Felt like a walking graveyard at 6:30pm today. So did the unthinkable and sent a student downstairs to fetch me a...gasp...Coke. It kicked, but not much. Was losing consciousness in the bus, and feeling hot and sweaty and chilly at the same time in the bus.
At poolside, I found none other than Pete. He says he's not working, might go to Jeju and take over his father's printing press. Good to see him again. he says, "You're looking firm." A very polite way (that's how I know Pete, a gentleman) of saying, "You're a Porker, dude."
Swim: 0:42:44
Distance: 2km
Weight: 84.85kg
Best 100: 1:20 (best 50: 0:39)
4x250m on 4 minutes, leaving on 4:45.
1st km: 17:55 (Best time in a while)
Felt cold walking to Corneli's, but dinner was good, and laughed a lot with Allalie.
Collected my duvet and was actually good walking home with it, since I was wearing shorts, and it offered some extra warm.
The collage above is of the Hawaiian Ironman. South Africa's Raynard Tissink came 7th in the world, on an exceptionally windless and not too hot day in Kona.
There’s laid back, and then there’s Faris Al-Sultan.
He had just become the Ford Ironman World Champion. When asked by the Ironman media folks if he’d like to head up to one of the hotel rooms in the King Kamehameha and have a shower and get some food before the press conference, he wasn’t interested.
“I’ll just have a shower here on the pier, and head up to Taco Bell,” he said.
Earlier this summer, when he arrived in San Diego to train, the folks meeting the German were shocked to see that he was traveling with his bike packed in … a cardboard box.
After he won both of the Timex Ironman Primes during last Saturday’s race, Paula Newby-Fraser said:
“Good, now maybe he’ll be able to afford a bike box.”
Al-Sultan’s approach to the sport is … well, it’s just not like everyone else’s.
At Ironman Canada in 2003, Al-Sultan raced in the 5K fun run before the race (finishing second), and then finished fourth in the race 44-times as long a few days later.
Dave Scott used to strain his cottage cheese … this is a guy who “doesn’t follow any strict diet.” (Taco Bell, anyone?)
How’s this for a bike regimen …
“On the bike, I train outside. If it rains, then I don't go.”
Lest you think that the easy going approach to life means that he doesn’t train much, think again. During the two training camps he did in the United Arab Emirates earlier this year, Al-Sultan “trained as much as possible,” including: 450 miles of biking every week, along with 40 miles of running, and then 10-15 miles in the pool.
(He likes the United Arab Emirates as a training ground because it doesn’t rain much – consistent biking!)
Inspired by Thomas Hellriegel when he saw “Hell-on-wheels” become the first German to win the Ford Ironman World Championship, Al-Sultan’s first Ironman race came less than a year later at Ironman Lanzarote, the race considered to have the toughest Ironman course.
So I like this guy. I like the strong cyclists, because strong runners who win triathlons make for really biring races.
Oh, regarding the title of this post:
There was a Korean woman sitting on the side of the pool, and her waist seemed to kink in exactly where mine bulges out. Need to get that killer instinct in my training if I want to get my waist from whale to ironboard.
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