November 2011

Race Conditions

IM Florida saw some great times this weekend – for example Ronnie Schildknecht posted the first sub-8 in North America. The race conditions were favoring fast times: The adjustment for this race was 22:04 (the highest I’ve seen in Florida), almost as quick as Roth (2011 adjustment of 23:58).

Male Results

Ronnie Schildknecht finally started in another race than Switzerland and Hawaii and won in a convincing fashion:

Rank	Name	Nation	Actual Time	Expected Time
1	Ronnie Schildknecht	SWI	07:59:42	08:12:55
2	Maxim Kriat	UKR	08:10:43	08:20:14
3	Justin Daerr	USA	08:18:02	08:32:08
4	Mads Vittrup		08:21:31	09:16:15
5	Frank Vytrisal	GER	08:21:48	08:34:32
6	Eduardo Sturla	ARG	08:23:08	08:21:02
7	Christophe Bastie	FRA	08:24:32	08:34:00
8	Scott Defilippis	USA	08:27:13	09:12:02
9	James Bonney	USA	08:29:56	09:18:02
10	Felix Schumann		08:35:08	08:18:57
11	Joel Jameson		08:35:31	08:49:59
12	Fabain Conrad		08:36:09	n/a
13	David Nasvik		08:38:56	08:55 09:47:45
14	Jesse Vondracek	USA	08:45:27	09:14:34
15	John Flanagan	USA	08:49:47	09:31:53
16	Devon Palmer	USA	08:55:37	08:54:42
17	Brad Seng	USA	09:05:29	08:54:51
18	Tim Snow	USA	09:06:51	09:05:40
19	Markus Lichtenegger		09:07:53	09:23:13
20	Wolfgang Guembel	CAN	09:08:17	08:47:47
21	Raymond Botelho	USA	09:20:01	09:34:26
22	Christian Carletto		09:29:48	09:27:44
23	Craig Evans		10:06:55	11:22:17
24	Bojan Maric	SCG	10:08:43	09:42:55

Female Results

Jessica Jacobs managed to defend her title and also finish sub-9:

Rank	Name	Nation	Actual Time	Expected Time
1	Jessica Jacobs	USA	08:55:10	09:29:47
2	Mackenzie Madison	USA	09:10:21	09:16:54
3	Sofie Goos	BEL	09:22:21	09:20:04
4	Kim Loeffler	USA	09:29:07	09:22:39
5	Stephanie Jones	USA	09:33:45	10:16:23
6	Bree Wee	USA	09:34:41	09:33:33
7	Heidi Jesberger	GER	09:37:08	09:42:43
8	Eimear Mullan		09:41:58	n/a
9	Kristin White		10:05:16	n/a
10	Caroline Smith		10:40:41	10:40:25

Now that IM Hawaii is over, there are only a few races left in the 2011 season. They already count towards Kona 2012, so there are a few athletes that try to ride their Kona fitness and get into a good position to qualify. As I did for Kona, I will focus on the race favorites and their chances of winning the race.

The Race

IM Florida is one of the faster courses on the calendar – by all descriptions I heard a very flat course that requires you to push all the time and offers very little variety. It has a course rating of 12:57, so some fast times can be expected. Last year’s race was won by James Cunnama in 8:15 and Jessica Jacobs in 9:07.

On the KPR side, Florida is on the lowest level of races – just 1.000 points for the winner and 25.000 US $ total price purse (paying 6 deep). Therefore, it is probably not the best race in order to get points to qualify for Kona.

Male Participants

Here are the favorites on the men’s side and their chance for winning the race:

• Dirk Bockel: 47%
• Eduardo Sturla: 29%
• Christian Brader: 11%
• Justin Daerr: 6%
• Sebastian Pedraza: 2%
• Wolfgang Guembel: 2%
• James Bonney: 2%

There are quite a lot of athletes with a rating pretty close to 9 hours, so even if the race for the win may not be too exciting (assuming Dirk has recovered from his 4th place race in Kona), the fight for KPR points and the price money looks quite close. Dirk Bockel probably just looks to tick off the requirement of having raced an Ironman outside of Kona, his forth spot has already given him 4.450 points and that should be enough for a TOP 50 spot in the final KPR rankings.

Female Participants

The race promises to be a bit more exciting on the women’s side. Last year’s winner Jessica Jacobs returns to defend her title, but faces some competition by veteran racer Nina Kraft:

• Jessica Jacobs: 37%
• Nina Kraft: 36%
• Mackenzie Madison: 18%
• Bree Wee: 7%

There are seven pro women on the start list, so finishing the race almost guarantees a payday – even if 500$ for 6th place hardly covers the cost of flying out to Florida.