I watched a lot of the Ironman Hawaii championship yesterday live via the Ironman website. They had a live video feed and status updates going throughout the day that made you feel like you were there. I'll tip my hat to the WTC folks, they did a great job with the live coverage and commentaries; not only was it informative but it was also pretty captivating. They had 8+ hours of airtime to fill during the race!
Not only was I watching the live video, the live status updates (with select tweets from the #IMKona hashtag) but I was also watching the power feeds of several athletes on the SRM.de website. I read an article last week about TJ Tollakson's odd bike setup for Kona, and in the article they mention that TJ would be live streaming the data from his SRM power meter during the race on the SRM.de website. I headed over there during the race and sure enough I could see the power numbers for certain pros including TJ, Cameron Brown and Faris Al-Sultan. Those guys were pushing some monster numbers for an Ironman; high 200's and low 300's whenever I checked in on the site. Wow, I wonder what their FTP number and W/Kg are!
The men's race came down to an exciting shootout between Chris McCormick (Macca) and Andreas Raelert, with Macca shooting ahead at the end to take the lead. Craig Alexander gave up too much time on the bike this year and couldn't make it up on the run, while Chris Lieto faded a lot faster than he did last year. There was a lot of talk over Chris Lieto's improved run form over last year but unfortunately it wasn't his day yesterday and he was caught easily on the run by the top contenders. On the women's side the sudden drop out of Chrissie Wellington left the doors wide open for Julie Dibbens and Mirinda Carfrae. Julie crushed the swim and the bike as expected but Mirinda managed to overtake her during the marathon. Great performances all around, especially for the Aussies!
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