For not having cable tv (even though it wasn't televised), and the tablet not wanting to display the video feed of the event, I was able to follow most of the event yesterday. Or at least as much as possible with the updates being written down, and with the kids and everything else going on yesterday. I missed the run portion as I went with the family down to the pumpkin patch for an afternoon of pumpkins and fun. I missed some of the bike portion when I took off on my afternoon run too, but when I got back, I hadn't missed much as the updates from the bike portion had slowed down. So how'd I do on guessing the podium finishers? Well, for the men I was 1 for 3, and women I had all 3, just not with Mirinda Carfrae taking 3rd instead of first.
The biggest thing that I was surprised about was where Craig Alexander finished (12th), and that Chris McCormack would completely give up, not even finishing the bike portion. I haven't seen any interviews about what happened to Macca to cause him to completely drop out of the event, but I'm curious to hear what he has to say. I've also not heard Crowie's take on the day, or anyone else's about his performance. I personally believe that Crowie went too hard on the bike from the start, and spent too much energy. He was smoking fast the first section of the bike course, and i was wondering how that was going to pay off for him. Well it didn't. When I got back from my run, he was way behind and could never make up the difference. The biggest surprise was that his run, which is his strength, didn't really help him make up the lost ground from the bike. That's why I think that the strategy on the bike didn't work.
On the women's side, I thought that Carfrae was in a good position being ~11 min behind the leaders coming off the bike. Last year she was 14 min behind the leader and was able to catch up and pass everyone except Chrissie Wellington. Unfortunately for Carfrae, she couldn't pull it off. Lava magazine reports that she was running 7 min miles instead of her normal 6:30+ pace. Ultimately, Carefrae would collapse at the finish line almost 6 full minutes behind Leanda Cave
Leanda Cave winning both the 70.3 world championship in Las Vegas, and the Ironman world championship in Kona only 5 weeks apart.
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