St. Croix's Ironman Triathalon

These triathalon folk are friggin' amazing! Judging by their eating habits, all this Herculean effort is apparently fueled by ten pounds of pasta and a whopping masochistic streak...

May 2, 2004 – German athletes took the top spots, male and female, in Sunday's St. Croix Half Ironman triathlon. In his first Ironman competition, Faris Al Sutan bested all contenders with an overall time of four hours, eight minutes and 40 seconds. This was 27 seconds slower than last year's winner, Craig Alexander of Austria. Alexander came in second this year with a time 4:14:00.Fellow Austrian Ritchie Cunningham(heh...) followed him with a time of 4:14:44. Cunningham, who also came in third place in the 2003 St. Croix Ironman, clocked an overall time of 4:09:33 in 2003, losing a precious five minutes and ten seconds in this year's competition. All athletes carried a tracking chip strapped to their leg. The chip calculated the athlete's time for each segment of the race. Al Sutan completed the swim in 26:19, the bike in 2:21:47 and the run in 1:20:35. Nina Kraft, also of Germany, took first place in the women's professional category with a time of 4:37:01. This was 30 seconds faster than the top female last year.Coming in right on the heels of Kraft, with an overall time of 4:38:54, was second place finisher, Liz Blatchford, of Austria. Rounding out the top three of the women's professionals was Heather Fuhr, with a time of 4:50:08. Last year's winner, Sue Bartholomew Williams did not compete.Both Al Sutan and Kraft will receive a prize purse of $50,000. The 16th annual St. Croix Half Ironman began at 6:30 a.m. with a 1.24-mile (2 km) swim, followed by a 56-mile (90 km) bike race and a 13.1-mile (21 km) run. A separate sprint course was run simultaneously and began at 7:30 am. The trianthlon is an official qualifier for the Ironman Triathlon World Championship in Hawaii, the Ironman Lake Placid, and the Ironman Canada. In the winner's circle, Al Sutan praised the quality of the race and joked about the obstacles he encountered. "It was a great race, a challenging course," he said. "I almost ran over a dog in the bike. I am very, very happy and tired."

Arrrrg! The agony in de-feet.I get tired even thinking about it...I remember the first year seeing the eventual winner (Mike Pigg) blaze through a section of the bike route at over 50mph - after having already biked more miles than my car at the time would likely have survived.Thankfully, John Kerry wasn't in this particular race.
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