Good morning and welcome to Slowtwitch.com's annual live coverage of the Hawaii Ironman World Championships in Kona. Before we get started with today's happenings, we do need to tell you a little bit about the bike check last night and some of the sights and sounds of the last 24 hours.
Standing outside the bike check-in line in Hawaii is both a great and awful place to be on Friday afternoon. The athletes' tension takes on an actual physical force. So many have their game faces already on, and some look just completely terrified. Then you see somebody like Natascha Badmann heading your way, with her husband and coach Tony, carrying her Cat Cheetah bike. That bike does not touch the ground. She's all smiles, looking relaxed and confident. She's got a solitary PowerBar rigged up alongside a behind-the-seat water bottle cage, and one of our crew asks, with a laugh, if that's all she needs. "That's all," she says with her trademark brilliant smile. "The rest is all in here." And she pats the bike, smiling broadly again. The woman knows a thing or two about the power of the mind, and it is both beautiful and terrifying to see. (Terrifying if you're racing against her.) No wonder her competitors can't figure it out.
Cam Widoff was a late arrival to the pier, looking like a cool drink of water with his snazzy red-white-and-blue Trek. We really get a good feeling about Cam this year. Karen Smyers has the same Trek, as did Tim De Boom. Karen looks great this year, too.
We caught up with James Bonney last night. He may have flown under some radar screens this year as a stomach virus knocked him out of Ironman USA Lake Placid before the finish this year. He was fifth at Ironman New Zealand, and continued to show that the work he's put in on the bike and run is paying dividends when he broke the course record at the hot and hilly Buffalo Springs Lake Half Ironman this summer. Look for the long tall Texan to be out of the water with the leaders. He plans to play it smart in the early miles of the bike, where the climbs and an excess of adrenaline can tempt athletes into a too-hard, too-early pace. Bonney's been working a lot on his run, and had this to say: "The last few long runs I put in were right on target. I improved from 3:19 to 3:03 in one year's time in New Zealand, and I ran a 3:19 here last year, so with the run focus I have been putting in, I could see a sub 3-hour run here."
Many competitors' already frayed nerves may have popped completely last night as, around 6 p.m., the skies over Kona opened up. The clouds had been threatening since early afternoon and finally gave way just an hour or so after the last athletes turned their bikes over. It was a typical tropical rain shower, heavy in bursts, but it had staying power. The Slowtwitch crew was already deep into its bike count on the pier, and at one point was the only collection of fools on the pier, along with a few other bike company guys like Kestrel's Preston Sandusky and Litespeed's Herbert Krabel. When our paper became too wet to write on, and the pens gave out, half of our survey team took refuge in the porta-potties while their spotters shouted the bike descriptions to them. In the middle of a tropical downpour, in the dark, you'd hear guys and gals yelling, "Kestrel! … Trek! … steep seat angle! Profile one-piece bar!" until we'd get out of shouting range. Then the heavens would let us dry off for a while and we'd try to soldier on, literally wringing out our clothing. Then it would start again. The Ironman folks kindly brought out some garbage bags for us so at least we'd keep some warmth on our bodies as the downpour continued in fits and starts. We finally called it a night around 7:30, soaked to the bone.
Our progress was slowed somewhat in the bike count by the sheer number of bikes on the pier. The Ironman folks say it's a record-setting field that will be starting this year, with 1,585 athletes set to take off. That's about a hundred more bikes than usual, we reckon.
It appears to have rained on and off during the night, and many competitors will be waking up to the sound of falling rain this morning as the rain returned around 3 a.m. It's going to be an interesting day. Cooler, wet weather will naturally favor some of the stronger runners if it holds until the marathon, so guys like Shingo Tani of Japan and Peter Kropko of Hungary could have a real chance to run themselves into good finishes. It's way too early to tell, of course, but it's another data point.
