Discussion: WOC Long Final

Enjoying the online coverage. It's working great for me today; not so yesterday for the sprint.

Rats ... losing the video now. Guess the east coast of NA is waking up. Still have audio.

Wahoo ... video is back. Fingers crossed ...

I only get a map with live tracking, but no bleeping dots. I guess that's some way there... better than driving on US 101 by Palo Alto last night, and the billboards were showing a 404 Not Found in all the 24 million pretty colors.

Swisscheese is looking good!

Great finish; Simone finding yet another gear to pull past the great run by Andersen. Better get back to work. Good luck Swiss Cheese. Good luck Holger.

With the latest Java loaded, I just get a tracking window (i guess). No map, no runners listed. I tried replay for the sprint but still nothing. I have cable connection.
What to do?

Woah, swisscheese still looking good! (Work can wait.) Where's TG?

With DSL, my video stutters and freezes for the past hour or so. So I've been audio only, but that is still entertaining. Really enjoy the post race interviews.

Swiss cheese fastest so far to TV2 ... whoop whoop.

Swiss cheese!!! Fingers crossed.

Mark, exellent race, good job!

What happened to the veteran Danes today?

Gold for Jani Lakanen, Finland!

Looks like Swisscheese has another Silver sewed up. Nobody still out there can catch him at this point.

My video came back, yeah. Silver for da Cheese! Congrats. Maybe some day, with more training, he might even be BillyGoat champ ...

Great race, Marc, you got faster and faster during the race, rocket speed like. And this in the middle of your exams! They should give you your dentist's licence just for free. You have pulled this tooth brilliantly. Congratulations!

Anyone putting money on the Swiss men for the relay?

A heavy overload on the tractrac server today is the explanation for all your problems with missing 'bleeping dots'...

Swisscheese does it again!!!!!

Did Novikov eat anything this morning? (sorry Mattias :))) )

The tooth had troubles getting loose in the beginning, but suddenly after the first third everything went so smoothly... the legs and the head were one... wonderful feeling to run in such a trans. Unfortunately I did 2 mistakes in the last loops... but who cares! I am so satsified. I just prefer not to think about my first exam.... exactly 1 week from now... and it is no a small one, rather the biggest in my whole university education... but now it is time to celebrate... learning can wait for tomorrow.
Cheers to everyone.

félicitations marc!!! I can't believe your coach gave you your medicine notes in the finish chute just after you crossed the line. take a break!!

Most notable performance in my view is that of François Gonon. At the first inmediate, 20 minutes into the race, the top 18 were separated by less than a minute. FG was 5 minutes off the pace in 38th place. Jani Lakanen started four minutes after FG, and at that point was one minute ahead.

FG caught World Champion JL by a minute and ran with/ahead of JL until the end to finish in 6th position. And 2 places ahead of second frenchie TG ;)

Congratulations Marc!! You are inspiring. That was a wonderful race. I just wish you could lay off the studying a bit... After next week, I hope?

For those who were not lucky enough to be at the pricegiving ceremony this evening, here's an audio snippet to make you feel like you were there!

Vlad>> Too long and tough for Novikov. The course setters had again (like in WOC in Sweden where Novikov also had problems) made the course too long. My guess is that he lacks the body fat necessary to keep the pace towards the end of these extremely tough courses. It is very unfortunate for him that they abolished his favorite distance, "classic," a couple of years ago. He has a good chance to take "revenge" on the middle distance, however, if he'll be able to recover physically.

dobbs> That Gonon is a strong runner is well known, and that he would finish together with Lakanen was predictable already before the race. That he closed the one-minute gap might seem impressive but it was largely due to a bad route choice by Lakanen on the first long leg.

Good job on the leg #15–#16, Cheese. I wonder why a lot of top women (not Simone or Marianne Andersen) went all the way around on that (to the right, by the out-of-bounds village), and why just about every one of them followed the exact same out-of-the-way option. Hard to judge just yet, though, while the split times are not available.

Trac-trac was ok in Australia for the start of the women's race, but I could only see the map until the second tv control. It was great while it worked and I could tell what was happening before the commentators. Using a 'tail' of 120seconds, it was easy to see who was making up or losing ground, or making mistakes.
I tried to refresh it to get the rest of the map, but could never get it to work again for either the men or women.

cii00me9-> regarding Novikov's body composition...
when i attended oringen clinics in 2004, i roomed with a swede who was a coach on the polish team. he said
that novikov has a strange diet (mostly fruit). perhaps this has something to do with his stamina. the rumor mill also had it that he didn't like to sleep indoors. He did haul ass though and win the Sprint Prologue that year.

Yep Novikov eats some weird stuff! Veg, fruit, honey and herbal tea was all he ate the times I have been around him. He doesn’t like to stay in cities, has to have the window open, and has to go for a swim every morning!

just normal healfy person's regiment...

no complex carbs or protein.... couldn't that be a problem?

depends on individual's body, at least vegan diet helps to stay very fresh during hard workouts and shorten recovery

Everyone needs protein (amino acids), regardless of their individual bodies. Bill Cusworth lacked stamina when he was getting insufficient dietary protein several years ago. Adding soy protein powder fixed the problem almost overnight. Valentin Novikov looks like he's starving. Maybe he has an eating disorder.

vegan doesnt meen absens of proteins

Yes, but honey and tea contain no protein, and fruits and most vegetables contain little or none. If that is Novikov's diet, then he's probably protein deficient.

Many vegans and strict vegetarians become deficient in B12, which is almost impossible to get from non-animal sources. If that wasn't enough the stomach isn't very efficient at absorbing it from the few plant sources such as certain kinds of seaweed.

ciii000mee9> i had gonon predicted for a top three. he is very strong, came second in italy, has been beating tg from time to time in france at both middle and classic. he is not yet _as_ good technically, but has stepped up to the big boys league. for me he is top ten in world in long distance, as is thierry.

scandinavians should get used to not being the best. no norwegian in the men's top ten. best swede tenth. french 6th and 8th, three swiss, only one finn, albeit a golden one...

"at least vegan diet helps to stay very fresh during hard workouts and shorten recovery"--what freshness are you talking about? Poor Novikov looks like he has been starving in a prison cell. Is it an accepted practice to adopt a vegan diet _solely_ to enhance athletic performance? It is pretty apparent that the vast majority of the people do so for other reasons, and then strive to justify their choice for their athletic endeavors. If it is so good, why not adopt the vegan diet yourself...

I had gone through a season of fruit / vegetables diet some years ago. ( And I am 8 days a week meat eater). But my diet contained healthy amounts of low fat, low calories natural yougurt and soy powder. Felt miserable the first two months, lost 25 pounds. Two more months getting used to it and losing 5 - 7 pound more later I was posting my best times on sprint and medium distance events. And all that starting with healthy 165 pounds on 5'11" height. Have never felt so fast and light. But I will admit this fast weight loss must have included lots of musscle tissue all over my body( including leg muscles. Passing 45 - 50 min of race pace activity I would totaly loose strenght in my legs though. Also long training runs 90 - 120 mins even with good hidration and calorie intake, were the most dreaded activities I have done during that time. So I think ericb is correct that protein is essential with body fat comming more and more into play after the 90-100 min point.

If you do rogaines or ultras, your diet better be 80% fat, 20% protein. The only time you would want to eat carbs is during the race—well, just because they ran out of cheeseburgers at the aid station, and that dish of M&Ms looks gooood with all them colors.

I have never seen a skinny ultrarunner.

dasha - i was vegan for many years and still cant consume meat on the regular base - only for socilazing purposes, time from time (than im sick for a couple of days). that (veg) didnt have any impact on my weight. actually return to meat eating is very painfull if only possible (after 11 years after i quit considering being a vegan my body doesnt have any addicition to meat). but it doesnt mean that vegetarian food is better or worse than meat - depends on what you eat, how you eat, and in what mixture. in some cases its healthyer to eat a piece of raw meat than improperly mixed vegan food.

I am not the diet expert, but think there is a big distinction between vegan and vegetarian, that is being missed here. Having enjoyed her cooking, I believe The Dabbler (more expert than I) is advocating one and not the other, or at least would make a big distinction based on the objectives.

i didnt make difference between these 2 terms in my comments, assumed they mean vegeterian.