Pete Jacobs on Kona 2011 – Who are the ones to beat and how he will do it.

Hey Trizone,

I’m here to give you an inside point of view, and my thoughts as to how the race might unfold and who the main players will be.

Firstly, in Hawaii you have to take history into serious consideration. What has happened before, and who has or hasn’t performed before, narrows down a few possibilities. So the main guys are top ten place getters from last year with the exception of Macca.

Last years men’s race report and results

And the  most serious of those are two guys who have been consistently in the top three. That narrows it down to Craig Alexander and Andreas Raelert. No surprises there.

My dark horse picks are Eneko Llanos, and Tom Lowe. Eneko is not really a dark horse but his odds are a lot higher because he hasn’t performed highly in Kona for a few years. Good value. And Tom is Chrissie Wellingtons boyfriend, who has been racing more and more triathlons recently with some top 70.3 results this year. Tom has a very good duathlon background spanning a decade and was fourth at Ironman Austria this year when Marino Vanhoenacker went 7:45 to take the IM world record. Tom was a good 26 minutes back but should be a lot quicker now.

I think the race will pan out similar to last year, but with different guys going at different points on the bike, but into T2 will be separated like last year into 4 different gaps.

Some of the other guys who are racing Kona had pretty average results in Vegas, so that didn’t give much indication of form, but maybe a lack of.

I may swim hard with Andy Potts, try and maintain that lead from Craig for the bike, and run harder than last year (I didn’t say faster, just harder).

I won’t be giving any thought on race day as to who’s where. I’m racing against myself, and will be going hard all day and not waiting for anyone else to make the first move.

On the female side, Chrissie is like Black Caviar. Unbeatable (Black Caviar is a famous Australian race horse). But I think it will be a great race, with lots more girls getting off the bike near each other and closer to Chrissie than previous years. Again, all the top ten from last year will be the ones up there pushing the bike.

Last years women’s race report and results

I’m sitting here in Kona writing this, watching the first people of the day swimming the course right out the front of the self contained (kitchen) apartment we have this year (Jaimie, mum & dad). It’s looking like an amazing day, and when I see the dolphins swim past, I’ll jump in and have a swim too. Last big ride the other day, then last big run done, and cruise for the rest of the week. Feeling good, and looking forward to the week ahead.

Cheers

PJ