Wow! What a couple of weeks it has been. Sport and in particular endurance sport has been happening with some spectacular results !!
Last weekend we had Marino Vanhoenaker break the Ironman World record at Austria with a stunning 7:45:58. Yes, 7:45. We all thought, wow, that is going to be around for a while and then just 7 days later, Andreas Raelert goes sub 7:45 with an incredible 7:41:33 at Roth. Crazy crazy. To put this in perspective, his split times were 46:18 for the swim, 4:11 for the bike and then the marathon in 2:40:52.
Also at Roth, golden girl Chrissie Wellington once again confirmed complete and utter dominance in Ironman Triathlon. I strongly believe that 'Muppet' is one of the greatest endurance athletes ever and she is still young in her Triathlon career. She turned up at Roth, nailed the swim, nailed the bike and absolutely obliterated the run to get another win from the front and set another Ironman World record with 8:18:13. Her previous record was 8:19:13 on the same course. She actually finished 5th overall with some seriously good male Pros behind her. 'Macca' affectionately tweeted post race asking her to 'stop running so quick'. Her splits for the race are as follows: Swim 49:49, Bike 4:40:39 and the marathon in a quite incredible 2:44:35.
World records on the Ironman circuit also ran parallel with some stunning racing on the Ultra circuit. Last weekend we had Western States 100 and this weekend we had the ridiculously tough Hardrock 100. One notable name from both races was Nick Clark who within 14 days got 3rd place in both races. Incredible. How you can recover from a 100 and then run a super tough 100 so shortly afterwards and do well in both is beyond me.
The Western States race was won by Kilian Jornet. He rectified the mistakes from last year and fulfilled his promise and potential to win the 2011 edition.
The women's race turned into a close run thing and after a tough start, Ellie Greenwood worked her way up through the field, fight of a bear and take the race win. This is a super achievement for the UK born runner in her first venture into the 100 distance.
At Hardrock 100 the runners had to battle one of the toughest 100 routes out there! The course profile is like 'Jaws' dental profile.
With over 33,000 ft of gain and 33,000ft of loss and some 60,000+ of altitude change this course is just a monster. The highest point on the race is just over 14,000ft so altitude plays a major part of this race. Add to this navigation and you have a race of epic proportion. So tough is the course that the winning time difference between Western States and Hardrock is some 10 hours!! The race was won by Salomon sponsored runner Julian Chorier. Julian is a previous winner of the Grand Raid de la Reunion and so therefore I guess he was a hot tip for the race win. He is renowned for his preparation. His winning time was 25:17:21 and in second place was Dakota Jones some 2 hours back with 27:10:00.
The woman's race was won by Diana Finkel in 29:27:39, her 4th straight Hardrock title. A great run as this also placed her 5th overall.
So what's happening at runwildrunfree? Well post Comrades I had some downtime and a holiday. On returning home it was all about catching up with work and commitments. I slowly got myself back into training and I ran a flat 50k on a ridiculously hot UK day. Of course, the weather came from nowhere and runners dropped like flies. It was carnage. I actually cut my race short as I caught Niandi for the second time (short loop course) to find her wobbling in the road pouring water over her head. As I approached I asked if she was okay but I already new the answer. We ran together and then at the finish line we bailed. Never like pulling out of a race but it was definitely the correct think to do. It was only a couple of hours later after we showered that we realised how much sun we had got; red, White and brown zebras spring to mind.
My main priority now is getting some good training miles in and trying to get Hoka One One shoes selling from runwildrunfree.co.uk
As you know, I have been completely blown away by the Hoka range. The Bondi B is now my everyday shoe for road or light trail. If the trails get tough I then use the Mafate. What I am currently quite exited about is the Combo XT.
The Combo XT is a combination of the road Bondi B and the trail Mafate. I currently have a pair on it's way to me, so watch this space for a review. Exciting times.
Keep running!
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