Iron Maiden live @ Marquee 1980

This video is dedicated to all Badwater competitors starting their 135-mile race soon.

Why? Because there's nothing hotter on earth than Death Valley in July, except fully packed Marquee Club in July, with Iron Maiden performing there. I attended one of the shows, and it was so hot I had to pour a pint of ice-cold lager on my head!

My Iron Maiden song list suggestion:

• Running Free
• Run To The Hills
• Flight of Icarus
• Die With Your Boots On
• The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner
• Can I Play with Madness
• Be Quick Or Be Dead
• Man On The Edge
• Different World
• These Colours Don't Run
• Brighter Than A Thousand Suns
• The Longest Day

Chrissie Wellington sets Ironman world record 8:31:59

Chrissie Wellington smashed women's Ironman triathlon world record in Challenge Roth today with 8:31:59. British 'iron maiden' swam 3.8K in 50:28, ran through T1 in 2:10, biked 180K in 4:40:28, went through T2 in 1:23, and finished with a 2:57:32 marathon.

Ironman women's world record has improved considerably in a year or so. During the past 15 years, it remained unbroken until last summer:

• Paula Newby-Fraser, 8:50:24, Ironman Europe (Roth), 1994
• Sandra Wallenhorst, 8:47:26, Ironman Austria, 2008
• Yvonne Van Vlerken, 8:45:48, Challenge Roth, 2008
• Chrissie Wellington, 8:31:59, Challenge Roth, 2009.

Without a doubt Roth provides one of the fastest Ironman courses, with the swim in a pool-like canal, the bike through nice country roads and the run on excellent dirt paths. Also the enthusiastic audience and professional race organization play a big part in the success of the event. I've done it three times, and really enjoyed myself. Now that the main sponsor Quelle is in trouble, let's hope the event will be able to continue in the future.

Congrats Chrissie!

Lance: world's greatest book?

John Wilcockson knows the sport of cycling, for example he has reported the Tour 40 times. You can read his stories from the ongoing Tour at http://www.velonews.com/john-wilcockson.

Quite conveniently John's new book is out too - modestly named Lance - The Making of The World's Greatest Champion (US) or Lance Armstrong - The World's Greatest Champion (UK).

Like Lance, the book rarely disappoints. On almost every one of the 370 pages I discovered some interesting things I've never heard before. The book also comes with 16 additional pages of rare photos.

Lance has recently regretted that in this book he states last year's Tour was a joke. That's understandable now, when he is on the road riding with those guys. However I think he had a point, as I didn't follow Tours without Lance at all. Not because all the other cyclists are a joke, but because they are nowhere near as inspiring or interesting as Lance.

Highly recommended for all endurance athletes. A must read for Lance fans. In fact, almost anyone should be able to enjoy and possibly benefit from reading this. Go get it!

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/cycling/2009-06-30-wilcockson-q-and-a_N.htm

Astana rules the Tour but no yellow

After Stage 4 TTT Astana has 5 guys in top seven, all within 51 seconds from the leader Fabian Cancellara. Lance Armstrong missed the yellow jersey only by 0.2 seconds.

[Edit: the reason that caused Lance to fail grabbing the lead position has ben identified. They were afraid it might be a virus, but it turned out to be something way more serious than that:

Ben on Lance's TT Bike Before Stage 4 -- powered by http://www.livestrong.com

Ben Stiller.]

They still have a long way to ride. This is going to get interesting.

Finland's IronMinister in Frankfurt

Finland's Minister for Foreign Affairs Alexander Stubb is now an IronMinister. He finished Ironman Frankfurt with the very respectable time of 10:35:45 on Sunday. Especially considering that he blogged about injuring his back a week before the race, when moving a heavy box. Fortunately a fysiotherapist was able to fix it. Congratulations!

Tiina Boman was the best Finn on Sunday, finishing 5th in pro women with 9:34:23. That's not bad, but not quite fast enough to reach her goal of placing in top 3.

Timo Bracht of Germany was the overall winner with a new amazing course record 7:59:16.

Jono smashes Zermatt Marathon course record

Architect, 5-time world mountain running champion and 7-time winner of the world mountain running grand prix series Jonathan "Jono" Wyatt of New Zealand won the 8th Zermatt Marathon in Switzerland on Saturday with a new course record 2:57:47. He was the first to break 3 hours in Zermatt.

As usual, Jono has been in excellent form this year, for example winning the LGT Alpin and Graubünden marathons in June.

Although known as a mountain race specialist, the Kiwi has never been slow on flat land either: he boasts a 2:13:00 PR for a road marathon, 1:02:37 for a half marathon, 27:56 for 10,000 and 13:27 for 5,000 meters.

The second place finisher, Anssi Raittila of Finland, lost 18 minutes. The full results are here.

My photos are from last year's race. It took me 6:01 then - my slowest marathon ever. The course is steep - and then even steeper near finish - uphill, and the weather is always sunny and hot. The famous mountain peak shown is Matterhorn, but the race doesn't climb anywhere near there - and I'm cool with that decision.

Preparing for Swiss Alpine K78 à la Dave Scott

Swiss Alpine K78 is only three weeks away. This is about my preparation for the race, including training, tapering, and tactics. (The photos are from last year's race.)

I've once again re-read my worn out copy of Dave Scott's Triathlon Training (1986), especially Chapter 8 about his Racing Secrets. Dave suggests you ask yourself two questions:

• What do you hope to accomplish?
• How do you plan to do it?

My PR is 9:43. My goal is to finish under nine hours. How will I accomplish this?

It's easier to plan if we divide the course into three parts (a bit like a triathlon):

1. Davos (1,538 meters) - Filisur (1,032 m), 30.6 km. Mostly easy roads, some small uphills with lots of downhills and some single trails. You need to start strong and relatively fast when the gun goes off 8AM. Unfortunately the K31 and C42 runners start at the same time, so there are too many runners. You don't want to get left behind the masses when the trail narrows and the long line of runners slows down. How fast you dare to run depends on your fitness and your goal for the race. Even if you just want to finish the race within cutoff times, you should take the first part seriously.
2. Filisur - Kesch (2,632 m), 22.3 km. This is the monster uphill that requires climbing strength. You will begin to feel the effects of high altitude, but don't give up. Keep going as fast as you can and remember to hydrate and fuel properly. The aid stations should provide everything you need, unless you arrive too late, in which case they might have run out of some items. Remember the cutoff points: Filisur 11:50 AM, Bergün 1:00 PM, Chants 2:15 PM, Kesch 3:40 PM.
3. Kesch - Davos, 25.6 km. After Kesch the Panorama trail followed by Scaletta pass can be a bit tricky, so you better watch your every step. Thunderstorms often occur in the afternoon. Don't stop or you might get cold. The stones and gravel might be surprisingly slippery, as I found in 2007, landing my head inches from big rocks. Be extra careful until you reach Dürrboden aid station (64.4 km). Then the rest is relatively easy downhill cruise to the finish in Davos Sports Centre, the same place where you started in the morning.

My training specifically aims to prepare me for each of these three sections:

1. The first section requires speed and good downhill running ability. This can be accomplished with simple track workouts, for example 10 x 400 meters. I've also practiced downhill runs (30-90 sec) with a fast leg turnover, trying to stay focused and relaxed.
2. Living at sea level, there's nothing much I can do to prepare for the high altitude, but it definitely helps running up all sorts of hills you can find in your neighborhood. Even the biggest hill near my home takes me only about 2-3 minutes when running very slowly, but if I repeat it say ten times, it's a pretty good workout. I also often sprint smaller "10-second-hills" as fast as I can. Also climbing stairs helps.
3. The third part of the race requires endurance. I ran a distance beyond a marathon once every week last year. This spring I did a challenging self-supported (meaning dehydrated and hungry most of the time) 99 km trail training run. In May I ran a half-marathon and a marathon race. I often do tempo runs and fartleks of various length.

When it comes to tapering, I'll follow the advice from my old Dave Scott book. Dave says: "I certainly do not recommend the TV Taper. You can train as you normally would up to about four days before the race."

Three weeks prior to race:

• Do not increase your high-intensity training, speed work, or overdistance training.
• Maintain or slightly decrease the actual time you spend training.
• Maintain the intensity.

Five days prior to race (the race is on Saturday):

• Your last hard workout should be on Monday
• Tuesday: very easy day, to recover from Monday's workout.
• Wednesday: same as Tuesday, but add some easy work to slightly elevate your heart rate.
• Thursday: rest day, perhaps some easy walking to relax.
• Friday: easy loosen-up, 15 to 20 minutes, at a very low intensity (around 50 per cent of your maximal effort).

Get organized:

• Plan out your meals.
• List what you need to have with you at the start and during the race.
• List what you need to take care of on race morning.

Race morning:

• Wake up early, allow yourself at least two hours to wake up and warm up before the race.
• Wake up slowly, don't bolt out of bed after your alarm goes off and start doing jumping jacks.
• Take a hot shower to get your blood circulation going, warm up your skin, and accelerate your metabolism.

Pre-race diet:

• Do not overeat on race morning.
• Eat food that is easily digested.
• Do not eat sugar or drink a lot of fruit juice.
• Don't eat anything within an hour of race start.

Pre-race warm-up:

• Try to warm up 20-30 minutes before the race, at a very low intensity.
• Never do any sprints, save all of your energy for the race.
• Do some easy stretches.
• Stay warm after your warm-up, it's better to overdress than to get a chill.
• At the starting line: control your breathing, relax.

Finally, what pace should you run to achieve your goal time? Simply divide it into three.

For example, I aim for under nine hours, so I will try to run each of the three course segments in under three hours.

Let's take Jonas Buud of Sweden. Last year he won with 6:00:26. His splits for the three parts were 2:01:59, 2:03:56 and 1:54:32.

Or Ernesto Sicurelli, who lives in Davos and certainly knows the course well. He won M60 age group with 8:08:44. His splits were 2:37:34, 2:49:58 and 2:41:13.

So a pattern emerges, where you can see that the successful competitors tend run the shorter middle leg a bit slower than the longer first and last legs.

This is just one possible approach. There are certainly more than one way to do it. Whatever you choose to do, good luck!

Marco Olmo movie trailer

Who would think this 60-year-old Olmosaur has won UTMB several times in recent years? He DNF'd WSER this year after 100K though, so maybe he is getting old - or maybe that was only a training run for him.

Check out Olmo's heavy old road shoes with special inserts made by himself - these monsters weigh half a kilo each! Incredible.

I'd like to see this movie.

http://www.unpassodopolaltro.it/

Swiss Wyss RAAM 2009 solo champion

Swiss rider Dani Wyss has won RAAM 2009 with the second quickest time ever: 8 days, 5 hours, 45 mins.

Close to the end of the epic 3000-mile battle across USA, the four-time RAAM champion Jure Robic of Slovenia withdrew from the race, after leading all the way but then losing it at the end of their journey.

Robic had accrued one hour's worth of controversial time penalties, which according to his website made him feel the race officials mistreated him. He received the first time penalty of 15 minutes before the race started because he "had to pee near the starting line". No wonder he was pissed off!

Daniela Genovesi of Brazil won the womens solo race.

There's also a movie about RAAM, Bicycle Dreams, out now.

Free European trail running magazine online

Good news: Free online downloadable PDF European trail running magazine with lots of photos.

Bad news: Only in German, sorry. But don't worry, it's an easy language to learn if you already know English. Just speak like Yoda, and the verb in every sentence last leave.

http://www.trail-magazin.de/