Michellie & Normann Win

Me with the now 2006 Ironman World Champion

Instead of doing work and packing for my move, I pretty much did nothing but watch Ironman Hawaii coverage on ironman.com all day. They did a wicked job. Although I would have preferred to see Heather Fuhr racing, she added to the quality of the coverage.

Some of my picks came through huge. Thanks and congrats Michellie. Maybe she will go for the double and try to take home the 70.3 World Championships too? That would be sweet and definitely possible. Too bad Macca ran out of real estate but running a 2:46 is absolutely insane. Like I said, he needed to go bigger on the bike. We just might see him too at the 70.3 World Championships in a few weeks.

Great to see Desiree Ficker finish 2nd. She is a genuinely nice person who obviously put in some hard work to make such a great improvement. A definite future threat. Also incredible to see Lisa Bentley plow her way through to a 3rd place finish. And of course I must mention that the legendary Karen Smyers at the age of 45, finished 12th with a time of 9:39. On a sad note it was too bad that Dick and Rick Hoyt didn't make the swim cut-off. This was supposed to be their last trip to Kona. They will hopefully be back to end on a better note.

Here are the final results (Top 10).

Men's
1. Normann Stadler 8:11:56
2. Chris McCormack 8:13:07
3. Faris Al-Sultan 8:19:04
4. Rutger Beke 8:21:04
5. Eneko Llanos 8:22:28
6. Marino Vanhoenacker 8:24:17
7. Luke Bell 8:24:26
8. Cameron Brown 8:25:22
9. Chris Lieto 8:27:37
10. Patrick Vernay 8:28:13

Women's
1. Michellie Jones 9:18:31
2. Desiree Ficker 9:24:02
3. Lisa Bentley 9:25:18
4. Gina Kehr 9:27:24
5. Katherine Allen 9:30:22
6. Kate Major 9:31:53
7. Joanna Lawn 9:32:48
8. Belinda Granger 9:35:48
9. Melissa Ashton 9:38:22
10. Natascha Badmann 9:38:52

The big Ironman broadcast is set to air on NBC on December 9, from 4-6pm. Can't wait.

Later
Hoss