Although I was unable to go to the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii this year, I did watch the event on my big screen TV, courtesy of Ironman.com. The entire race is streamed live, and hundreds of thousands tune in every year to see the race. It has gotten big enough that the entire event, at least the pro race, is covered by a number of mobile cameras on motocycles and in convertibles.
The women’s race featured two key players: the unbeatable Brit Chrissie Wellington, who has never lost at the Ironman distance, winning the past three races in Hawaii, along with 6 others world-wide; and Miranda Carfrae, an Aussie who last year came in second after winning the Ironman 70.3 (half the distance of the big race) World’s in 2008. “Rinnie” features a killer run, the only woman in the world with a faster marathon than Chrissie in the heat crucible of Hawaii.
But their race never happened. Chrissie did not start, claiming bad flu symptoms, and Carfrae ran away with the race, turning in the fastest ever women’s marathon, and 4th fastest time overall in history.
On the men’s side, 2007 champ Chris “Macca” McCormack won his second title through superior strategy and successful risk-taking. Macca is a complete triathlete, having won world championships in the 90s at the shorter distances, then cleaning up in the US at non-drafting short races like Escape from Alcatraz, finally turning his talents to Ironman, winning multiple times in Australia and Europe, with several of the fastest times ever. He is both fast and crafty, and capable of staying with the best in any of our three disciplines.
In this race, he kept pace with the lead pack of swimmers, and then sat in with the first chase group of bikers, after letting the super peddlers – Chris Lieto and friend – go ahead. Every time someone in that chase group tried to go off the front, there was Macca keeping up. Each time, fewer kept pace, until finally an elite pack entered T2 minutes ahead of the biggest threat, 2-time defending champ Craig “Crowie” Alexander.
During the run, the two Aussies, German Andreas Raelert and Belgian Marino Van Hoenoeker proved the fastest, sorting themselves out into the top four during the course of the 26.2 miles. Raelert, who had not kept pace with Macca on the bike, valiantly tried to reel him in during the final 15 K after McCormack had taken the lead. Raelert did pull even around mile 24. Usually, once a person is caught like that, he is passed, and does not regain the lead.
But Macca had been waiting for him, and dug deep inside. The two were literally stride for stride for the next two miles, “half’wheeling” each other (a cycling term for what happens when two riders pedal side by side, first one then the other speeding up to pull ahead by a half a wheel, until both are sprinting all out.)
I predicted to my sister, who was watching with me, that the winner would succeed on the final downhill, just before the turn onto Ali’i drive. Whoever could pump it up at that point would probably be able to hang on for the remaining 200 meters.
But the two were starting to go balls out about a mile before that, down the steepest section of the course, Palani Drive, into the sharp left hand turn onto Kuikini. At the base of this hill is the final aid station, the one made notorious by 8-time winner Paula Newby-Fraser in one of her few losses. She and Karen Smyers were racing just as closely as Raelert and Macca were today. PNF decided to risk not slowing for any fluids, and collapsed while in the lead with less than a quarter mile to go. She eventually finished, but only by crawling in a dehydrated stupor to the line.
This image is such a part of Ironman lore that we all learn not to skip any aid stations. Myself, I have skipped final ones twice, and each time was able to stay upright and pass or stay ahead of the guy I was fighting for a Kona slot. So it’s not an iron-clad rule, but one takes a strategic risk when breaking it.
Raelert slowed down a hair to grab a drink, but Macca powered on through, gaining 10 meters in just a few seconds. The triathlon world gasped, both at Raelert for slowing down, and Macca for skipping his final chance for fluid before the all-out 6 minute sprint to the line.
At first, it appeared Macca may have made a poor choice: he began clutching his side, as if he had a bad stitch there. But he had victory in his eyes, and was not going to let any incipient gut pain get in the way. Raelert, meanwhile, had apparently shot his wad, and that’s why he took on water at Kuikini; he lost over a minute in that last mile alone, limping in on fumes while McCormack spent every last joule of energy he had left getting to the line an ecstatic first.
An 8 hour race, coming down to the final half mile, with the winner taking a few strategic risks to go outside his safe zones on both the bike and the run, knowing just when and how much to put the hammer down – that’s the way I like to race: You never know where your limits are until you try to go past them. Such an approach carries an inherent risk, but is more and more needed for ultimate success in this most grueling event.