Fun Facts From IronCrazy.Com

I was googling today, looking for Ironman inspiration, when I found this blog.

Here were the fun facts he listed about the 2007 World Championships in Kona:

Chrissie Wellington’s race at Ironman World Championship 2007 was her second Ironman race ever. Her first race was Ironman Korea which she won only seven weeks before Ironman World Championship.

Chris McCormack ran a 2:42:02 marathon - this is a 3:50 min/km pace! After a super hard bike! At horrible Hawaii heat!

First 28 competitors finished the Ironman World Championship race under 9 hours. Average time difference between these competitors was 1 minute 35 seconds. This is a hard race for sure: with so much talent such a small amount of people went under nine hours. For example, Challenge Roth which is considered the fastest race in the world (world record course) had 32 athletes finish under nine hours. However Challenge Roth does not have so many professional competitors. Ironman World Championship had 70 PRO finishers and around 90 PRO competitors and Challenge Roth had approx. 50 PRO competitors, I am not aware how many of them finished.

291 competitors finished under 10 hours. Average time difference between them was 21 seconds. Average time between competitors who finished during the hour between nine and ten hours was 13 seconds. Super competitive! This means that if you gained one second every 3 km of the run you could climb one spot. So one second every kilometre would be three spots. Etc etc… It is surely a race with the most pressure ever!

Laurent Jalabert, ex Tour de France cyclist, exited the swim at 1145th spot and finished the bike after 4:45:49 in 105th spot. Laurent Jalabert passed a total of 1040 competitors which means he passed someone every 16 seconds! I imagine that if he did not have to do so much passing and avoiding other competitors he would surely have a better bike split.

Um, Laurent Jalabert is A-mazing...that last factoid blows my mind!!!! See! You do not need to be an awesome swimmer to do triathlons/ironmans!! :-)

Man, finishing under 10 hours!!! I just want to finish under 17, which is now starting to make me develop cold sweats and accelerated heart beats when I think about!!!! I NEED TO TRAIN!!!! Ok, ok, calming down now.

I think I'm also getting super nervous because Monday marks the OFFICIAL Week 1 of 20 Weeks until my race! This is it! No more messing around. I can't miss any more training days or workouts. And I think I'm freaking out a bit more because 5 weeks just flew by like *that*, so how fast is 20 weeks going to just zip by?!?!?!?!

I am starting to note some races I want to do for my training: the 15K Shamrock Run, the Race for the Roses 1/2 Marathon, the Cherry of a Century ride out in the Gorge, and possibly the Hagg Lake swim in May. Ugh, I'm getting a little bit scared and am not feeling so confident. I really need to do a mental check and kick my butt into gear.

Thanks to all of you for supporting me and reading this here blog.

T minus 143 Days and counting...