This was another strange year in Kona, with an earthquake a week before the race and then a race day with ‘lighter’ winds and even a bit of rain (a lot depending on your finishing time), but as usual this was balanced out with high humidity that made the race as tough as always. Norman Stadler set a new bike course record on his way to his second win in Hawaii while Michelle Jones guaranteed her place amongst the greatest women triathletes by adding the Hawaii crown to her multiple world titles and a silver medal at the Olympics!
We had 8 NRG PT athletes on the start line (unfortunately a disappearing passport cost Gord Henderson his chance to be on the start line, so we were down to 8 athletes from 9). Our Hawaii veteran, Jody Sanderson had a solid day going 9:57; next home was Walt Spoja, in his first race in Hawaii, in 10:17. Next up was Augy Marmelo, back to Kona after last qualifying over 10 years ago, in 10:37 and just behind Augy was Associate Coach Fiona Whitby, finishing in 10:44, and 10th in her age group. Darlene Hall was next in 11:12, which was a fantastic result as Darlene had suffered a concussion 5 weeks out from the race and had been unable to do any training except for some light works just prior to the race. Tom Hall (no relation to Darlene) was doing the IMC, Hawaii double and came back with a very good 12:02 in Hawaii. Joe Dixon, IMC race director, followed his plan all the way to his first IM Hawaii finish, unfortunately Odile Liboiron-Ladouceur who had qualified for Kona in her first Ironman in IMC was taken into the medical tent in the energy lab on the run.
Congratulations to all of our Hawaii athletes this year!
Ironman Florida took place this past Saturday in Panama City, but it could have been confused with somewhere a lot farther north as the temperature in the morning was single digits and there was a wind chill factor it was blowing so hard!! This made for a bumpy swim, a cool bike but it was quite nice by the time the run rolled around. We had 4 NRG PT athletes racing with Associate Coach Sylvie Dansereau leading the way. In her first race as a Pro, after a tough year battling some injuries Sylvie set a new PB (9:58) on her way to 8th overall. Our next 2 NRG PT athletes finished within 1minute of each other, JD Moorehead went 11:17 to take 2.5hours off his previous best Ironman (which was in Coeur D’Alene in June) and Deirdre Casey came in in 11:18 to finish 4th in her age group. Our first time Ironman competitor, Rob Wright, had a great day, one year ago Rob did his first half Ironman in 7:12 on Saturday he finished his first Ironman in 13:37! Congratulations!