Kona Interviews

He's had an up-and-down twelve months. A horrific spate of ill-health kept him out of last year's Kona race. Zack and his rebuilt body finished a close second to Chris Legh in a very fast Wildflower Half-Ironman in May. A mechanical disaster struck Zack in Roth, a race he's won five times. After a well-publicized verbal spar with Roth race producer Detlef Kuhnel -- with lawyers involved -- Zack lost his appeal for a wild-card into Kona. Amid charges by Kuhnel that Zack's dropout was faked because of ill-preparedness, Zack promptly trounced the field two weeks later in the Austrian Ironman, beating last year's Hawaiian bronze-medalist Tim DeBoom. As he was just polishing off a successful lead-up to Hawaii Zack was struck by a car while on a bike ride, breaking his collarbone and again forcing him to the sidelines for the Kona race.

ST: So you're going to Kona to spectate.
JZ: I'm looking forward to watching the Hawaiian Ironman. I've never watched it before.

ST: I'd have thought it would be hard to watch the race, having come so close to being in peak readiness for it this year.
JZ: I visited the race in Roth two times before I won it. So you can learn new things by watching. You learn things by doing, by racing, but you learn other things by watching, things you might need the next year.

ST: One thing about you -- among insiders, those who've watched the race for ten or fifteen years -- during the Mark Allen era was the race. Then there was the race inside of the race. Wolfgang Dittrich's race to win the swim. And there was your effort to win the bike split, or come off the bike first. That was always a sub-plot. Perhaps watching the race this year might give you a difference perspective, especially since you've done everything else but win the race.
JZ: That's true. I always see the race from my perspective, when I'm racing. All the big races that I won, I won on the bike. Maybe from seeing the race from outside the race I'll see it from a different perspective. When you're in the race and you go 100% and you suffer and you see someone running away from you, you really get a lot of respect from this guy. But I've talked to a lot of retired athletes they just sit across the street and they watch the race, and they say hey, they're not going that fast, their run times are still soft, I could do the same, easily. Maybe that's what I get out of this, I get more confidence because I also seen Luc Van Lierde suffer. I see him running at a pace that doesn't look that fast. Maybe that's what I need mentally -- to build up over the next 12-months -- that I see the athletes suffer. When I do the race myself, and I feel myself suffer, by seeing somebody else in pain and being at the limit, I'll lose some of this respect. There're also some little things. I want to see how a pack forms. I'm usually not there when the pack forms.

ST: You usually ride up to it after it already forms. Your decision is what to do with it, whether to ride with it, or ride through it and try to break it up.
JZ: I don't know if there is an advantage to ride in a pack. Of course you save energy, but sometimes people sit in the pack and just look at each other and nobody wants to push the pace. And there's other stuff. How people line up in the swim, where the best line is. You need to see it from the outside. Plus I ought to be there to represent my sponsors --do some promotional work for them.

ST: Let's talk about Norman Stadler. You're picking him third in Hawaii, after Luc and Lothar. The ride up Palomar. Was that Stadler on a very good day, or was that Stadler every day.
JZ: He's somebody who can go really hard in training. And when I watch him in training -- and racing -- I have a feeling that he hasn't figured out yet how to time trial to his full potential. He's a strong climber, he's strong in training.

ST: Are you helping him more now since you aren't racing than you were before?
JZ: I think so, but I think we were helping each other before. We wre pushing each other.

ST: Have you always been friends with Stadler?
JZ: I trained with him in '94, in Tenerife, with the national team. He was the one I enjoyed training with, because there was no bullshitting or fooling around.

ST: He seems to be a straight-up guy.
JZ: He didn't need to compete in the training rides. He'd stick to the game plan. We decide before what work we're going to do, and I like to stick to the program. Not just decide to show up and drop people. Others like to make a competition out of the workouts they do.

ST: What kind of runner is he these days?
JZ: He has the potential to run a 31-flat.

ST: Do you think he can run under 2:50 here?
JZ: I don't know about in Hawaii. Other than Australia always had trouble in an Ironman. But this time I have a feeling his training is the best he's every done, he's very motivated...






			G	JURGEN ZACK He's had an up-and-down twelve months. A horrific spate of ill-health kept him out of last year's Kona race. Zack and his rebuilt body finished a close second to Chris Legh in a very fast Wildflower Half-Ironman in May. A mechanical disaster struck Zack in Roth, a race he's won five times. After a well-publicized verbal spar with Roth race producer Detlef Kuhnel -- with lawyers involved -- Zack lost his appeal for a wild-card into Kona. Amid charges by Kuhnel that Zack's dropout was faked because of ill-preparedness, Zack promptly trounced the field two weeks later in the Austrian Ironman, beating last year's Hawaiian bronze-medalist Tim DeBoom. As he was just polishing off a successful lead-up to Hawaii Zack was struck by a car while on a bike ride, breaking his collarbone and again forcing him to the sidelines for the Kona race. ST: So you're going to Kona to spectate. JZ: I'm looking forward to watching the Hawaiian Ironman. I've never watched it before. ST: I'd have thought it would be hard to watch the race, having come so close to being in peak readiness for it this year. JZ: I visited the race in Roth two times before I won it. So you can learn new things by watching. You learn things by doing, by racing, but you learn other things by watching, things you might need the next year. ST: One thing about you -- among insiders, those who've watched the race for ten or fifteen years -- during the Mark Allen era was the race. Then there was the race inside of the race. Wolfgang Dittrich's race to win the swim. And there was your effort to win the bike split, or come off the bike first. That was always a sub-plot. Perhaps watching the race this year might give you a difference perspective, especially since you've done everything else but win the race. JZ: That's true. I always see the race from my perspective, when I'm racing. All the big races that I won, I won on the bike. Maybe from seeing the race from outside the race I'll see it from a different perspective. When you're in the race and you go 100% and you suffer and you see someone running away from you, you really get a lot of respect from this guy. But I've talked to a lot of retired athletes they just sit across the street and they watch the race, and they say hey, they're not going that fast, their run times are still soft, I could do the same, easily. Maybe that's what I get out of this, I get more confidence because I also seen Luc Van Lierde suffer. I see him running at a pace that doesn't look that fast. Maybe that's what I need mentally -- to build up over the next 12-months -- that I see the athletes suffer. When I do the race myself, and I feel myself suffer, by seeing somebody else in pain and being at the limit, I'll lose some of this respect. There're also some little things. I want to see how a pack forms. I'm usually not there when the pack forms. ST: You usually ride up to it after it already forms. Your decision is what to do with it, whether to ride with it, or ride through it and try to break it up. JZ: I don't know if there is an advantage to ride in a pack. Of course you save energy, but sometimes people sit in the pack and just look at each other and nobody wants to push the pace. And there's other stuff. How people line up in the swim, where the best line is. You need to see it from the outside. Plus I ought to be there to represent my sponsors --do some promotional work for them. ST: Let's talk about Norman Stadler. You're picking him third in Hawaii, after Luc and Lothar. The ride up Palomar. Was that Stadler on a very good day, or was that Stadler every day. JZ: He's somebody who can go really hard in training. And when I watch him in training -- and racing -- I have a feeling that he hasn't figured out yet how to time trial to his full potential. He's a strong climber, he's strong in training. ST: Are you helping him more now since you aren't racing than you were before? JZ: I think so, but I think we were helping each other before. We wre pushing each other. ST: Have you always been friends with Stadler? JZ: I trained with him in '94, in Tenerife, with the national team. He was the one I enjoyed training with, because there was no bullshitting or fooling around. ST: He seems to be a straight-up guy. JZ: He didn't need to compete in the training rides. He'd stick to the game plan. We decide before what work we're going to do, and I like to stick to the program. Not just decide to show up and drop people. Others like to make a competition out of the workouts they do. ST: What kind of runner is he these days? JZ: He has the potential to run a 31-flat. ST: Do you think he can run under 2:50 here? JZ: I don't know about in Hawaii. Other than Australia always had trouble in an Ironman. But this time I have a feeling his training is the best he's every done, he's very motivated...