Medals for Mettle

Checkout this article in Runner's World about a marathoning doctor who gives medals to patients struggling through much harder races. Steven Isenberg, M.D started a nonprofit organization that collects medals and donates them to people battling illnesses.

Visit the medals4mettle website and consider donating your race medals. I haven't earned any medals yet, but when I do, I'm going to consider donating to medals4mettle.

Birthday Fit Challenge

It's official, I'm going to take the Birthday Fit Challenge this year. My neighbor has done the challenge the last couple of years and frankly I've called him nuts (on more than one occassion), but with my new healthy lifestyle (excluding the last 3 months), I see the fun in the challenge. The challenge goes like this:

Take your age and in any order:

1) Swim the number of yards in the first number(# multiplied by 1000 yards),
2) Run the number of miles in the second number,
3) Bike the number of miles in the combined number.

So for me, going on 38 this year:

1) Swim 3000 yards
2) Run 8 miles
3) Bike 38 miles

If you choose to accept the B-Fit B-Day Challenge you must....

Bronze: Do all three (swim/bike/run) during the week of your Birthday.
Silver: Do all three (swim/bike/run) in the three days before, after, or on your B-Day.
Gold: Do all three (swim/bike/run) in 24-hours to celebrate your B-Day!
Platinum: Do all three in miles (swim first number in miles not yards/bike/run) in 24-hours to celebrate your B-Day!

I'm going to shoot for Bronze, but Gold is not out of the question depending on how I feel. You can read all about the B-Fit B-day Challenge here.

My birthday is December 21st, so I've got some time to get back to regular exercise so I don't pass out on my birthday!

2008 Ford Ironman World Championships summary video

Checkout this 2008 Ford Ironman World Championships summary video, the underwater swim shots are awemsome:

Who won this race? Two winners, how can that be?

Last Sunday, October 19th at the San Francisco marathon the fastest time did not win. Yes, you read that correct. The fastest runner was not the winner. How can that be you say? Citing a technicality, that the faster runner did not run with the elite wave, she could not be declared the winner.

Backing up here, Arien O'Connell ran a 2 hours, 55 minutes and 11 seconds marathon running in the age group field. She had never broken 3 hours in five previous attempts and ended up with a PR by more than 12 minutes. If not for the ending, this would have been a great story. Incredibly, the "winner" of the race was a woman that ran 3 hours, 6 minutes. Nike declared the 3 hours, 6 minutes time the winner and initially refused to consider the faster time as the true winner of the race. Incredibly, Nike officials essentially blamed Arien for competing in the wrong category and that if she planned to run that fast, she should have been competing as an elite.

A few days later, the story has a somewhat happy ending in that Arien was declared "a winner" but not the winner, stating that since the elite class runner did not have a chance to respond to Arien's race.

I can see that Arien probably should have been running with the elites, considering her best time was around the 3 hours, 6 minutes timeframe, but to declare a winner, where the winner does not have the fastest time? That seems a bit ridiculous to me. This will never be a problem for me, but Jason and Craig, pay attention!

Read the whole story here.

Social network for endurance athletes

During lunch today I was surfing the net and stumbled upon a social network for endurance athletes called Athlinks. You can track all race results, training, calendar, email, rivals, photos and gear reviews within the community. I searched for my name and most of the races I've done over the last two years are already in the system, I just needed to create a profile to associate them with me. There was one race that was not me, a 6 hour marathon, so I just simply deleted that one.

Go sign up and join the community. You can see my profile here and you can see my Family Fan Club profile here. Add me and Family Fan Club as a friend.

I'm sure I don't have a full appreciation of all the benefits, but I'll explore and report back.

See you online!

Leadville 100 Mountain Bike Race

Checkout this video story about the Leadville 100 Mountain Bike Race on August 9th: http://www.superhumanmag.com/content/view/763/92/

Lance Armstrong showed up and decided to participate and challenge the 5x champion Dave Wiens. If your Dave Wiens I think you've got to be thinking "really"? Can't I be the big fish off road at high altitude? The video is great and I'm sure only tells a portion of the story in what was an epic battle. Watch the video and find out who won!

2008 Ford Ironman World Championship - Results

I spent most of the day on Saturday watching the 2008 Ford Ironman World Championships live on Ironman.com. I missed the start and exit from the swim, but I watched the balance.

Spoiler alert: Don't read the rest if you don't want to know who won!

The men's 2008 Ford Ironman World Champion is Craig Alexander in 08:17:45, which represented a 3 minute improvement over last year's second place performance. Craig lives and trains in Boulder in the summer, so another top level triathlete you could run into during a workout. Keep your eyes open, you know never who you'll run into!

The women's 2008 Ford Ironman World Champion is Chrissie Wellington in 09:06:23, good for 40th overall, defending her title with a convincing 15 minute win over second place.

Some of the interesting points of the race:
** Chrissie Wellington is clearly the top women's triathlete in the world. She won by 15 minutes and that includes 10 minutes standing on the side of the road waiting for tech support to fix a flat tire. If you remove the 10 minute flat time, she wins by 25 minutes and goes under 9 hours. Amazing and she makes it look effortless.
** Chris McCormack was stung by bad luck with a broken gear cable just past the midway point on the bike. Macca was in the top 10 at the time, but was unable to continue due to equipment failure. Macca later joined the online broadcast and he sounded fit, strong and disappointed. He was in the group with Craig Alexander at the time of the bike failure. After catching up with tech support, Macca learned that it would take 20 minutes to fix, he decided the race was lost and decided not to continue. It would have been great to see that finish!
** Andy Potts really surprised me. Andy finished 8th, competing in his very first Iron distance race. Granted, he's the reigning 70.3 World Champion and a two time olympian, but for the first time in Kona, that's an impressive finish. I heard / read that he'd never run past 15 miles (ever) or rode past 100 miles (ever), so that makes it even more impressive. I'd watch out for Andy in the future if he decides to move to Iron distance full time.
** Rutger Beke again exemplified his professionalism. If you watched the Ironman broadcast on NBC last year, you'll recall that they followed one pro triathlete who did not have his "A" race last year, but would not quit out of respect for the other competitors and the race itself. He came back this year for a 4th place finish, really impressive.

It was a good day of watching triathlon. The big disappointment of the day was losing Macca due to equipment failure. I wonder if it would be possible to have backup gear on hand and provide some mechanism/rules for equipment replacement during the race. Frustrating to see the defending champ knocked out due to equipment failure. Or perhaps it's just part of the game and should remain unchanged. What do you think? (Add a comment)

I'll look forward to the NBC broadcast of 2008 Ford Ironman World Championships, likely in December. Hopefully Bicycle Village will again host a viewing party and get Craig Alexander or Chrissie Wellington to speak. (They had Macca last year.)

Checkout all of the 2008 Ford Ironman World Championship results at http://ironman.com/worldchampionship.

2008 Triathlon World Championships - Pre-race

Tomorrow is the 2008 Ford Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii, the Super Bowl of triathlon. Last years winners Chris McCormack and Chrissie Wellington are both back to defend their titles. Both have won a number of races since last year's race, I think they're both undefeated as far as I know, which will make it hard for the competition to unseat them as champions.

For the men, I'd like to see Macca win again. I met him at Velo Swap in Denver and saw him speak last year at the Ironman viewing party at Bicycle Village in Westminster, CO. I recognize that Macca rubs some the wrong way, but I like his confidence and spirit he brings to triathlon. Although I'd like to see him win, repeating is tremendously difficult. If he doesn't repeat, the next in line I see is Craig Alexander. I'm buying the reports that after last year's second place finish he felt fresh and could've given more. He also hasn't over raced the last year, in fact he hasn't gone the Iron distance since last years race. I like that he'll be fresh and focused. I also think Norman Stadler is ready to return to the top after a disappointing race last year.

For the women, I don't see anyone beating Chrissie Wellington. I admittedly don't know many on the women's side, but from what I've read in Inside Triathlon and Triathlete magazines, barring injury or mechanical failure I think she'll repeat.

If you're not doing anything tomorrow, check out live race coverage on www.ironman.com.