Aging Groupers

Lee Gruenfeld provides his look at some of the exciting age group races to expect in Kona this year

If there's one thing about the 2007 Ironman that's a virtual certainty, it's that there are going to be two great horse races in the pro ranks.

On the distaff side, there's Michellie Jones vs. Natascha Badmann. Interesting duo: One speaks three of the four official Swiss languages, the other an extragalactic version of English known as "Australian." One is about four feet tall and the other could play power forward for the Knicks. They live so far apart that if you drilled straight down into the ground from one of their front yards, you'd eventually end up in the other's kitchen. These two women have nothing in common except that they're probably the two best female Ironman triathletes in the world right now.

Last year Michellie had the race of her life and Natascha had the worst of hers. The Awesome Aussie has been laying low this past season, hiding her light under a bushel, while the Heidi of Hawai'i has been doing to the competition what Godzilla did to Tokyo, only without the scowl. When these two meet on October 13, onlookers are advised to step smartly aside to avoid the detonation waves, and let's hope the finishing chute fences are wide enough apart to accommodate some shoulder-to-shoulder running...and that could very well include Heather Gollnick, who's on a roll of her own this year.

Among the men, there's a triple swirl delight. Defending champ Normann Stadler, who last year was supposed to show that his cycle-centric victory in 2004 was no fluke but instead ended up winning it on the swim and run, is probably going to try to win it in the transitions this year. 2007 runner up Chris McCormack, whose personal bond with Stadler is as strong as Hillary Clinton's with George Bush, only needs to run a minute and fifty three seconds faster to beat Stadler's 2006 winning time, while Faris al-Sultan wants to make sure that the only time he sees either of them is when he turns around at the finish line. The three of them are that evenly matched, and only the timing system is going to be able figure out who won.

Given all of that, what's the one thing that's certain in this year's Ironman World Championships?

That none of the above is going to happen. There isn't going to be a horse race among either the males or females, and if there is, it's going to be among people other than these five.

Why? Because anything can happen in Ironman and usually does. Predicting a winner is about as futile as predicting an earthquake, and we all know how that one turned out. So no prediction is worth anything...including this one.

Does that mean that all the excitement ends halfway through the run?

Of course not. The real fun will just be beginning, because there are some age group battles in the offing that will be every bit as hard fought, grueling and exciting as the pro side is supposed to be. You just have to know where to look, and that's where your humble guide comes to your aid, ably supported by human age group encyclopedia Jerry MacNeil.

*   *   *

Molaski is a triathlon legend and defending champ Rider is fast becoming one. The main difference between the two of them right now is that Molaski tends to stick closer to home and doesn't travel much to races, where Rider's only criterion for picking events is that they're on her home planet. The experience and record she's been racking up make her the clear favorite, but this year's matchup should still be a lulu, and former pro Juliana Nievergelt will be in the field to keep them both honest. Also in this division and sure to be up there somewhere cataloguing the action is Ironman.com's own Gaylia Osterlund, whose secret weapon, aside from her Pepto-Bismol-pink bike and gag-me-with-a-spoon sunny optimism, is a mid-summer, four-day desert training camp in 114-degree heat and high humidity that should make Kona feel like the Iditarod by comparison.

This could be one of the best contests in the amateur field. Moats won last year with a blistering 9:26, breaking the 50-54 record held by, uh, Kevin Moats, who also won Clearwater. The guy has degrees from Yale and Columbia, missed the U.S. Olympic marathon standard by 27 seconds in 1984, and bought a crib in Kona so he could train here three months of the year. The way I figure it, he obviously doesn't take competition very seriously, which is good news for his long-time rival Joe Bonness, who turned in a not too shabby 9:47 for second place here last year and then lopped three minutes off of that to capture the top spot in Wisconsin three weeks ago. (Remember that both these guys are over 50. When I turned fifty I was bragging that I could still tie my own shoes.) Moats vs. Bonness makes the Red Sox vs. the Yankees look like Romeo vs. Juliet, so make sure you keep your eyes on these two guys.

Brader placed second last year with a sub-9 performance. The man who beat him (and set a new course record), fellow Deutschlander Max Longree, is racing as a pro this year so with him out of the way, Brader can concentrate on the Americans nipping at his heels. One of them is Alex Mroszczk-McDonald, a med student from Vermont who was the overall winner at Lake Placid last July, much to the dismay of the race announcers who had to pronounce his name, which belongs on an eye chart, not a driver's license. (Just try to find another eight-letter word with only one vowel. Okay, "strength," but that's it.) The other American threat is Justin Hurd, who was six minutes faster than Mroszczk-McDonald at Kona last year. Hurd took his age group at the Vineman Half in 2005, then came back the following year and won it overall, then did it again this year.

Course record holder Brian Keast won this division handily last year and was due back to defend, but he will be undergoing bypass surgery instead owing to a recently diagnosed coronary condition. Michael Hagen, who is no stranger to either pain or the podium, would have given him quite the challenge. Hagen won 40-44 in Austria five years ago (and took 18^th overall) as one of the oldest men in the division, and he's back in that same unenviable position at the top of the 45-49 gang. After nineteen years as a Ranger in the U.S. military, including a stint as commander of the Army's elite athlete corps, the man knows how to get it done. Two weeks ago he came in second overall at the Harvest Moon Half-Ironman, a month before that he won his age group at the 5430 Long Course in Boulder, a month before that it was a win in Boulder Peak...I figure he's pretty warmed up by now. Coming after him will be a fellow Michael, by the name of Smith, who won his slot at Eagleman. Hagen needs to not get complacent when he beats Smith out of the water, which he will, because he's going to find a very strong biker and runner pushing him all the way to the finish line.

Sophiea, 2006 Master of the Year, won last year by a whopping 25 minutes, and was only 10 minutes behind W45-49 winner Teresa Rider. This is some serious dominance, and no surprise from this perennial powerhouse. Watching her race in Kona is like watching Tiger Woods in a major: It's not him against the field...it's him against the course. Sophiea has the fastest time in the world for a 50+ female and all she has to do to win is stay upright, and even then, not necessarily for the entire race.

You read the 2006 results and it looks like a misprint. Bruce Buchanan, former Amateur/Master/Grandmaster/Everything-else of the year, tears off a 12:05 in Kona...and comes in second to Kostic the Kanadian, who did it in 11:29. (He would have placed fifth in 60-64.) And that was just a few weeks after he won Ironman Canada. Buchanan couldn't make it back this year but Rich Clark could. The wily and talented veteran is acutely aware of what he's up against in Kostic, has been training hard all season and will not go down without trying to kill himself first.

Men 55-59: Rheinhold Humbold vs. Jim Bruskewitz

This is another one of those "shoe-in vs. dark horse" matchups. Rheinhold is out to win his third straight, and already holds the course record at 9:47. Last year he went over ten hours and still won by a ridiculous 45 minutes. Former USA Triathlon and Duathlon national champion Bruskewitz is one of the pioneers of American short course racing and was one of the top Olympic distance racers in the world among men 50-54. He's now stepping up to the longer races and won 50-54 at Ford Ironman Wisconsin last year. If he can transplant all that hard-won racing wisdom to the Kona course, he's going to make Humbold work and it should be a splendid duel indeed.

Mitsumori won in 2005 with a new course record of 10:40, then came back and took it again last year. Wood was the 2006 Grandmaster of the Year. This should be an epic battle.

Men 75-59: Bob Scott vs. France Cokan vs. Lew Hollander

Scott set the 70-74 record here in 2001. It still stands, and two years ago he set the record for 75-79, making him and Donna Kay-Ness the only two current double record holders . Despite a bad race last year (if you can call any sub-cutoff race in this division "bad," but Bob thought it was), he's still the favorite. Cokan won it (he's used to it, having won his age group about 400 times and set course records as well), with Hollander only six minutes behind, so this trusty triad of the tried and true should give us one for the books. They'll be easy to spot in the last stretches, too, because the field will be thinned out by then, which is why watching the older folks can be so exciting. And these three stud muffins going head to head to head are about as exciting as Ironman gets.

This one is going to be fun. Blattman won her division at the Silverman Ironman distance race in 2006 on a damaged bike (and body) just a few days after a car sent her crashing to the pavement. This year she won her division at Ironman Brazil in 9:51 and was ninth female overall, only seven minutes behind pro Hillary Biscay. Ross is the defending age group champ at Kona, having won her debut race. Ross is tough; she ran 4-5 miles a day all through her last two pregnancies, and took her newborn along for a run on the kid's birthday. I mean, the kid's birth day. Prior to her Kona coming-out party last year, she was first overall in the Honolulu Triathlon on May 14 and first female finisher in the Tinman two months later. This year she won her age group at the Hawai'i 70.3

For you late night fans. Buder is Ironman's own canary in the coal mine. You can tell how good or bad the race conditions were by how close she edges to the cutoff. Last year the Flying Nun beat the clock by the kind of margin you usually see in bobsled races, not Ironman. The difference had to be the screaming crowd, which she doubtless heard all the way in from the energy lab. Athletes like this are what makes midnight on Ali'i look like five p.m. at Grand Central Station.

McCambridge won here last year but Gruenfeld is the most gorgeous, strongest, most perfect, fastest, sexiest, most perfect creature ever to grace the lava fields of the Big Island. Did I mention perfect? Will you quit looking over my shoulder while I'm trying to write! Get your hands off the keyboard! Oh God...was that my outside voice?