Ironmanlife: Happy Thanksgiving!

Kevin Mackinnon reports on a Christmas wish and more news on Ironman WA

This week, Ironmanlife is coming one day early since it is that oh-so-important day in the United States, Thanksgiving, a weekend that is a wonderful time of family celbration and a chance to give thanks. It is not, however, a great weekend to be a turkey.

The average American eats more than 13 pounds of turkey a year. It is thought that much of that gets eaten around this weekend. More than 250 million turkeys are raised in the United States every year, with millions more imported from north of the border here in Canada, too. One of the most popular side dishes to go along with turkey is sweet potato. The US produces more than 2.6 billion pounds of sweet potato every year – I hazard a guess a lot of that gets devoured over the Thanksgiving weekend, too. I mention this because sweet potato would be an excellent dish for all of us triathletes to heap on our plates – lots of carbohydrates, right?

Thanksgiving is predominantly celebrated in North America, which is why any readers from the rest of the world are trying to figure out what on earth all the fuss about turkey's is. Turkey is, of course, the traditional meal at Thanksgiving, which is also a time when families gather together to watch the Cowboy's game, have a ginormous family dinner and try to consume as much of their 13-plus pound turkey alotment as possible. (I know some of you aren't Dallas Cowboy fans, which, in my mind, is just wrong, but I digress.) (Sorry, one further digression: Dallas just scored.)

And, since it's much more important that I get to that game, I will keep this column short today and simply try to supply some info about the world of Ironman. For those celebrating, have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!

What do you want for Christmas?
Todd Holubitsky had this to say after he saw the first of my Christmas Toy stories for this year:

What do I want for Christmas?
More Ironman races for North America please!!!!

I will certainly pass the message on to Santa Ironman!

Big money for a record in Western Australia
This from the folks at next week's race down under:

For a select few professional athletes racing the fifth annual Ironman Western Australia, to be held in Busselton on Sunday 7 December, there’s an extra incentive to race that little bit faster…the first male or female to break their respective Ironman Triathlon world record times will collect themselves an AUD$50,000 bonus!  This is in addition to the US$50,000 total prize pool already on offer next weekend.

The men’s professional field has 25 confirmed starters, who will be chasing the world record time of 7:50:27 set by Luc van Lierde at Ironman Europe in 1997. One of the contenders is current course record holder Jason Shortis, who had the race of his life in 2006 to win in a scorching time of 8:03:56.

Shortis’ competition this year includes defending champion and winner of Ironman Australia 2008, Patrick Vernay; Ironman Japan 2008 winner, Luke McKenzie; Argentinian star Oscar Galindez, who comes in to the event with outstanding form having placed fourth at the Ironman 70.3 World Championships earlier this month; and arguably the “dark horse” of the field, former World Duathlon Champion and current Ironman 70.3 Geelong champion Leon Griffin.  has had impeccable form leading in to the race, having easily won the Shepparton Half Ironman Triathlon last weekend to beat Jason Shortis by almost four minutes, however WA will be his first attempt at the Ironman distance.

The women’s long-standing Ironman triathlon world record time was broken at Ironman Austria 2008 by Sandra Wollenhurst ().  Thanks to Sandra’s achievement, the 14 professional women competing at will be chasing a time of 8:47:26.  Current Ironman WA course record holder (9:00:55) and reigning champion Charlotte Paul will need to go almost 14 minutes faster if she’s to take home the cash bonus.

Paul’s main challengers include 2006 winner Lisbeth Kristensen (), last year’s runner up Gina Ferguson (NZ), and ’s own Rebecca Preston – best known for winning two Ironmans within a week in 2006.

You can reach Kevin Mackinnon at kevin@ironman.com

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