Ironman Hawaii results

There were some surprises but my picks were pretty good.
Congrats to Macca on a wicked race. I'm a huge fan of his. He is clearly on of the greats of this wicked sport.
It would have made my day if Sam McGlone or Michellie Jones had won as well.
Nice job by Tim DeBoom too. What a great comeback from a few years of bad luck and injuries.

Men’s Results
1. Chris McCormack (AUS) 8:15:34
2. Craig Alexander (AUS) 8:19:04
3. Torbjorn Sindballe (DEN) 8:21:30
4. Tim DeBoom (USA) 8:22:33
5. Marino Vanhoenacker (BEL) 8:23:31

Women’s Results
1. Chrissie Wellington (GBR) 9:08:45
2. Samantha McGlone (CAN) 9:14:04
3. Kate Major (AUS) 9:19:13
4. Joanna Lawn (NZL) 9:26:47
5. Rebecca Preston (AUS) 9:26:55

Congrats to Rick Choy on his finish (first time at the big dance).

Til next time
RH

Kona goes tomorrow

Some people look forward to the Superbowl as their big yearly sports event, not me. This weekend is all about the World's Greatest Sporting Event, the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii.

Tomorrow morning, the world's best athletes will jump into the waters to do a 3.81 km swim, ride 180 km and finish with a 42 km run.

So who is going to win at the big dance?
I know who I WANT to win. But will they?
My faves for victory are Michellie Jones (no surprise--see my first blog entry), and Chris McCormack. I'll be cheering for them the whole way along with Canadian Samantha McGlone of course.

Here are my picks for top five in both the women's and men's race.

Women
1. Michellie Jones
2. Samantha McGlone
3. Natasha Badmann
4. Desiree Ficker
5. Kate Major
Also watch for: Joanna Zeiger, Joanna Lawn, and Heather Gollnick.

Men
1. Chris McCormack
2. Normann Stadler
3. Craig Alexander
4. Rutger Beke
5. Tim DeBoom (suspiciously quiet and under the radar)
Watch for: Jasper Blake, Cameron Brown (also under the radar), Tom Evans and Chris Lieto. Faris Al-Sultan just dropped out of the race (6:10am).

Go Canada!!!
It should be an awesome day of racing.

Til next time
RH

Toronto Waterfront 1/2 Marathon

This past weekend I performed the role of the 2 hr (10 and 1) Pace Bunny at the Toronto Waterfront Marathon. I finished with a time of 2:00:00.4, and I am happy to say that all those that followed me finished sub 2 hrs and reached/surpassed their goals (I told them to blast off with 1 km to go if they hadn't taken off already).

I did this last year and once again it was a ton of fun. This year we more more recognizable so I had lots more followers and runners asking me questions along the way.

This is one of the better races to do. Brilliantly organized, nice route, a cool finish area, it always seems to have awesome weather, the Expo is one of the best on the circuit, and their pacer program is unique.

I was also real cool to see the fastest marathon run on Canadian soil. Check this out. http://www.teamrunningfree.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=98

Thanks to Alan and Michael of the Canada Running Series. They put on awesome running events and this event keeps getting better and better. I hope they take me back for pacer duties for a third year in a row.