This weekend is the Ironman Triathlon World Championships, Windsor has two people going for broke. Not so secretly, I'm envying anyone who's racing. I mean Hawaii in October (I'm not picky, any time of year would be fine), with the best of the best racing along side you? That would be so amazing. It's compared to playing in the Masters with all the greats of the PGA.
In truth there is very little chance that you'd race "along side" the pros. They get a head start of 15 minutes and are freakishly fast. The chance that I would ever compete is Hawaii is pretty much just a fantasy. You have to qualify to get in. But there is a back door for getting into the race. Every year there are 150 lottery spots; 100 of those are designated to US citizens and the remaining 50 are picked randomly from entrants around the world. The odds are rather staggering that you'll get picked.
Back to the part about people from Windsor racing. One of them, Blaire Kniaziew, actually qualified for her age group by coming second at Ironman Germany this summer (an insane time of 10:24). She teaches at the high school two blocks from our house. When she's not teaching, she doing triathlon. This past weekend she competed at the World Championships for the Olympic distance, in Honolulu, and finished 13th in her age group. The other, Shelley McKee, rolled the dice and got picked in the lottery. Good luck to both of them.
If you're interested, there's lots of interactive stuff about the race here. I'm picking an all Canadian championship. Peter Reid will bring home his forth title and Heather Fuhr will improve on her second place finish from last year to claim her second title.
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