A look inside three-time Ironman world champion Craig Alexander’s now famous heat experiments.

This story was originally published in the November/December, 2010, edition of Inside Triathlon magazine, before Alexander placed fourth at the 2010 Ironman world championships. It has been edited for web publication.

Despite Craig “Crowie” Alexander’s second-place finish at the 2007 Ironman World Championship and his back-to-back titles in 2008 and 2009, by his own estimation, he has never been the athlete that the Kona field has specifically gunned for. Perhaps this is because of his unintimidating 5-foot-9-inch frame, his relatively recent emergence to the top of the triathlon heap, or his reluctance to make bold predictions in the media. Whatever the reason, his competitors have never designed their race strategies around him, and some believe this has enabled Alexander’s considerable success at Kona year after year.

But this year is different. Alexander’s back-to-back Kona wins have put a bull’s-eye squarely on him, and as a result he’s more vulnerable than ever. This year, his competitors will attempt to exploit his one perceived weakness: the bike. In fact, strong cyclists such as Chris “Macca” McCormack have made several public pleas to other athletes to attack on the bike—all with the hopes of coming into T2 far enough ahead of Alexander to make his lethal run a nonfactor.

To combat this attack, Alexander has turned to a race preparation strategy made famous by Lance Armstrong: meticulous planning. By fanatically studying Tour de France routes, lactate levels, wind tunnel data and any number of other pieces of information, the seven-time Tour winner proved that an endurance athlete can gain a significant advantage over equally talented competition by measuring the details that the others leave to chance. In this same vein, Alexander is studying how his body reacts to the conditions he will face on the Big Island, which has a reputation for wilting even the world’s fittest athletes with its combination of humidity, wind, sun and heat radiating off congealed lava.

PHOTOS: Exclusive Look At Craig Alexander’s Kona Camp

Photo: Hugh Gentry

While he was in high school, Dustin Brady raced both mountain and road bikes. In 1996 he won the California Junior State Championship on the trails and his division at the Redlands Road Race. After a number of challenging training days, he could just tell that his body wasn’t right. “It’s not good when you get back from a ride and can’t remember the last 10 miles,” he admits. “It’s just not safe.”

He was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and would need to monitor his blood sugar for the rest of his life.
His racing career now on the back burner, Dustin headed off to college at Cal State Fullerton and started working for Shimano. Five and a half years ago, he met Michelle Weiser, the woman who would become his fiancé.

Two years into the relationship, Michelle was diagnosed with stage II breast cancer. The cancer then metastasized into her lungs and it became stage IV, the worst possible scenario.

“We tried to make the best of things,” Dustin says. “Michelle was all about living life to the fullest. She always said that if there is something you want to do, do it before it’s too late.”

When Dustin went to Kona to support Shimano’s Ironman athletes in 2008 and 2009, Michelle came along.

The two of them loved watching the last athletes finishing between 11 p.m. and midnight. “Michelle turned to me and goes, ‘You should do this someday,’” he says. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, it’s on my bucket list.’”

Dustin found out before Michelle that she didn’t have much time left. “She was having complications,” he says. “We went to the hospital, but Michelle wasn’t asking the tough questions. I asked a doctor what was going on and he told me that she had only weeks or months to live. He told me not to tell her, that I had to let Michelle ask the tough questions at her own pace.”

When Michelle asked the tough questions—and got the tough answers—her thoughts turned to everyone else. How was her mom going to handle Michelle’s death? How about Dustin? “I had gained weight and was pretty unhealthy,” Dustin says. “Michelle, in her typical sassy way, asked me what I was going to do when she was gone, that I didn’t have the life skills to handle things. I blurted out, ‘I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to do an Ironman for you and for me.’ She started to tear up, I moved in to hug her and she put her hand up to stop me. Then she put her hand out and goes, ‘Do you promise?’ I shook her hand and told her it was a promise.”

Michelle passed away on July 5, 2010.

Dustin’s dad made a compact container to hold Michelle’s ashes, and Dustin had her with him throughout his Kona Ironday on Oct. 8, 2011.

He took the container out as he crested Palani and Michelle’s remains were in Dustin’s right hand for the last 1.2 miles. “It was overwhelming with all of these people yelling,” he says. “I was like, ‘How do they know my name? Oh yeah, it’s on my bib!’”

He crossed the line in 16:40:01. All he remembers is announcer Mike Reilly telling him that he was an Ironman and almost tripping.

Two women were in charge of guiding finishers to the post-race area. Dustin broke away from them, took a detour and headed to the beach where his race had begun nearly 17 hours earlier.

Dustin waded into Kailua Bay, opened the container housing Michelle’s ashes and scattered them into the surf.

“We spent the entire day together and I fulfilled my promise,” he says. “Then it was time to say goodbye.”

Bob Babbitt is the co-founder of Competitor magazine, the co-founder of the Challenged Athletes Foundation, the host of Competitor Radio and the 10th inductee into the Ironman Triathlon Hall of Fame. To hear his interviews with more than 500 endurance legends, visit Competitorradio.com.

Check out our complete 2011 Ironman World Championship coverage.

Check out the complete post-race series.

Check out the complete post-race series.

Check out the complete post-race series.

Specialized Shiv Frame

The Specialized Shiv is a marvel of integration. The nosecone protruding off the front of the bike conceals the front brake and smoothly connects the aerobar with the frame. Specialized says this design is particularly aerodynamic in cross winds, which is exactly what Macca faced on the Queen K Highway. The Shiv is offered with two different seat posts, one for steep positions and one for shallow positions. Macca uses the shallow seat post because he prefers a more road-like position over the super-steep position that has been embraced by most triathletes. Macca prefers a laid-back position because he says he has a “big arse” and sitting rearward helps him utilize his glutes. You won’t find a power meter on Macca’s race bike because he says the tool is “counterproductive” in a race environment, and he prefers to “flow and use his racing brain” to gauge his effort on the race course.

PHOTOS: Chris “Macca” McCormack

Hydration

Most of the top athletes in Kona brought as much to drink as possible on the bike. Nearly every pro carried four bottles, but Macca went for a leaner setup. Through laboratory testing, Macca has found that his body can only absorb 1.325L of fluid per hour, and two bottles can meet his needs. He carried a single bottle on the frame and a second bottle in a Profile Design cage mounted between his aerobars with zip ties. He also had two Saltstick capsule dispensers attached to his aerobars to carry electrolyte supplements.

Zipp 808 Firecrest Wheels

Macca rode Zipp’s 2011 Firecrest 808 tubular wheels with custom decals. The stickers are a nice aesthetic touch, but the real story behind these wheels is the rim shape. Zipp was able to drastically reduce the aero drag on these wheels compared to the previous generation by shaping the rim to create an aerodynamic unit of the wheel and tire in combination, not just the wheel itself. They accomplished this by widening the rim, and the result is lower drag in cross winds.

SRAM Red Components

Macca’s component group included a Sram Red crank, rear derailleur, chain and cassette. His front derailleur has a steel cage, rather than the standard titanium cage, and he uses carbon Sram 900 Shifters in place of Sram’s top-of-the-line R2C Aero shifters. He was pushing Speedplay Zero Stainless pedals with custom length spindles that extend his left pedal 3mm further away from the bike than his right pedal. Every component on Macca’s Kona-winning Shiv can be found in a bike shop.

Check out the first preview clip below and watch our TriCenter recap of the race for more footage from Kona.

RELATED PHOTOS:
- The Hawaii Ironman Swim
- 2011 Ironman World Championship
- 2011 Hawaii Ironman Pro Women’s Race
- Age Groupers Take On The Hawaii Ironman
- 2011 Hawaii Ironman Pro Men’s Race

Carfrae established a run course record in Kona on her way to a second-place finish. Photo: Kurt Hoy

On the latest Competitor Radio podcast, Australia’s Mirinda Carfrae chats with Bob Babbitt about her second-place finish at the 2011 Ironman World Championship.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

Photo: Nils Nilsen

As the Ironman race roster grows, there are even more people contending for coveted spots to Kona. “The challenge that we have is that there are so many more people that want to race Kona than we can possibly accommodate,” Messick says. “The question then becomes, ‘what’s the right mechanism for allocating an extremely scarce resource?’”

To answer this question, WTC has designed a two-part system to reallocate the 200 lottery spots (not including the five spots for physically challenged athletes) in 2012. We talked with Messick last week to get more details about the decision.

PHOTOS: 2011 Ironman World Championship

Legacy Spots

In his first 100 days as CEO, Messick spent a lot of time talking to age-groupers at races around the country and “anecdotally and unscientifically” noticed two broad classes of veteran Ironman athletes: Those who had been to Kona many times, and those who hadn’t been to Kona at all. “There are an awful lot of people out there who race and are serious about the sport, who are important leaders of triathlon clubs around the world, but for whatever reason just aren’t fast enough to qualify for Kona,” Messick says. “We increasingly started thinking, ‘Don’t those people deserve a chance to race Kona once in their career?’ Our thinking is, ‘yeah, they do.’”

This realization led to the new Ironman Legacy Program WTC is instituting for 100 of the lottery spots in 2012: If you’ve raced 12 full Ironmans but have never gone to the Ironman World Championship, you’re eligible to compete in Kona at least once in your lifetime. They’ll start with the athletes that have done the most races and selection will be based on several criteria. (Note: You must have completed at least one Ironman event in each of the 2010 and 2011 seasons and be registered for an Ironman event in 2012.)

Andrew Messick. Photo courtesy of the WTC.

“Kona is a world championship event, but it’s not just a world championship event,” Messick says. “In a lot of ways, it’s the birthplace of our sport. It’s the place that has so much history and so much resonance that within the sport of triathlon, the Queen K Highway and Ali’i Drive are places of enormous spiritual significance in our sport. People who are serious in our sport deserve a chance to go to Kona once.”

So how did they pick 12? Messick says their dirty little secret is that they’re not entirely sure how many people in the world have done 12 Ironmans and haven’t gone to Kona, but they’re guessing there are around 300 at the 12 level and 500 at the 10 level. “We wanted the number to be high enough to offer certainty, but we didn’t want it to be lower and have a situation where we had to go back to athletes and say, ‘We can’t get you a slot until 2017,’” he says.

PHOTOS: The Hawaii Ironman Swim

New Weighted General Lottery

Messick believes that anyone who enters the lottery should have a chance to go to Kona—but why not give those who have signed up year after year more of a chance? In the spirit of the NBA draft, WTC has decided to weight the lottery for the remaining 100 spots. If you’ve signed up two years in a row, you have double the chances. If you’ve signed up every year for the last 10, you have 10x the chance.

“As a matter of basic fairness within the triathlon community, this makes sense. I think it’s fair that a person who is active in the sport and has signed up every year, for their odds to be better than someone who signed up on a whim,” Messick says. “The guy who signs up on a whim still has a chance. But I think our loyalty should rest with the person who signs up year after year.”

The new lottery system is one step toward a bigger focus on the athletes, something Messick has advocated since signing on. “These are life-changing transformative events. We can’t ever forget for a minute, everyone in our company, that we are as committed to our athletes as they are to our races.”

Registration for the 2012 Ironman Lottery and the new Legacy Program will open at noon ET tomorrow, Nov. 1, at Ironmanworldchampionship.com and will close on Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2012. Winners will be announced on Sunday, April 15, 2012, at noon ET on Ironman.com.

Click here to read the complete press release from the WTC.

RELATED: 2011 Ironman World Championship Coverage

O'donnell embraces Carfrae at the finish line. Photo: Kevin LaClaire

“It was a tough day out there today,” Carfrae said after the race. “Walking down as defending champ and getting body marked, I almost burst into tears. I’m not one for tears but I felt quite emotional at the start.”

When winning the title in 2010, Carfrae separated herself from the rest of the women by a sizeable seven minutes. She made the day look easy as she soared through the field with a record-setting 2:53:32 marathon that was even faster than many of the top men.

But despite her impressive performance, last year’s win came with a small asterisk: Chrissie Wellington was not there. It was a game changer when Wellington dropped out the morning of the race. Instead of a predictable one-woman show similar to the one in years past, the other pro females had a chance to contend for the world title with what you might call a more level playing field. Rinny seized the opportunity and rightfully earned the Kona crown. But would she—and the rest of us—always wonder, “What would’ve happened if Chrissie were there?”

Saturday presented the opportunity to answer that question. Carfrae set out to defend her title and prove that she was the one woman who could beat the unstoppable Brit on the Big Island. In the days leading up to the race and in the early stages, Wellington appeared slightly vulnerable. Her recent bike crash resulted in road rash and a torn pectoral muscle (as we later found out), and there was an obvious shift in her pre-race mental state. On race day, she got out of the water in a slow-for-Chrissie 61 minutes and never fully closed the gap on the bike. It seemed almost possible that this could be the year that the Queen of Ironman fell from grace.

But Wellington fought. She fought hard. She clawed her way to the front after mile 16 of the run, averaging just over 6:20/mile pace. And Carfrae fought hard too. She didn’t have the power on the bike that the stronger cyclists had and started the run in eighth, about three minutes behind Wellington. “You can’t give a champion like Chrissie a second let alone a few minutes like she had,” Carfrae said.

PHOTOS: 2011 Hawaii Ironman, Pro Women’s Race

Carfrae said she felt horrible during the start of the run. “I just got off the bike and took it mile by mile. I went through the half a little bit slower than I normally do and thought I was maybe in for a three-hour marathon.”

After the halfway point, Carfrae said things started to look up. “I finally got my legs under me and started to feel like, okay, maybe I can pull her back. My main concern at that point was that I was still in fourth or fifth place—I had Rachel, Leanda and Caroline to pass. I was trying to pick off one at a time and put together the best marathon that I possibly could.”

With 10K to go, she held on to a bit of hope, hearing various splits from both officials and spectators. “Chrissie was still three or four minutes ahead of me at the top of the Energy Lab with 10K to go, and that was a huge ask,” Carfrae says. “I would’ve had to have another Hy-Vee performance to catch her and I don’t think I had that in me at the end of the race. Nothing’s impossible, anything’s possible, and I didn’t know what was going on up ahead. Great champions have fallen at the finish line before and you never know. I just kept ticking off one mile after another, one cone after the other, and tried to get to the finish line.”

She passed the three women to put herself in second by mile 22, but ran out of room to make up time on Wellington. She reached the finish line in 8:57:57, 41 seconds faster than last year but just under three minutes slower than Wellington. After she gave a quick speech and got her lei, O’Donnell—who dropped out before the run not feeling well—gave her a bear hug as she started crying. “I probably came across as disappointed at the finish line, but it was more that it was just an emotional finish,” Carfrae said. “That race is something else. When you give everything… and I really gave everything on that marathon. It was tough—physically, mentally, it was a real battle inside my mind. There were a couple tears at the end of the race, but not because I didn’t win, but from exhaustion.”

In a way, beating Chrissie would’ve served as a bonus validation to her 2010 win. To know that she’s the world champion with or without Wellington in the mix had to have meant a lot. Rinny fought tooth and nail to try and catch her, but in the end she just couldn’t close the gap. Were some of the tears from realizing that she couldn’t contend with Chrissie? Maybe. Will she ever be able to defeat her in Kona in the future? We’re eager to see.

“Everyone says they struggle here, but my last two years I was more holding myself back in the first half of the race. This year I was actually pushing and she was running away from me,” Carfrae said. “…I was trying to put together the best marathon that I possibly could. If that meant I could’ve passed Chrissie that would’ve been a dream come true, but she was just too strong for me today.”

It was clear that something was seriously wrong with Chrissie Wellington by the time she climbed out of the water in a relatively slow 1:01 during Saturday’s Ironman World Championship (she typically swims around 55 minutes). She suffered a crash two weeks ago but concealed most of her injuries before the race, only admitting to having road rash and bruises. Wellington didn’t reveal that she also had torn pectoral and intercostal muscles, had been taking antibiotics for nearly two weeks and spent six hours in Kona Community Hospital days before the race.

Wellington exits T1 10 minutes behind the lead with obvious scabs on her leg. Photo: Aaron Hersh

Wellington said her chest was “a little sore” after the crash, but it didn’t bother her as much as her hip or road rash. She had taken antibiotics from the crash until Saturday, one week before the race.

Two days later, she went for a hard 4km swim on the race course. Wellington “didn’t know what was different,” in that specific swim workout, but something was wrong. She said, “At the end of about 4k my chest started to hurt, then over the course of the day it got progressively worse.”

She went for a run the following day and the pain was manageable, but it would spike when she took a deep breath. A short swim the following day sent her over the edge. “I got into the pool and managed about a kilometer and I was crying into my goggles. It just felt like someone was stabbing me in the chest. I had to get out,” she said.

PHOTOS: Women’s Pro Race At Kona

Wellington saw her A.R.T. therapist Mike Leahy and he sent her to Kona Community hospital for a chest X-ray to make sure she didn’t have any broken ribs. They also ran a CT scan to check for a pulmonary embolism. The tests both came back negative, but doctors discovered tearing in an intercostal muscle and her left pectoral. Her her road rash wounds were scrubbed clean and she was re-prescribed antibiotics to fight infection. She took the pills through the week, but not on race day.

The swim that sent Wellington to the hospital five days before the world championship was her final session leading into the race. She missed several swim workouts that week.

Wellington and her coach Dave Scott planned her swimming effort level in the race around her injuries. The six-time Ironman world champion recommended that she start easy and let her competitors swim away so she wouldn’t incapacitate herself before getting on the bike. She said she was “apprehensive” before the race start given that her last swim workout resulted in a trip to the hospital.

Wellington is accustomed to exiting the water with the lead women, so finishing the swim 10 minutes behind Julie Dibens was “slightly worrying.”  Despite enduring pain and running with an obviously labored stride, Wellington willed her body’s torn muscles, patches of missing skin and bruised joints to a fourth world championship.

RELATED: Another Dimension Revealed in The Unfathomable Great

Written by Aaron Hersh. Follow him @triathletetech.

Men’s Race

Alexander is the first person to win 70.3 and Ironman world titles in the same year. Photo: Kurt Hoy

American Andy Potts defended his position as the top swimmer at the Hawaii Ironman by exiting Kailua Bay in 49:44, about a minute slower than his pack-leading time last year. Behind Potts a large second group including most of the primary contenders exited the water together. The chase pack included 25 athletes and the likes of American Chris Lieto, Australian Craig Alexander and German Andreas Raelert.

Potts’ two-minute lead was short lived as the large chase group of athletes swallowed him up. Uber cyclist Lieto took charge earlier than he has in past years and grabbed the lead by the 20-mile mark. The move was not a permanent one though; Lieto relinquished his lead and rejoined the main group. With Lieto back in the pack, a handful of athletes, including Germany’s Faris Al-Sultan and Australia’s Luke McKenzie, took turns at the front. The race was far from decided at the turn around point in Hawi, with the favorites populating the group. Eventually Lieto powered his way back to the front, forcing the pace and carrying a lead of five minutes over McKenzie, Marino Vanhoenacker and Craig Alexander. Alexander turned in an impressive showing on the bike, earning a bike split of 4:24:05.

Lieto managed to hold the front position for the first few miles, but with the swiftest runners in the sport not far behind in he had little hope. Alexander took the lead just past the six-mile mark. Germany’s Andreas Raelert looked to be gaining ground as he turned onto the Queen K, but his stride eventually slowed. Alexander showed no sign of weakness throughout the entire day, racing his way to a 51:56 swim, 4:24:05 bike and a 2:44:02 marathon to earn the win and a course record time of 8:03:56, snapping Luc Van Lierde’s 1996 record of 8:04:08. Alexander also becomes the first person to win both the Ironman World Championship 70.3 and the Ironman World Championship in the same year. Australia’s Pete Jacobs ran the fastest marathon of the day at 2:42:29 to earn the second spot in 8:09:11. Germany’s Andreas Raelert earned his third podium spot in as many years, finishing third at 8:11:07.

RELATED: Alexander Rides to Ironman Greatness

RELATED: Training Day With Craig Alexander

Women’s Race

Wellington earned her fourth world title. Photo: Kurt Hoy

The women’s race started with the United States’ Amanda Stevens and Great Britain’s Julie Dibens making the main pack of the men’s race, giving them a large advantage over the rest of the women’s field. The biggest story early on in the women’s race was the less-than-stellar swim performance of Great Britain’s Chrissie Wellington, a three-time Kona champion. She exited the water in 17th position at 1:01:03, more than six minutes slower than her swim time when last she won here in 2009.

With the strongest cyclist out of the water in a top position there was little hope for the rest of the competition on the bike leg. Dibens quickly overtook Stevens and broke away, establishing a gap of nearly six minutes over last year’s runner-up Caroline Steffen of Switzerland at the 42-mile mark. At that point the two fastest runners, and former world champions Mirinda Carfrae and Chrissie Wellington, were at least 10 minutes back. Dibens continued to build on her lead, entering T2 with a gap of about 11 minutes over Steffen. Dibens has been up front about a foot problem that has plagued her since her win at June’s Ironman Coeur d’Alene. That foot injury did turn out to be problematic and she was forced to walk while still leading the race. Steffen eventually took over first position, but her lead didn’t last long. Great Britain’s Chrissie Wellington ran her way from sixth off of the bike to first position by mile 16 of the marathon. Wellington went on to earn the victory in 8:55:08, just over one minute shy of her 2009 course record time of 8:54:02. Defending champion Carfrae once again ran her way through the field, earning second in 8:57:57. She also broke the run course record for the third year in a row, going 2:52:09 in this year’s marathon. Great Britain’s Leanda Cave earned her top placement ever, finishing third in 9:03:29.

RELATED – Wellington: Another Dimension Revealed In The Unfathomable Great

Ford Ironman World Championship
Kailua-Kona, Hawaii – Oct. 8, 2011
2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, 26.2-mile run

Men
1. Craig Alexander (AUS) 8:03:56
2. Pete Jacobs (AUS) 8:09:11
3. Andreas Raelert (GER) 8:11:07
4. Dirk Bockel (LUX) 8:12:58
5. Timo Bracht (GER) 8:20:12

Women
1. Chrissie Wellington (GBR) 8:55:08
2. Mirinda Carfrae (AUS) 8:57:57
3. Leanda Cave (GBR) 9:03:29
4. Rachel Joyce (GBR) 9:06:57
5. Caroline Steffen (SUI) 9:07:32

Click here for complete results.

RELATED CONTENT:

- Chrissie Wellington’s Mindset Heading Into Saturday’s Race
- TYR Signs Craig Alexander
- Video: Crowie’s Aero Helmet Decision
- Craig Alexander’s New Specialized Shiv
- Video: Craig Alexander’s Specializes Shiv

Click here for more episodes of Breakfast With Bob.

Click here to view more coverage Kona.

Written by: Matt Fitzgerald

Photo: Robert Murphy

From the outside, swimming, cycling and running appear as movement. But from inside the triathlete’s body, swimming, cycling and running appear as an acceleration of time.

Blood gushes through veins and arteries like traffic through night highways in a time-lapse video. Within muscle cells, glucose and triglyceride molecules are tossed into the fiery furnace of mitochondria at a breakneck pace, as though someone has put a DVD of the process at rest on 4x fast forward. Armies of oxygen radicals punch holes in muscle cell membranes, causing a general deterioration that calls to mind those computer animations that show a person aging 20 years in 10 seconds.

Indeed, from an internal perspective, completing an Ironman is a bit like sitting on a sofa for 12 hours and aging two decades. In other words, the changes the body undergoes in 12 hours of extreme exertion are similar to some of those that occur in the body over the course of two decades of non-exertion, as a result of normal aging. Fortunately, though, those years are restored to you within a few weeks. Then it’s time to start thinking about tickling the reaper again.

Let’s take a more detailed look at how racing an Ironman affects various parts of your anatomy. There’s no particular lesson in this exercise, but it may give you a greater appreciation for the accomplishment of crossing an Ironman finish line.

Click here to view a photo gallery of the bike.

Although the Plasma 3 isn’t new, the Belgian with a 7:45 Ironman PR has made this Team Commerzbank Scott Plasma 3 his own with an assortment of rare add-ons.

Vanhoenacker’s top tube is painted to commemorate his 7:45 performance at Ironman Austria. 46 minute swim, 4:15 bike and 2:39 run.

Vanhoenacker’s SRAM Red rear derailleur has an extra-long carbon pulley cage that fits massively oversized derailleur pulleys. This larger pulleys spin slower than the standard smaller pulleys at a give speed to reduce bearing friction.

RELATED – Breakfast With Bob: Marino Vanhoanacker

Vanhoenacker has gold braided housing to match his Commerzbank kit and paint scheme.

He has SRAM Red derailleurs and shifters, but uses a Shimano Dura-Ace 7800 rear caliper and Dura-Ace pedals.

Vanhoenacker uses two round bottle cages on the frame and a Profile Design Aerodrink Bracket to carry a bottle between his bars.

He races Zipp 808 wheels with their new-for-2012 hubs built with wider flanges to increase stiffness.

Instead of using standard quick releases, Vanhoenacker has ultra-light Tune version with a thin carbon lever.

Vanhoenacker uses a zero rise stem but elevates his aerobars above his basebar using two risers.

Vanhoenacker uses pieces of electrical tape around the valve stems to prevent them from rattling against the rim.

Marino rides an SRM power meter with a Power Control 7 head unit.

Story and photos by Triathlete senior tech editor Aaron Hersh. Follow him @triathletetech.

They’ve already logged more than 10,000 miles of training — and none of it has come behind the wheel of a race car.

No, this is not some crazy IndyCar endurance challenge, it’s the next stop on their fitness tour: The Ironman World Championships at Kailua-Kona, Hawaii.

“It’s like the Indy 500, it’s the world championship,” said Kanaan, the 2004 IndyCar champion. “It’s not like everyone gets to do that. So it’s a big challenge.”

The Brazilians are well-known around the IndyCar circuit for being fit.

They can often be found riding bikes, lifting weights or running, only this time there’s a larger purpose.

Kanaan and Meira will be among roughly 1,800 athletes participating in the 140-plus-mile race Saturday, and unlike their day job, they won’t be among the top contenders. Most competitors qualify through sanctioned events; Kanaan and Meira were given VIP invitations, the equivalent of a wild-card entry in golf or tennis.

The goal is to show they belong in Hawaii.

Read more: Usatoday.com

Click here to learn about Alexander’s new bike.