ITU World Cup!!

Amber and I went to the ITU world cup last weekend.. Oh me oh my... what a great race!

If you weren't there you missed one of the most historic events ever to happen in the History in Triathalons, and you also missed the LARGEST every prize purse given out in triathlon history.. and you missed an amazing kick arse race!!

Amber and I went to Des Moines on Saturday, we got there in time to see the Junior Elite Championship.. WOW, kids under the ages of 15 doing an amazing triathalon! It was a great race to watch, and fun, we also got to spend some time going to the expo that was put on next to the finish line, I think expos are one of my favorite things to go to at a triathalon becuase you get lots of free goodies! We got free tea, deoderant, sport beans and more!! :)

On Sunday in the morning they had the Amuteur race that was sanciontined by USAT. It was a good race to watch as well. I was like in bike heaven as I saw bikes that cost up into the thousands roll out onto the race course! WHEW!! Those were some sweeeeet bikes!! I also got to see short time transitions some as short as 30 seconds.. that is some fast transition! USAT and ITU are two different monsters, USAT is what governs all usa triathlons and you usually hae to be a member or buy a membership one day pass to do a race, they have different rules than ITU. In USAT you can't draft in the Bike, you can get up to a 2 minute penalty per occurance for it, but in ITU drafting is encouraged. ITU also is the govering body for the triathlon for the olympics.

Anyway, back to Sunday, the ITU womens race began at 1:30 by then it was HOT, 94degrees!!! and 54% humidity, 42 women would start the race, but not all would finish. it was a sweet race to watch start, in ITU's they dive from a dock, the swim is increadbly fast, they have to swim just under a mile, but they do it in two laps, and most of these women swim the mile in under 20 minutes. Then it's on to the bike. Which lead them downtown to the old capital they then have to do 6 laps on the bike, it was pretty sweet to watch, never in history had so many american's been in the front of the pack, I believe at this time there was about 5 in the front 10, again SWEET!! The American's Bennet, & Zieger were right at the top as well as Sarah Haskins, Sara Mclarty, and Julie Swail.

Bennet took the lead on the run and into the first lap there was a pack of three leading in the run, Bennet was in there, along with Luxford, from Aus, and Sweetland. They stayed all in the pack of three until the last lap, coming up the hill.. there was just one!! Who would it be.. but LAURA BENNET!! Sweetland had totally dropped out of hte race from exhaustion along with 16 other women from the day, Luxford came shorty after bennet with only a 14 second difference, but the most amazing one was the third place, Ohata, from Brazil, who had worked her way from FAR back in the bike to THIRD in the run, an amazing runner!! Ohata had the fastest run split of any of them by almost 2 minutes!!

Sara Haskins from the USA came in 4th.. sweetness!!! and Swail came in with a 14th place finish :) Zieger who was at the lead and strong on the bike never made it thru the finish line.. The heat was HOT!! the course hard!! and some amazing women out there, it was a great day to be watching a triathalon and USA Take the WORLD CUP in the US!!! it was a sweet victory.

Laura Bennet swam just under a mile in 19 minutes and then biked 25 miles in just over an hour and then ran a 10K in 38 minutes to become to next WORLD CUP CHAMPION! pretty impressive in my book. That day definitly made me want to get out there and run a triathalon asap!