Race Conditions

Conditions on race day in Regensburg were similar to Frankfurt – cold, with some rain. Compared to last year (when it was quite hot), the times were a little bit faster (adjustment of 11:27 this year vs. 6:31 last year), resulting in a new course rating of 8:59.

Male Results

Race favorite Andreas Raelert injured his foot a few days before the race, so he just raced to validate his Kona slot. This allowed Markus Fachbach to win his first IM in front of a number of veteran athletes:

Rank	Name	Nation	Actual Time	Expected Time
1	Markus Fachbach	GER	08:29:16	08:36:58
2	Stefan Riesen	SWI	08:36:54	08:36:47
3	Frank Vytrisal	GER	08:37:12	08:47:17
4	Horst Reichel	GER	08:42:07	09:30:45
5	Lothar Leder	GER	08:45:30	08:52:48
6	Rene Vallant	AUT	08:56:50	09:22:59
7	Christian Brader	GER	09:06:09	08:48:43
8	Mario De Elias	ARG	09:06:20	n/a
9	Daniel Mueller	GER	09:07:39	09:31:02
10	Matjaz Kovac	SVN	09:09:08	09:39:46
11	Heinrich Sickl	AUT	09:25:50	09:33:57
12	Brian Hadley	USA	09:45:23	08:57:10
13	Andreas Raelert	GER	10:21:05	08:03:57

Female Results

On the female side, the favorite Mary Beth Ellis won convincingly:

Rank	Name	Nation	Actual Time	Expected Time
1	Mary Beth Ellis	USA	09:18:55	08:55:04
2	Annett Kamenz	CAN	09:28:23	10:07:12
3	Nicole Leder	GER	09:30:27	09:36:03
4	Heidi Jesberger	GER	09:32:42	10:01:08
5	Katja Rabe	GER	09:44:45	09:51:30
6	Ute Streiter	GER	10:20:34	10:17:25
7	Ariane Monticeli	BRA	11:03:14	09:48:17
8	Olja Bregar	SLO	13:46:56	10:21:04

She couldn’t quite match her blazing fast time from Austria four weeks ago, but is the newest member of the women’s TOP 10 in fourth place.

Race Conditions

IM UK has gone through quite a few course changes and we’ve seen some pretty wild swings in the race adjustments. This year was no different, the race was still in the same location as last year but apparently the course was made a little bit easier. The race adjustment was 10:23 bringing the course rating to 1:30.

Male Results

Some of the pre-race favorites did not show up, so Aaron Farlow managed to win this race:

Rank	Name	Nation	Actual Time	Expected Time
1	Aaron Farlow	GBR	08:24:34	08:35:51
2	Romain Guillaume	FRA	08:41:25	09:07:14
3	Nick Saunders	GBR	08:51:31	08:47:05
4	Domenico Passuello	ITA	08:51:52	08:58:06
5	Oliver Simon		08:54:28	n/a
6	Gregorio Morales	ESP	09:01:44	08:58:48
7	Paul Hawkins	GBR	09:03:41	09:31:53
8	Toby Radcliffe	GBR	09:04:24	09:13:46
9	Juha Laitinen	FIN	09:39:00	09:49:54

Female Results

Defending champion Yvette Grice had a pretty good race but was beat by two up-and-coming German athletes:

Rank	Name	Nation	Actual Time	Expected Time
1	Kristin Moeller	GER	09:19:04	09:31:58
2	Diana Riesler	GER	09:25:41	09:29:01
3	Yvette Grice	GBR	09:37:32	10:14:31
4	Joanna Carritt	GBR	09:59:21	10:21:17
5	Nicole Klingler	GER	10:09:58	09:44:07
6	Monika Stadlmann	AUT	10:37:06	10:15:07
7	Conny Dauben	GER	10:41:39	10:39:22

Race Conditions

Lake Placid is one of the slower courses with a course rating of –1:35. This year had relatively good conditions (relatively cool and low winds) with an adjustment of 0:22.

Male Results

The good conditions helped TJ Tollakson win his first IM in almost course record times:

Rank	Name	Nation	Actual Time	Expected Time
1	TJ Tollakson	USA	08:25:15	08:54:28
2	Ben Hoffman	USA	08:33:29	08:53:05
3	Jason Shortis	AUS	08:47:18	08:50:07
4	Eduardo Sturla	ARG	09:04:16	08:39:21
5	Daniel Bretscher	USA	09:07:05	n/a
6	Ian Mikelson	USA	09:12:42	09:11:16
7	Mike Neill	CAN	09:13:03	08:57:05
8	Tim Snow	USA	09:16:01	09:29:20
9	Matthew Russell	USA	09:26:26	09:21:39
10	John Hirsch	USA	09:45:50	09:44:56
11	Tyler Lord	CAN	10:09:48	10:38:32
12	Sergio Quezada	MEX	10:29:11	10:25:32
13	Ryan Kelly	USA	10:30:39	n/a
14	Holden Cameau	USA	10:33:27	n/a
15	Ryan Cain	CAN	10:50:16	n/a

Ben Hoffman improved on his last year’s result and held on for second, while Jason Shortis had the fastest marathon to capture the third spot.

Female Results

Heather Wurtele won her second IM this year, and leading from start to finish she actually managed to set a new course record:

Rank	Name	Nation	Actual Time	Expected Time
1	Heather Wurtele	CAN	09:19:03	09:34:26
2	Tine Deckers	BEL	09:34:41	09:39:44
3	Tyler Stewart	USA	09:38:09	09:39:50
4	Jackie Arendt	USA	09:56:21	10:08:16
5	Jacqui Gordon	USA	10:07:22	10:10:36
6	Suzanne Zelazo	CAN	10:21:08	11:18:11
7	Amber Ferreira	USA	10:30:39	11:37:57
8	Miranda Alldritt	CAN	10:46:46	10:51:00
9	Marie Danais	CAN	10:48:26	10:24:03

Heather Wurtele is steadily improving, she is now rated as #12 and it’ll be interesting to see how she is going to do in Hawaii (if she is going to race there).

Race Conditions

The conditions on race day were pretty bad. A lot of athletes struggled with the rainy, wet conditions. Still, some of the results were pretty good, and I guess people don’t really blow up in colder conditions. The adjustment of 12:58 was pretty much in line with the course rating.

Male Results

Faris Al-Sultan ran away this year and further solidified his spot in the TOP 10 ratings:

Rank	Name	Nation	Actual Time	Expected Time
1	Faris Al-Sultan	GER	08:13:50	08:15:50
2	Jan Raphael	GER	08:19:31	08:27:28
3	Michael Goehner	GER	08:20:26	08:22:21
4	George Potrebitsch	GER	08:22:29	n/a
5	Stephan Vuckovic	GER	08:26:03	08:36:00
6	Luke McKenzie	AUS	08:26:51	08:37:33
7	Cameron Brown	NZL	08:31:47	08:19:31
8	Bert Jammaer	BEL	08:32:26	08:50:11
9	Patrick Vernay	NCL	08:32:59	08:22:53
10	Teemu Lemmettyla	FIN	08:36:36	09:20:28
11	Simon Billeau	FRA	08:43:58	08:49:59
12	Uwe Widmann	GER	08:46:33	08:29:53
13	Dirk Wijnalda	NLD	08:49:15	09:08:40
14	Per Bittner	GER	08:53:44	n/a
15	Mike Schifferle	SWI	08:54:20	09:01:34
16	Sergio Marques	PRT	08:57:53	08:51:49
17	Michael Wetzel	GER	08:58:40	n/a
18	Frank Vytrisal	GER	09:01:04	08:42:43
19	Andres Castillo latorre	COL	09:05:06	09:12:21
20	Andrey Lyatskiy	RUS	09:07:09	n/a
21	Erich Felbabel	FRA	09:19:08	09:33:29
22	Marc-Andre Hages	GER	09:22:20	n/a
23	Rene Goehler	DEU	09:30:26	08:54:03
24	Matjaz Kovac	SVN	09:34:50	09:38:41
25	Ivan Tejero Vazquez	ESP	09:49:31	10:15:53
26	Hirotsugu Kuwabara	JAP	10:07:34	09:49:57
27	Marek Nemcik	SVK	12:23:10	11:57:49

The German podium made the locals happy. Cam Brown and Patrick Vernay couldn’t quite live up to their ratings – at least for Cam I hope that he is really preparing for IM Hawaii this year.

Female Results

On the female side, Caroline Steffen also seemed to run away with race, but she really struggled on the run – so the top 4 women were each just a minute apart:

Rank	Name	Nation	Actual Time	Expected Time
1	Caroline Steffen	SWI	09:12:13	09:22:54
2	Lucie Zelenkova	ZAF	09:13:46	09:26:51
3	Sonja Tajsich	GER	09:14:14	09:18:27
4	Yvonne Van Vlerken	AUT	09:15:37	09:06:59
5	Samantha Warriner	NZL	09:18:04	09:18:33
6	Meike Krebs	GER	09:22:43	09:41:49
7	Silvia Felt	GER	09:26:21	09:24:29
8	Susan Dietrich	GER	09:28:08	09:38:23
9	Heleen Bij De Vaate	NLD	09:32:51	09:25:41
10	Virginia Berasategui	ESP	09:37:00	09:27:49
11	Uli Bromme	USA	09:44:10	09:45:27
12	Fernanda Keller	BRA	11:07:02	10:08:14
13	Simone Benz	SWI	11:08:53	09:52:27
14	Saki Kubota	JAP	11:17:03	n/a

This resulted in a few shifts in the TOP 10: Yvonne lost a place (but is still #5), Sonja Tajsich is now #8, Sam Warriner is #11, Caroline Steffen is #18 and Lucie Zelenkova is #20. All this just goes to show what a big race IM Germany was on the women’s race!

As per usual, you can find additional information on the participants in the detail post.

Previous Results

The UK race has seen some changes in recent years, both in the venue and also in the layout of the course. So I’ve seen wild swings in the adjustments, they average out at the current course rating of 0:04.

Last year’s race was won by Fraser Cartmell in 8:40 and Yvette Grice in 10:01. The Baylisses (Stephen and Bella) scored two second places, each back by just a few minutes.

Male Participants

Stephen Bayliss is back his year and I see him as the favorite for the race:

Rank	Name	Nation	Expected Time	Rating	Rank
1	Stephen Bayliss	GBR	08:42:14	08:49:38	70
2	Nick Saunders	GBR	08:49:57	08:57:28	107
3	Philip Graves	GBR	08:51:29	08:59:01	112
4	Domenico Passuello	ITA	09:01:02	09:08:42	158
5	Gregorio Morales	ESP	09:01:42	09:09:23	163
6	Romain Guillaume	FRA	09:10:11	09:17:59	226
7	Toby Radcliffe	GBR	09:16:51	09:24:44	278
8	Chris Brands	NLD	09:17:45	09:25:39	287
9	Paul Hawkins	GBR	09:35:02	09:43:11	397

The field is not too big, and it looks that the relevance for the race is limited to British athletes.

Female Participants

Yvette Grice is back to defend her title, but Tine Deckers appears to be the clear favorite:

Rank	Name	Nation	Expected Time	Rating	Rank
1	Tine Deckers	BEL	09:32:03	09:40:09	29
2	Yvette Grice	GBR	10:17:51	10:26:36	164
3	Monika Stadlmann	AUT	10:18:35	10:27:21	170
4	Joanna Carritt	GBR	10:24:38	10:33:29	183
5	Conny Dauben	GER	10:42:50	10:51:57	219

Bella Bayliss is not back (I think she is pregnant), and it’ll be tricky for a British athlete to win the home race.