YESSSSS!!!!!!

ok, i'm a little delayed in expressing my rejoice, but i've been working like a dog. i was coaching saturday, 23 miles for my runners, so i didn't even get to watch the webcast of kona. it drove me crazy!!! so how nuts was kona?? faris doesn't even suit up he's so sick. normann doesn't let on how sick he is and tries to power through. natascha "bad ass" badmann crashes and still sets out on a replacement bike with a mangled shoulder and broken rib only to drop out after her coach/husband begged her to stop. michellie's out with a shattered eardrum, and not one former women's world champ in the marathon at all. man, oh man, i can't wait for the nbc coverage!!!



my man MACCA did it!!! oh sweet justice!!! and i think it woulda turned out the same had normann not had the squirts and stayed in the race. IT WAS HIS TIME, HIS TURN, HIS DESTINY!!! the germans, they're fierce competitors as long as everything is smooth and they're in the lead, but as soon as something goes south, they completely unravel. all that said, he was puking his guts out on the lava fields, he had no choice but to drop out. better luck next time, normy....ok, but back to the pic up above. what's up with the sponge boobs?? you'd think if you were about to become the world champ at kona, maybe you should drop the sponges before you meet up with the photogs and cross that line. great, now my beloved MACCA will forever be known for having man boobs.....



and michellie, oh poor michellie, now if she had stayed in, i'm certain things woulda been different. but a shattered eardrum had her pulling out at mile 90 on the bike. she gave it more than a good go. she'll get 'em next year. could you imagine all that training, all that sacrifice, elites and age groupers alike, and you get kicked in a group swim and shatter your eardrum just before kona??? awe hell no!!! i'd hate to be the person who kicked her. i'd be digging a deep hole for myself right about now if i were them. and then everyone says, "she'll be back next year." a whole other year to fixate on your day and your training and worry about everything that could injure you before you get there. oh, the pressure!!!



now i'm not trying to be a hater here, but when i saw this picture of the new women's champ, chrissie wellington, i thought "chrissie who?" then i thought my eyes were deceiving me and sister madonna buder had finished during daylight hours. really, doesn't she look like sister madonna?? so chrissie wellington, in her kona debut, only 7 weeks after racing her first ironman at im korea and winning it, takes the title of prom queen. don't you just hate that?? could she have held off michellie, natascha??? we'll never know. after all, she won im korea in 122 degree heat, so she was primed for the conditions in kona. for now, she's the most unknown world champ and deserves all the accolades and admiration from all of us. i still think she looks like sister madonna.....


best finisher photo. #34, michael goehner of germany
now when the germans are having a good race, they also have a good finish. atta boy, michael!! drink up!!! you deserve a big huge stein of beer today!!! seriously, i think he just raced so he could do this at the end. maybe i should rename my blog "I JUST WANT A BIG STEIN OF BEER AT THE END OF MY IRONMAN." cuz i'll for sure be looking for that beer after the finish line. ok, maybe just a relatively clean, dry, and flat place to collapse...


scott rigsby carries the american flag for team usa in the parade of nations at the itu world championships in lausanne, switzerland


scott runs a pr on the run portion of itu world's. check out his fierce prosthetics!!!

and finally, i want to give A HUGE SHOUT OUT to scott rigsby. i first met scott last year when we both competed for team usa at the itu world championships. what i mostly remember about scott was his infectious southern charm and he would always yell out to any fellow team usa member wherever we were, in the hotel, at breakfast, out on the roads, "yeah sister!!! yeah brother!!" you could just feel his excitement for life and his excitement to show the world what he could do. in june he attempted to become the first double amputee to complete an ironman at im coeur d'alene. while this has been done by other double amputees, they have competed while performing the marathon in a race style wheelchair or hand cycle. scott wanted to become the first double amputee to complete the race while riding a standard bike and running on prosthetics. sadly, his dreams were cut short when he did not make the bike cut off at im cda. but did you think that would stop him?? oh no!!! he simply decided he'd try again, but at the world championships instead!!!! that's right, scott completed the challenge and became the first double amputee to run across the finish line, at kona no less, in 16:42:46. another one for "the next time you catch yourself complaining" chronicles. cuz scott doesn't complain, he trains and he races, and he sees this as a gift and a purpose he's been given.

kona photos courtesy of ironman.com and asiphoto.com.