maryam about a mile from the finish I was running like I was in a 10km race, just hammering along. Then - boom - the turn onto Ali'i Drive for the finish, insane crowds and noise, little kids running alongside to high five me, people yelling and cheering from every direction. Pandemonium, after all those miles alongside the dark highway. Charge into the finish alley, stadium lights shining down on the bleachers and the crowd going crazy for those of us coming in four hours after the winner! Sprint by the woman greeting her kids, the guy blowing kisses to the crowd, hit the finish at a dead run with the biggest smile I've ever smiled... into the arms of waiting volunteers who prop you up, walk you around, get you water and a slice of pizza and steer you to
"You are an Ironman," yells the announcer as you cross the line. And man oh man do you ever feel like one in the moments after the race is done.
After we'd picked up my bike and gear, we stopped before going back to the car. We climbed up into the finisher bleachers and watched some other athletes come in, to the same deafening noise and excitement, watched the expressions on their faces and the sudden, if fleeting, spring in their steps. And it felt perfect.
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